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

The conventions of my media product depend on it's genre. For my magazine I have to manipulate the image of the artist to make them look extra good looking so that it can appeal to the audience. In the front cover of my magazine, the artist is also seen engaging the audience by looking straight into the camera. The front cover is the most important part of the magazine, this is because it attracts the audience . My front cover has the masthead, bar code, cover line, etc. My magazine includes features that a real magazine has. The layout of my magazine has been based, and designed in the same way as Q, NME, Rwd magazine and VIBE. I tried to make the layout, shots of pictures, and language to be kind ofsimilar to top selling magazines. My magazine has been mostly based on ‘Rwd’ magazine as its target audience is similar to mine. The content page is the page which directs the reader around the magazine, and is a preview to what they can expect to find inside. When creating my contents page I found it quite difficult as I wanted it to continue with the theme and style of the front cover. In order to do this I studies many different contents pages and I picked out what I thought made them stand out and interesting. The images I used in my content page was images of different artists, I thought I would also add an image of a dancer because it brings out the ‘hip-hopness’ of my magazine.

How does your media product represent particular social group?

Representation is the way places and people are re-presented to us by the media. For example , the media represents women as housewives who stays at home cleaning and looking after the children, whereas men are represented as the breadwinner, who basically goes out to work and provide for the family. My magazine represents teenagers mostly from the ages of 16-25, it is shown by the type of images used, the font type, the colour of the text etc. which means they would all be in different social groups such as, college and university students or young employers. However, my magazine is particularly focusing on ‘grime/hip hop’ theme which means they would have to be interested in this type of music, to fit this magazine in with their lifestyles.I used the colours blue, black, orange and red because when carrying out my research I found out that most magazines that are targeted to the same audience as me uses similar colours , I believe this is because of most teenagers that are into rap, hip-hop or grime tend to like colours that will attract their attention and images that look appealing to them before they would purchase a magazine. The magazine targets both males and females, however most males would purchase it, because it uses words and phrases most females might not use, for example “Skeen..mans on this”. it also includes more images of guys which again gives an impression that it could be a male only magazine. In a way the magazine is stereotypical on guys, as it includes images of guys in chains, hood, era hats, tracksuit, basically looking like they are in a gang etc. This image below is an example of the kind of stereotype the media portraits in my magazine. My magazine represents guys that are in the “GANGSTAR” category , this is shown by the style of clothing they wear, hairstyles, jewelleries and the kind of poses and facial expressions they show In the images provided in the magazine.

My magazine represents the age range as the guy on the front cover is young and clearly represents hip hop/grime due to the clothes he is wearing and he style he has shown. The type of music features on the front cover, contents page and double page spread shows that it is all one theme. Including artist such as ‘NICKI MINAJ’ instead of ‘OASIS’ shows that it only has one music genre, and does not clash into other genres such as rock or classical. The language used in my magazine is quite informal. I used ‘slang’, but it is not commonly used throughout my magazine. This is because I felt the style of language was suited best for this type of magazine.

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

I researched on media publishers and I thought of IPC and BAUER. In order to get my magazine to sell, I would have to get help from other big media institutions, such as Bauer and IPC. They are massive publishing institutions that advertise in cross media using TV, radio, magazine and websites. Because my magazine is a music magazine it can be distributed almost anywhere. It can be purchased in music shops such as ‘HMV’ and in other general shops and newsagents. When sold in newsagents and posts offices it will target the audience intended, this is because these shops are usually located around schools. It can also be sold in areas that associate with my target audience. My magazine will not only be sold in shops but online and orders would be placed and advertised on my magazines own website and IPC or Bauer publishers website, which would increase interest and sales in my magazine.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my magazine are people from the ages of 16-25. Mostly people who enjoy rap, hip hop or grime. The social grade for my target audience would be people in the C-D band as it is relatively low cost 0f £2.99 which means its suited more for them and reasonable price range too. People in C-D would be young adults, who have just left education or are still in it. The gender of the targeted audience would probably be male dominated. This is because my magazine is aimed at a specific audience and has a specific genre of music, it is most likely that they would be the only people interested in this magazine.

The targeted audience for this magazine has quite a big number of people compared to other targeted audiences for magazines. Other magazines that include just one type of music genres such as ‘indie or rock’ appeal to less people, however it depends on what area you plan on selling your magazine. As this has one specific genre the audience is limited and quite big, especially if I disribute my magazine in shops that my targeted audience are surrounded in. However this isn't a very big issue as every reader that we get would be loyal and consistent. I believe that the reader’s value for this magazine is much higher than the circulation, but this is probably a better situation as we have loyal, frequent customers.

