Evaluation

By Sam Cartwright7221

Cover

Masthead

Main Cover Line

Barcode

Serif font & set colour pallet

Cover lines

Price

Main Image

Contents

Title

Cover Title

Sub-titlesPage References

Main Image

Article

Columns

Headline

Page Numbers

Drop CapMain Image

By line

Standfirst

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

For my masthead I used the font ‘Impact’ this was because it is a bold font that would stand out well on the shelf. A bold masthead is a typical convention for a magazine, similar to ‘Vibe’ where the title is big and bold and covers one quarter of the page. However my masthead, has a green drop shadow, which challenges the codes and conventions as not many magazines have this feature.

The layout of my front cover follows the codes and conventions of typical music magazines, this is the main image being in the centre of the magazine, with cover lines based around it.

The mise en scene of the images follows the codes and conventions of magazines as I have used a variety of settings for my images for example for my cover I used a brick background, for my contents, my image is on a black background and then my double page the setting is on a set of stairs and the secondary image is on a plain, simple background.

The masthead and cover line font remains the same throughout the magazine, this is a Sans Serif font that is a convention of lower brow music magazines, furthermore it may look out of place if I had put a serif font on the magazine as stereotypically Hip-hop followers would not be high brow or like a ‘curly’ font on a stereotypically male orientated magazine.

Do you think my magazine looks realistic, compared to Vibe?

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Yes

No

I asked if my magazine looked realistic compared to another hip hop magazine. Seven out of ten people said yes it does look realistic

I showed the people I gave the questionnaires to images of my cover, contents and article, and Vibe’s cover, contents and article.

2. How does your media 2. How does your media product represent product represent particular social groups?particular social groups?

My magazine only featured males, aged between 17-20. The young male is often stereotyped in a negative way, often portrayed as thugs and criminals. However I think that my magazine contradicts this as the male on my contents is smiling, showing happiness.

The image is of a young male, in the picture he is not smiling and is showing more of a ‘tough guy’ image.

This portrays him as dominant.

Image showing a young male, smiling, however he is not looking at the camera implying he is not bothered by what is going on around him.

The dark colours around the picture also suggest it’s masculine as stereotypically males don’t like the bright colours. He is also wearing a blue top inline with the stereotype of a male.

Direct mode of address- ‘tough guy’ image, Serious facial expression- in line with stereotypes of young male.

Postive comments- ‘Prince’

Other image is of male smiling, looking happy.

However on the contents only black artists are mentioned

Four out of the five artists mentioned on the footer of my magazine are black, this follows the stereotype of hip-hop and r’n’b being associated with black people rather than white people.

Questionnaire From the results in the

questionnaire I conducted, I found that six out of ten people thought that males were represented as ‘average’.

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Poorly Average Good

How are males represented in my magazine?

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Poorly Average Good

How are ethnic minorities represented?

This questionnaire shows that half of the people I asked thought ethnic minorities were well represented, however unfortunately two people thought they were represented poorly.

3. What kind of media 3. What kind of media institution might distribute institution might distribute your media product and your media product and why?why?

I think Bauer would be a good media institution to distribute my magazine as it has experience with music magazines like Q, Mojo and Kerrang.

Bauer also has space on its roster for a hip-hop magazine as it does not have one.

Bauer

Q Magazine: Aimed at a more mature person- Indie

Mojo- Aged 40+ Kerrang- A younger audience, but

adults still may like it.

Bauer

Bauer has many magazines on it’s roster of all different genres and target audiences, so they don’t have a specific magazine genre.

This is why they would be appropriate to distribute my magazine. Also I believe that many of my readers are likely to be male, Bauer with enough knowledge of music magazines will know how to attract a broader target audience.

IPC are questionably Bauer’s rivals, They have produced magazines such as NME, however in recent years NME’s circulation has been slowly decreasing. Which is another reason why Bauer Media would be the ideal choice of publisher for my magazine.

NME’s circulation in 2011 was 27,650, 62% down on a 2003 figure. In the 1960s it was selling as many as 200,000 copies each week, showing the decline of NME.

This is a graph I made from the questionnaires I handed out prior to doing my media magazine, this shows that more people read magazines weekly. So my magazine if it was to be published by Bauer would be a weekly magazine or possibly a bi-monthly magazine.

4. Who would the audience be for your media product?

Target Audience The target audience for my magazine would be C2 and

below, as I find it unlikely heads of corporations (A) or senior people (B) or even experienced teachers (C1) will be interested in a stereotypically teenage genre, this is why there are brighter colours on the page too make it stand out. Also the ‘gossip’ that it contains may not appeal to a high brow audience.

I also think that my target audience is likely to be young people possibly 25 and under.

Hip-Hop is often affiliated with black people and many of the artists in Hip-Hop are black however my target audience is both black and white, but still aimed at young people.

Target Audience

This is who I assume my target audience to be, Even though it isn't usually associated with successful.

Both black and white people are in my target audience.

5. How did you 5. How did you attract/address your target attract/address your target audienceaudience

Focus Group Feedback

When I conducted my focus group I asked what they thought the target audience of the magazine would be. They said that it was most likely for teenagers or adults, this is the target audience I was aiming for.

Target Audience The

coverlines/footer circled would interest my target audience because they intrigue them, also in particular getting free songs is always and added bonus when buying a magazine.

Target Audience

Circled is things that would interest my target audience such as Gossip, Main article, Album reviews and new stories.

Target Audience The font is San Serif to appeal

to a younger, less formal person.

The colours are standard, not to bright as this is not necessarily what young people will want on a magazine they are going to read.

The green colour has connotations of the American dollar, based around the theme of money in the magazine.

The colour red has connotations of danger. Which possibly may interest my target Audiece.

Target Audience

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W hat do you think of the colour scheme in my magazine?

Poor

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Good

From the results of my questionnaire, it shows that 4 people thought the colour scheme on my magazine was good and 4 thought it was average.