What would be the audience for your media product?

Audience• The audience for my magazine will be teenagers and young adults between the ages of

16 and 25 who are both male and female, but mostly male because the type of language that is used in hip-hop songs is male referenced and relates to the issues that a lot of men go through.

• Also, the young people of this age will currently listen to radio stations such as Radio1 Xtra and Radio1, and they will also be a part of social media websites such as twitter and facebook, so it is very important they can relate to my magazine through those forms of media.

• Most young adults of this age usually have a part time job in which they gain enough income to enjoy some leisure time at the weekends, this will mean that students and young adults wont usually have the funds to buy and expensive magazine, which is why the price of £1.99 is perfect for the audience because it is still a reasonable price for a magazine yet it is affordable for the people that are targeted to buy it.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation

• One way in which my media product represents particular social groups is with the main image of the star on the front cover of the magazine. The artist is wearing an Adidas hoodie with the hood up, this has many connotations, the first of which is that he is somebody from a rough background due to the clothes that he is wearing, he represents the social group of “chavs” or people from working class backgrounds who wear tracksuits and stereotypically commit crime.

• As unorthodox as it is, the main image represents this social group as the ideal readers for the magazine, because they can relate to the lyrics in the rapper’s songs and also relate to the stories that will be included in the magazine. Many rappers include lyrics about their background in their songs and the majority of them are from background like the one I have just described to you.

• Also, the cover star looks rebellious with his hood up, this shows that he is not a typical male rapper and that he is mysterious, which would make the target audience want to know more about him and also aspire to be like him.

What kind of media institution might distribute your product?

Distribution

• Firstly, it would be best for the magazine if I chose a rival company to distribute my magazine rather than going for a sister publication. The media institution that would publish my magazine would be IPC Media, this is because the only music magazine that they produce is NME, which would not be a rival to us because it is of a different genre and is more mainstream than The Drop This is because there is great competition for audience in the music magazine industry, especially in the hip-hop genre, so a rival company such as IPC media would be an asset because it would be a step towards stealing the audience from other music magazines.

• Secondly, “The Drop” will be published monthly, this is because although the magazine is hip-hop and has a broad audience, it is not mainstream as all the people who buy the magazine will have something in common.

• Also, if the magazine is published weekly or fortnightly then the content wont be very good because not much happens in the hip-hop industry over that period of time and a monthly publication would be able to have a lot of information crammed into it from the things that have happened over that 4 week period. My brand is easy to access through tags in the magazine that tell the audience how to connect with “the drop” through social media like twitter and instagram.

Distribution

• NME is one of the most popular music magazines. This is because IPC Media allows it to have tremendous availability to its audience.

• It is highly available because of many things, the main one being that it has a ‘digital edition’ that can be purchased from the app store, this is a major asset because print magazines are going out of fashion now that you can read the news online via social networks. Also, the target audience of NME are the types of young people who go online a lot and are part of social networking sites so a digital edition would appeal to them because it would mean that they don’t have to go out and actually buy the magazine itself, they can have it in their hand with the press of a button.

Distribution

• The toolbar at the top of NME’s website gives the audience access to things that you wouldn’t be able to access in a print magazine

• This gives the audience the usual news the they would find in the print magazine

• This informs the audience about music festival and ticket dates so they can see their favourite bands from the magazine perform live, it encourages them to like music more and therefore buy their magazine

• This gives the audience the opportunity to buy merchandise from the magazine such as band t-shirts, jumpers, posters

Merchandise and Apps

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

Front Cover• The media product that I have created relates to the forms and conventions of

real media products in the magazine industry. Firstly, the front cover adheres to the typical conventions that you would associate with a magazine front cover – there is a masthead, a large main image that dominates most of the page, anchorage text to go with the pictures, buttons to grab the reader’s attention and a strapline at the top to tell the reader about any more special content inside the magazine.

• Also, the front cover challenges a main convention of a music magazine, with the picture not being as large as you would expect it to be in order to add in more information about the magazine’s content, the picture is still very large and takes up the majority of the page but not taking up the full page like the “VIBE” front covers shown below, allows more focus to be on the other stories while still maintaining a high level of interest from the audience.

Contents

• The contents page that I created also adheres to the typical conventions of a magazine contents page. This is because the cover story is highlighted by another large picture of the cover star with a quote next to him, this shows that this is the most important story in the magazine and that the reader should be made aware of that.

• Also, the page number next to the story which indicates where it can be found in the magazine is the largest of its kind on the page, again this is to show the importance of the cover story and that it is not to be overlooked. Another typical convention of a music magazine contents page is smaller pictures, these give the audience a better insight into what they are about to read and also they attract more attention to their adjacent tags or stories, whereas without a picture the reader may have got bored and merely skimmed through the contents page without taking in all of the information.

• Furthermore, the fact that it is in fact a contents page needs to be made clear, the page needs to have an attractive header reading “contents” and as shown in the top right corner of the page on my contents page, my magazine has done that, it is clearly distinguished that it is a contents page. Finally, one of the main conventions of a contents page is that there are main stories and then there are the smaller stories with smaller text and that aren’t that important because they are in the magazine every week, my magazine hashighlighted this and put in its own weekly columns in the bottom corner of the contents page in order for it to look like an actual music magazine.

Double Page Spread

• Much like the other pages in my magazine, my Double page spread also adheres to the typical forms and conventions of that in an actual magazine. For example, there is a large image of the artist being interviewed, he looks in control and calm, much like any other hip-hop artist would look like, so it is very realistic, also, it looks as if he is leaning against the text box, which connotes that he has an “I don’t care” attitude that is arrogant like a real rap artist.

