EVALUATION

AS MEDIA

by Shahbano Munir

Question #1:

How does your product use or

challenge conventions and how does

it represent social groups or issues?

Conventions are typical things readers expect to see. In my

magazine I have tried to fit conventions while also trying to create

unique product. Before creating my media product I looked at many

fashion magazines while research, to see what generic conventions

existed for e.g. images, titles, layout colour and language etc. I have

followed conventions in each of my final products (frontage,

contents and double page spread).

For example my double spread has an introduction explaining what

the article is about one small image on the left hand sight and the

interview on right hand side. The colours and fonts I have used for my

cover lines on front page ,like pink, grey, white and yellow are usually

used in other fashion magazines to give a chic edgy look as well as

simple. I have kept the mast head as it remains to be the largest text

on the page to ensure that its noticeable. To emphasize this further

the masthead is written in bold and the colour used is fuchsia pink

keeping the target audience in mind.

Another convention that it follows is the barcode which is usually located at

the bottom so the reader can visually concentrate at the cover image. Also

another way I followed the conventions is giving little insights of what is inside

the magazine through quotations like "summers closet" to raise the curiosity of

the readers. Usually, its mostly seen in the magazines that the main cover

image is hiding the mast head this is only done if the magazine is popular

enough, I have also followed this convention in my magazine slightly covering

the title with main image. In some of the magazines the country’s name is also

mentioned somewhere near the title I have also used this to appeal the

readers at international level. The issue number, date and site has been also

mentioned like in other magazines of any genre.

However, I challenged the fashion magazine convention of having two models on the same page with one being a designer and other his model. This is a very unusual concept that I came up with since its not mostly seen where else in other magazines women are used more often. I chose this as we thought it would be something more unique to genre which would turn heads and get people interested.

I have briefly outlined the audience for my media product on my blog, I have composed a post called “Target audience”. My genre of the magazine is “Street-fashion” and fashion magazines are mainly read by the female consumers. It is very important for me to talk about the demographics and psychographics of the audience of my magazine. Audience between the ages of 18 and 49 middle to upper class (mostly urban area) from high school graduates to house wife’s will be interested in this magazine. Unfortunately this perfectly fit the stereotype as there are more female ratio than male who enjoys fashion but in today’s era men are equally interested. I have kept my language as simple as I could with some fashion language that is easily understandable to all fashion lovers. Mostly people who can afford to buy these magazines are the one whose income starts from $24 to $75 after spending on their basic needs. People who are interested in fashion and value appearance would be the one buying my magazines ,I feel they can also be said to like to shop, as fashion magazines tend to give this underlying message of having the most clothes as possible.