Media Production

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

My product uses the conventional layout of established music magazine as these layouts clearly work. I’ve followed the forms and conventions such as: on the front cover the masthead, tag line and cover lines are all abiding by the conventions of real music magazines. The contents and double page spread also follow in such themes.

I have challenged the forms of other real media products as I have chosen a completely different genre to those music magazines out there as I have tried to give it a retro vibe.

How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

I think my media product is aimed at a specific social group which is predominantly late teenage girls. The front cover shows a girl band which instantly they can relate to. Also the articles featured are more appealing to girls. E.g. ‘Festival Virgin’. It represents a retro style with free spirited connotations. Also the colour and language choice is very feminine.

The connotations that my magazine have are retro themed, relaxed, acoustic and calm music/artists featured.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

My media product will be published by a mainstream publisher such as ‘Bauer’ or ‘Natmags’ as I would like a broad audience. However I would like the publisher to be one known for being unique as this is a theme in my product.

It would be distributed in regular newsagents such as WHSmith. I do like the idea of an ‘underground niche word of mouth distribution’ but I don’t think my magazine applies to this type of distribution.

Who would be the audience for your media product ?

My product is aimed at anyone who is

interested in retro music or festivals as these are themes which my product portrays.

It is predominantly aimed at females with the social class of C1. However small things could be altered like, colour scheme and certain phrases, to make it more appealing for a male audience.

The psychographic profile for my

audience is that they obtain such hobbies as surfing, playing a guitar and doing art. They are into buying organic products.

How did you attract/address your audience ?

I attracted my audience by getting a band that is new and interesting. I tried to include unique elements/articles to gain a larger audience so that the magazine gets a reputation for pushing the boundaries to hopefully gain a consistent audience.

The language used isn’t very challenging but it has certain complexities within. The imagery is created is a very calm and relaxed atmosphere as this is the attitude of the magazine. As mentioned before the colour scheme, font and layout are all appealing to females.

What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

I have learnt that putting together this product is very technologically complex and so much thought has to go into each page layout. The font and the size of it are both critical and you have to experiment through trial and error before getting it exactly right.

I used a digital camera to take the pictures of the band and loaded them onto a desktop publisher. Where I edited them slightly and created my front cover, contents and double page spread.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?

Comparing both tasks, I feel I have learnt so much. I am more confident using desktop publishers and have gained wider knowledge of how to create certain effects.

I have become a lot more familiar with the forms and conventions of existing magazines.

I also learnt that having the right software is vital as I completed the preliminary task with a less sophisticated version and the results are clearly not as realistic because the effects were limited.