How did you attract your audience? To attract my audience I had to think, imagine and research about how my audience would want a magazine suitable for them should look like. It is not difficult as long as you understand what they are about. This means what they like to listen to, wear, how they talk, and the general ‘attitude’ of your audience. To do this I used the right font type, text type, colours used throughout the magazine. I used black, red, blue and orange throughout my magazine, this is because I thought about my audience, their ages and their style. The age and gender of my audience gives me ideas of the kind of colours, pictures and text to put in my magazine. I personally don’t think targeting my audience was hard, as it was simple to understand the basic appeals of ‘grime/hip hop’ culture and to present this in my magazine. I’m already into grime/hip hop so I have a clear understanding of how I should present my magazine to look appealing to my audience.The first thing that your audience will see is your front cover. This means that my colour scheme and image had to be attractive and stand out to them and make them want to read on and find out more about it.On the front cover I tried to dress the main image/model in bright clothing that matches the colour scheme of the magazine to make it seem more professional. I also wanted him to wear typical ‘grime/hip hop’ clothes which usually means having a ‘ganster’ look. On my model, he is wearing a black T-shirt with white writing, also wearing a chain and orange sarf and his eyes are looking right towards the audience. This is very appealing and draws attention to the magazine, attracting the audience on the front cover is getting the eye contact from the main image which then attracts them to the rest of the magazine. The importance of eye contact was big for me, so I felt that it was very important to keep it throughout the magazine. This is why on the contents page all of the images of people have eye contact with the camera as well. In addition, another way to attract my audience was to use give out free CD, which is mentioned on the front cover. This is also a source of promoting an upcoming artist and also engaging the reader at the very beginning.The actual CD is shown at the front cover to show that the promotion is legit and reasonable, this is a great way of attracting my target audience.

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

The technologies used in constructing my media product have all been different. Some hard to handle and understand how to use, and some simple things used in my everyday life.Another aspect of creating my magazine was taking photos. This, for me wasn't a hard when making my magazine, I chose to use a digital camera from my college, because I knew my images would come out quite professional, although I could also edit them on photo shop. I chose to do this because I could carry the camera around with me wherever I wanted to snap a picture. Taking the actual photos wasn't that challenging. I thought about the lighting issues and the backgrounds, what you could and could not see, and I tired to make them look as professional as possible. I took a range of photos, most of people, using different angles, to add variety to the magazine.

Photoshop and InDesign where the only two programs that I used to create the magazine. I was advised to use Indesign, however I chose to try and work on Photoshop. At first, it was hard and very difficult to understand the tools and I found it as a big challenge beacsue I had no idea how it worked. However, the more I used it, the better I got, and soon I became quite good at it and had a friend to teach me more about it. Photoshop was defiantly the right program to use for the front page and contents page as most of it was based around the images. I chose to use Indesign for my double page spread as I thought it would be easier to use as most if it is text. We used slideshare to allows you to upload and share our work with other people. I found this website very hard and confusing to use as uploading work consist of finding codes and inserting them in certain areas to upload your work. I forget how to use it because it is not a website I use daily, so I find it quite challenging too.

Overall the technologies part of making this media project has been hard and challenging, as a lot of it is new to me. Moreover, I think I picked it up easily and learnt how to use it all efficiently. In the future I can tell I would find it quite easier to use when I need to use any of these programmes/technologies.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from

it to the full product?Looking back at my preliminary task, I have learnt how to use Photoshop and In-design to

improve and produce better quality product. Because the preliminary task was just a starter in order to create a magazine, it helped me

find out what my strengths and weakness are. It gave me a chance to improve on my finally product. Looking back at the preliminary task, I feel I have learnt a lot, such as how to edit and manipulate images to create a smoother and clearer face within the artist face through Photoshop.

I was able to use In-design but not as much as I could use Photoshop, as I edited and created my product on Photoshop because I found it easier to understand. Images below is of before and after of my improvement. The image above is from the front cover of my preliminary task and the image below is the front cover of my product. Great changes in progression have been established , before I came across Photoshop I did not take an image with a plain background or edit it at all, however when I started creating my actual product, I learnt a lot and used my previous knowledge to create an image with a suitable background and edited it in Photoshop, not making the photograph look too fake but real enough. I learnt that making the artist on the front cover look the part for the genre of the magazine makes the audience more interested, because of the stereotype I gave to the artist on the front cover.

Looking at my preliminary exercise, I learnt that it is better to make the main focus on the eyes and face of the model rather than other things around, so for example my preliminary front cover my model is seen wearing a hat that has red eyes and also a hoodie, there are too many distraction going on, so creating my front cover, I decided to create less distractions for my audience and made the main focus on his face, which is a middle shot.