AS MEDIA EVALUATION https://georgiaclarkasmedia.wordpress.com/ Georgia Clark

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND COVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS? - Front Cover On my front cover I have used all of the codes and conventions used on Indie music magazines such as; Clash. For example, I used; masthead, strapline, plugs and a main image. I took my inspiration from Clash magazine because I liked their use of a large title and strict colour scheme this helps to create consistency throughout my magazine, this helps attract my target audience. I have tried to stick to a minimalistic theme, as I wanted to keep to the same style as used in Clash magazine - to achieve this and also intrigue my audience, I have added many plugs featured in various music magazines. This is one of the necessary conventions that I included – barcode and price, I have priced my magazine at £3.99 as this is competitively priced, with similar music magazines aimed at the 18 – 30 age groups. Plugs help the audience to see if they’d be interested in the content and what to expect from the magazine.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND COVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS? – Contents Page When creating my masthead, I wanted to make it clear what page it was so I wrote ‘Contents’ in a bold font and made sure it went across the entire width of the page. I also added the magazine title to the top left hand corner to further instil my magazine’s brand identity. I chose to again add the pink colour to this page to carry on my magazine’s theme. When making my Contents page I took a lot of inspiration from a magazine that I had researched and knew used a lot of well used conventions. The magazine I took inspiration from was Q magazine, knowing that their magazine is very popular with the same sort of age group that my magazine is aimed at. I realised from my research that their conventions would be very useful to take inspiration from. Another convention I used is making the page numbers bigger than the page information. I did this so when my audience were reading what was on each page they would be more likely to remember which page it was that they had read. I took inspiration from how Q magazine sets out their images to how I was going to set mine out, they use block images and line them up along the side of the contents, I wanted to do a similar thing to this because I think it helps my audience to see what kind of things are going to be included in my content and it is very eye catching compared to just one image.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND COVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS? – Double Page Some magazines take up most of the page with an image but I wanted to make my double page spread more about the interview with the artist . By doing this I broke the codes and conventions of most media products. A music magazine that does usually have one photo across a double page spread is NME. Like NME’s magazine, I added all my text onto one side of the double page. NME cover a wide range of genres while my magazine focuses on just indie music, as that is what I chose for my magazine to be about. Because NME cover different variety’s of music, they can use different colour schemes whereas my magazine is set around one colour scheme. The colours I chose were very important as I didn’t want them to have connotations of anything else, therefore distracting my reader. I chose to add a tag line in the bottom right-hand corner of my magazine, I did this to draw attention to my article and I used a line from the interview which I thought was the most interesting so that my reader would what to know what it was about.

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS? My magazine is aimed at people aged between 15-30, who are interested in Indie music. I did this by using a strict, vibrant colour scheme and by using a young model; I also made sure that the clothing she wore represented the stereotypical indie teenager, as this is what would appeal most to my target audience. I’ve also competitively priced my magazine at £3.99 to appeal to my target market. The artist that I featured in my magazine is 18 and most 18 year old indie artists are known for being very out there and troublesome – on my front cover the model looks as if she conforms to this common stereotype but from the interview we can understand that she is a fun and upbeat person, who doesn’t create any trouble. This contradicts the stereotype and creates another media view of 18 year olds, as one of being fun and friendly.

WHAT WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT? The audience that I am aiming my magazine at are aged between 15 – 30, I chose this range of an age group because it is a combination of the two most popular answers I got in my questionnaire. My magazine is an indie magazine, I chose indie because in my questionnaire my responses were from people who are interested in the indie genre. They will also be interested in the artist and concert reviews, the most important thing about my magazine is that my readers don’t have to play instruments to enjoy reading it, as it’s based more on the artist as a whole and not just about their music. As my age range is from 15 – 30 most of my target audience are likely to either have full time job or are in full time education – either way, my audience would be looking for something quick and easy to read as they would want something to wind down with rather than work their brain more.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE? One of the reasons I knew how to attract my target audience was through the results that I received from my questionnaire, these answers enabled me to focus on what my audience actually wanted rather than what I thought my audience would want. My results showed me what kind of colour scheme, layout, font and general interests are eye-catching in an indie magazine. The responses for my layout question showed me that basically 1/3 of my audience didn’t mind what layout I chose and 2/3 of my audience wanted either a simple or cluttered layout. Another reason I knew how to address my audience was by my front cover, I knew I wanted it to have a friendly feel to it and from my research of music magazines front covers I found that a large amount of them featured an instrument. With my magazine I chose not to include this as I didn’t want to make my audience feel like to enjoy reading my magazine that they also had to play an instrument.