• Furthermore, linking to the text are pull-away quotes that interest the reader because it encourages them to read ahead by giving them small bits of information from text in the midst of the article, which would mean that they would have to read the rest in order to find out more about the quote in the larger writing.

• Also, the title of the article is simply the Artist’s first name, this implies that everyone who reads the article will know who he is and won’t need a second name. finally, at the beginning of the article there is a large letter to begin the text, this indicates where to start reading for the audience and looks professional, also it is one of the main conventions of text in a magazine so it is vital that the letter is included in the article

How did you attract/interest your audience?

Attracting the Audience

• I attracted my audience in many ways. Firstly, the colour scheme first catches their eye because the background of the front cover is a light blue colour and the masthead and text is jet black, this makes the text stand out and makes it clearer to read from afar, so when you walk past it in a shop it is likely to grab your attention.

• Also to do with the colour scheme, the Masthead has a blue glow to it and is surrounded by a blue bevel of the same colour, this makes the masthead seem as if it is coming out of the page and makes it very interesting to look at, further intriguing the reader. Another way in which I attracted the audience was a button with a prize on it “WIN DRAKE TICKETS” is in large capitals against a black background on a button

Attracting the audience

• Also, the front cover attracts the audience’s attention because the star’s eyes are in the top third of the page, this immediately makes contact with the reader and draws their attention towards the magazine.

• Also, the unique selling points on the cover are clearly defined, the tagline to the main image is right across the star’s chest and the other anchorage text is in clear, bold and black with a blue glow, which is eye catching and interesting.

Addressing the audience

• In my magazine the text addresses the audience in an informal manner to convey the style of magazine. The music magazine I have created “the drop” is a hip hop magazine and if the writing was formal then it wouldn’t connect with the audience I the way that I hope informal writing will. This is because informal writing portrays the target audience, people who listen to hip hop music are usually young people who wear informal clothes and write in “text speak”.

• I believe that this style of writing will interest the audience the most because it’s informal style connotes a relaxed atmosphere throughout the whole magazine.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

Fireworks

• During the process of making my magazine I have used a variety of software to construct the different features of the magazine.

• Firstly, I used Fireworks to construct the masthead, the subheadings, the buttons and the taglines, this is because it is very easy to use and the effects that you can put on the text are much better than those that you can use on publisher or photoshop.

Publisher

• Secondly, I used Publisher for the majority of the project because it is the easiest to use when it comes to making a publication such as a magazine.

• The way in which you can plan it out so it’s layout looks like the actual paper product makes it perfect for the kind of work I was doing and made it very easy for me to envisage my final product

Photoshop

• I used photoshop to edit the main image of my magazine front cover. I did this because it maximises the quality of the picture and your are able to edit the picture to different colours via the tool bar.

Looking back at your preliminary task (Aquinas College Magazine),

what do you feel you have learnt in the progression to the full

product?

Front Covers

• This is my first initial flat plan of my magazine front cover, as you can see the plan is very basic and consists of just the typical magazine conventions.

Front Covers

• This is the front cover of the college magazine that I created. As shown, it shows the simple codes and conventions of a front cover of a magazine with things such as a big main image, a large masthead that stands out against the background, a button with a competition on it and taglines and anchorage text to interest the reader even further. There are also connotations on the front cover, one of them being that the person in the main image is looking away from the camera in an intuitive manner which implies conversation, which will make the audience want to read the interview inside to see what she is saying

• But also the front cover is clearly very basic, there is far too much space between the pieces of text and makes it look bland and boring. Also, the colour scheme is very dry, it doesn’t grab the attention of the audience at all and the background is too plain.

Front Covers

• This is my final magazine front cover from the project. As you can see there has been a vast improvement from the previous attempts. Not only has the text become more clear and more attractive, but it is also a lot more organised, it is compact yet the writing is clear to read against the background. Also, the masthead is a lot more developed than the other ones are. This is because I used fireworks on this attempt because it gives you the largest variety of effects on your text. It is very clear and the glow makes it stand out to the eye of the audience. Also, the main image is more effective than the other ones because it is a full image of the star with the anchorage text across his body which clearly defines that it is relating to him. Also, the colour scheme is consistent yet it still makes all aspects of the text, including the buttons, stand out.

Contents Pages

• From doing the original contents planning task for the Aquinas Magazine, I have learnt that there are many conventions that must be included for the contents page to fulfil its potential. For example, as you can see in the Aquinas magazine contents page, the text is very boring an plain, so this had to be changed for the final contents page, this meant doing the text on fireworks so that it would catch the reader’s attention.

• Also, the images on the contents page need to be much clearer as to what piece of text they relate to, so that the audience can understand them more easily and relate to the idea of the text faster without having to figure out which piece of text the picture went with.

Double Page Spreads

• I did lots of research on double page spreads from magazines like my own, for example, I evaluated a double page of an interview with the rapper Drake to find out what I needed to include in it.

Double Page Spreads

• This is my final double page spread piece from the magazine I created, as you can see it has the same codes and conventions as the Drake double page spread, with the large image relating to the text and the pull out quotes to give the audience a clue as to some of the content, also, there is a large letter at the start of the text to indicate the beginning of the text I didn’t know this at first when I started making the magazine but I became aware of it through my research of the Aquinas magazine and of the Drake double page spread.