Evaluation

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

I believe my product shows similarity to pages from real music magazines as it is following the typical codes and conventions such as a masthead,  surrounding cover lines and images that feature story lines and other headlines, I have researched this which was then to be found in the pages of typical music magazines.

I used bright colours to help my magazine appeal to my audience, such as a bright pink to accompany the white background and black writing , i stuck with theme mostly all throughout my magazine accept from the contents page where i used navy to fit the style of their outfits in the image. I used more chatty phrases such as "Hot New Tracks" and "Hot Seasonal Heels" to catch the audience attention to who I was relating it to.

I put the masthead at the top left corner where also most other mastheads are on real music magazines, I tried it in the middle to begin with but I didn't think it really fit in well with what was going on on the front page. I also made sure I advertised the 'FREE DOWNLOADS!' in the top corner which I made in capitals after not agreeing with it being in lower case as it was not as clear to the audience. Just by making the headlines in capitals and adding a bit more colour automatically makes the whole front page look more attractive and appealing which is also another example of me challenging the codes and conventions.

in most typical music magazine the interview with a well known celebrity is always voted to be read the most in these type of magazines from the research I did. i carried out the codes and conventions by following the colours from the front page into my double page spread and kept font neat and clear.

  

 Also, by following the typical codes and conventions of a music magazine, on my double page spread I used a full size image on one of the pages, and on the other side used that to do my interview questions in my interview I made a short interview answer in speech marks, which attract the audience to this. it is seen in many music magazines where the interview is placed and makes the audience want to read more.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine represents glammer and fakery in social groups through the use of the artist within the feature image on my cover page. The individual appears to be quite serious and very glamorous, she dress's in high fashion, but not a fashion you would see everyday, this outfit isn't casual and I think this gives the impression that the artist is there to show her look and that she likes to go out and get dressed up, I think it would inspire the teens that read this magazine like most artists like to do with their fans.

The model that I have used throughout my whole magazine, is very pretty, fashionable and I think would get most people looking in different social groups, maybe even some males even though my magazine is mainly aimed towards females. Also she is successful in what she does so can be very inspiring to whoever is into her.

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

News Corporation are a global corporation and own a large number of newspapers and have also recently taken over a radio station (fox film radio station and myspace records); these music stations cover a wider range of genres in which I think would be good for my magazine to fit into as my magazine is for mainly R&B but also other genres and I think these media institutions would most likely be happy to distribute my product. I would be interested to appeal to music lovers and also so would the distributor, this would be why I feel they would be best suited to become the distributor of my magazine.

What would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my magazine would most likely be for females in their teens, as this would reflect the model I used for my magazine. I do also feel that Males in their teens could also be appealed to my product as they would see it as a 'hot girl' on the front and would most likely pick it up. I did want my magazine to appeal to everyone as I would of liked it to be fair as what was voted for when I asked people, but I found this difficult to stick to as my images I took were very feminine and fashionable and the colour theme was very girly throughout the product. Although it was R&B I found it more difficult to aim it towards males as well, but this is something I could learn from if I was to do another product like this in the future. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

My product is seen to be a music magazine; the audience would be able to first tell as I have mentioned "BGMusic", "hot new tracks" and many other headlines which is made obvious that this magazine would involve music. I decided to use the masthead "BGMusic" as it was one of the most catchiest mastheads i came up with and this stands for 'Bare good music' which the word 'bare' is used by many teenagers and fits in well the R&B genre i was aiming towards.

 To attracts my audience i used typical codes and conventions such as big bold writing, capital letters, colours that work well together and images to get the audience looking. Also the main image which is the artist that would be featuring throughout the magazine; if you are a big fan of this artist it is always good to the audience and would be much more tempted to pick the magazine up and buy it, even if the artist looks interesting and very eye catching. 

The colours are girly which is good because it is what i was looking to aim for. The masthead is just as big as the artists name which i think works well as it don't seem to in your face and gives it a much more calming feeling to the product and shows that its not all just about the masthead but what is going on inside the magazine as well. The images i used are very loud and gives the impression that there's a lot going on which is good as the genre is R&B and is not very calm music but music people are more likely to party to and i wanted to match this with the images and the way i represented it all.

I like the final production of my music magazine as I believe I kept all the typical codes and conventions of these magazines with the cover lines, masthead and images. I feel everything works well together including the colours and fonts.

My contents page is using the same font size but a different colour as i wanted to keep the colours matching to the fashionable outfits in the models clothing. I wanted to give my magazine a sense of unity and to help the audience stay attracted to each individual page. I used one image on my contents page which I think worked well as it comes around the page and is also used slightly as a background.

My Double page spread I have kept the codes and conventions to match the front page where i think the black and pink work well together, I then used the same model as a whole page which i think worked well as i thought about what I wanted her pose to be like, when I came up with her standing in front of a big barbie poster, I like how this worked as the interview mentions 'barbie' and I thought the audience would get the slight humour in this.

I think all the pages worked out well and was well thought out in with the codes and conventions, I also followed other magazine and put the bar code in the ride hand bottom corner as this is where most bar codes are placed on a magazine.

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

 I got good and useful experience from this process of constructing my product as I managed to learn how to use programmes such as fireworks and blogspot where i learnt how to create a blog for the first time and keep it looking tidy and presentable and up to date. I began using fireworks but then wasn't too comfortable with it and started using photoshop where i created my photographs and Microsoft publisher to put some of the rest of the magazine together , I learnt how to crop our photos from a background and layer it out onto a magazine and how to create a decent looking effect.

I used my photography camera to take my photographs, where i was already able to do this as i had had previous experience which made it easier for me.