How does the cover attract my audience? I tried to make my cover image eye catching so that the focus would be on the artist and therefore making my target audience want to know why they are on the cover and then be interested in the text which I placed to the side of my main image. I made my masthead bold on the name and ‘magazine’ sitting beside it, I also made the word 'Wave' bigger than magazine. I then featured a strapline on the very top of my magazine saying 'THE UK'S BIGGEST INDIE MAGAZINE' this shows my audience that it is an established magazine with reliably sourced information. I wanted my plugs and straplines to stand out so I used a variation of black and pink colours. I chose the colour pink because my model had pink hair and I wanted to create a colour theme to run throughout my magazine. I felt that a consistent colour scheme would help tie my magazine and featured artist together. This continued theme gives a natural flow throughout my magazine which appeals to my target audience as is evident through my research.

How does the double page spread attract my audience? When creating my double page spread I needed to make sure that I took inspiration from the responses I received in my questionnaire. From my research I have learnt to attract my audience to my magazine I need a good double page spread, double page spreads are a very important part of a magazine and need to be thought out well. From my responses I found that 25% preferred a interview over anything else in a magazine, I also found that 45% prefer images so I wanted to make the image on my double page the most eye catching feature on this page. I wanted to use an image that covered the entire page rather than using a couple of images or an equal mix of the images and text. I did this because the majority of people that responded to my questionnaire voted that they either prefer or don't mind if the layout is simple. I believe that a cluttered layout would put my reader off my magazine and they wouldn't be able to focus on the content as much as I would like them to.

How does my contents page attract my audience? The job of a contents page is to inform the reader of what to expect in the magazine and what articles are featured, it is used to intrigue the reader and make them want to buy and read the articles in the magazine. As I found out from my survey I know that 45% of my audience would like to see images in my magazine, I took this into consideration when making my contents page and added 3 photos related to the content I had written about in my magazine, this further backs up the possibility of intriguing my audience, as they get another sneak peak of the possible content. I used images that had the same tones in, as I felt it would look more sophisticated. My aim for this page was to make sure that the images and the text stood out equally and I think the positioning and colours of these photos really support that. The colour theme is again carried out onto this page. I wanted the title to be eye-catching to show the reader very obviously that this was the contents page and this is where they would find all their important information.

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT RELEASE YOUR PRODUCT AND WHY? A media institution that is most likely to release my product is Future plc, this is because they don’t already publish a magazine like mine as the magazine they already publish are far more sophisticated and are aimed at a range of older people. My magazine would enable them to reach an entirely new target audience and add diversity to their portfolio as my magazine is aimed at a range of younger people. Also, due to the fact that this company is very successful, publishing magazines like the best selling guitar magazine in the UK ‘Guitarist’. I know that they would be very reliable company for me to have my magazine published by. Future plc have also extended their audience by making magazines like ‘Guitarist’ available online opening up an online, android and ios audience. This would also be very appealing to my target audience as they are young and are most likely going to be reading magazines online anyway, as this age group focuses their life around technology and social media. http://www.futureplc.com/

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING YOUR PRODUCT? Before starting to construct my product I was already familiar with Photoshop and how to use it, so I found I didn’t run into any problems. This made the process of making my magazine relatively straightforward. From my experience I did learn which photos worked in my project and which didn’t. For example, in my double page spread I wanted to use a landscape photo that was part of the entire double page so I had to take a photo that had a large block of negative space on one side. By carefully considering the placement of negative space in the image, I was able to find a suitable text that would fit over the image and the best colour to stand out for easy reading. I that I had to make lots of different layers to make sure that my texts different overlap.

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing your product? I have learnt many different skills through my research. For example, how to find out what my target audience want in a music magazine, to do this I created a survey on Google Drive. This helped me to work out how to create surveys and how to use them to my advantage. I managed to get a large number of responses which helped me to understand what the majority of people who were going to read my magazine would want. I also learned a lot about the website WordPress, because this is what I have used to present my research process, planning and final work on. I have also learnt how important presentation is and how to successfully present and create a website, this will help me to confidently do this in future tasks.

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT? Since constructing my preliminary task at the start of the year I have definitely improved and progressed, I have learnt how codes and conventions convey meaning and how important factors like font, colour scheme, images and layout are to the success of my final product. I have furthered my learning in Photoshop which has helped me to create a better constructed final piece. Through learning this I found it a lot easier to create a final product with confidence. My preliminary task was aimed at young teenagers, but when constructing this product, I didn’t take into consideration what would appeal to my target audience. So this is an area that I made sure I focused on when planning and producing my final piece.