Evaluati on By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies The questions that are in the evaluation are: • In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? • How does your media product represent particular social groups? • What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? • Who would be the audience for your media product? • How did you attract/address your audience? • What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? • Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Transcript
Evaluation
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
The questions that are in the evaluation are:
• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? • How does your media product represent particular social groups? • What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? • Who would be the audience for your media product? • How did you attract/address your audience? • What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? • Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
After researching what type of music magazine I wanted to do I decided I liked the layout of Kerrang. So I thought that instead of challenging the design that I would make my design based on their magazine Layout.
Mast Heads By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Both masthead use a similar style font. Kerrang’s mast head has been created to look as if it is glass that has just been smashed and because of this I tried to make my Masthead look as if it is slowly withering away. Both mastheads represent the style of rock, because Kerrang have used a smashed font for their masthead it is related to music being so loud that it smashes glass – when the majority of people think of loud, glass smashing music they stereotypical think of a loud genre that most teens listen to. The foreground is black and the background is white the reason for this is because black looks a lot better on white than when placed over any other colour it also enables the masthead to stand out to the audience. But as the cover line has a red background the audience might relate it to either passion, energy, aggression or violence. Also the fact that the masthead is smashed might also make the audience yet again relate the magazine to different types of feelings such as energy, aggression, violence. The reason someone might relate the colour to energy is because red can be seen as a vibrate colour not just aggression or violence.
Although I decided not to use the same layout of colours that Kerrang has used on their masthead, I decided that I would still use the same three colours for my masthead. I thought that instead of using white for the background I would use black because it look a lot better than black on white did. The close up of the letter ‘K’ is to show how the audience might relate the masthead to an artist smashing their guitar or that the fact that the magazine is called ‘Kerrang’ could make them assume that maybe it is smashed because of how the word sounds – for instance ‘Bang’ sounds like an aggression loud noise so ‘Kerrang’ could make the target audience think it's like a noise.
Cover lines
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Above is a collection of my cover lines and Kerrang’s; because they have used a band index detailing what bands are mentioned within their magazine I have tried to do a similar method with my magazine. Instead of using the word ‘Plus!’ I decided that I would use ‘+’ the reason I decided to use a different version of plus was because I didn’t want to copy all Kerrang‘s conventions. Also with the use of ‘+’ (has a substitute for ‘and’) it is capturing the use of text/slang because the majority of my target audience will either own a mobile phone or have used one before will all recognise what the context and meaning of it is.
Kerrang are well known for their unambiguous, bold cover lines because of how Kerrang try and catch their target audiences attention I tried to use a similar technique. I did this by having the main bands name in a bold white font to catch the audience's attention; the reason I used white was because it stands out more than any other colour it is also a part of the colour scheme.
For my Contents and double page spread I tried to use a similar type of text like Kerrang has used the reason for this is because I wanted to make sure that my magazine kept to some of the same conventions shown above. I also used the same colour scheme throughout my magazine.
Photographs
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
In Kerrang’s photograph they used an artist wearing a hoodie so with this in mind I purposely made my model Josh wear his hoodie in a similar context to Biffy Cylro’s pose. The reason for this is because Kerrang’s photographs shows the rebellion state of the music industry today. Most teenagers are related to being trouble makers – rebellions teens as most people call them! So from the research I did earlier in the year I decided that I would try and use a similar technique for my photograph. This is because my target audience seem to like the idea of rebellion being used within the photograph. Both Kerrang's and my magazine have one person wearing a hoodie; the reason for this is because the older generation have symbolised hoodie as problematic and a unnatural use within the society of today – the older generation See them as a symbol of rebellion . Also when teenagers wear hoodie some people tend to stereotypically brand them as ‘chavs’ or ‘thugs’ which is untrue as hoodies have become a big part of today’s fashion.
For the band header I used the ‘Old typography’ font the reason I decided to use the same font as my masthead was because I liked the look of it and it draws attention of my target audience to my magazine. In addition to this I like the context of the font and how it looks as if it might represent the symbol of rebellion. I wanted to carry on using the same convention methods and techniques throughout.
The font above is called ‘Payday’ the reason I decided to use this was that because Kerrang used a font for the cover line ‘ FREE! POSTER SPECIAL!’ that made it look as if it had been painted on to the page I wanted to make my cover line ‘Wanna be famous? See how in just one week!’ look as if it had been spray painted on to the page by using a stencil.
For my mast head I decided to download a font off a website called dafont.com the reason for this was because I wanted to use a font that had a similar context to it like Kerrang used with their masthead. Both masthead use a similar style font. Kerrang’s mast head has been created to look as if it is glass that has just been smashed and because of this I tried to make my Masthead look as if it is slowly withering away. Both mastheads represent the style of rock, because Kerrang have used a smashed font for their masthead it is related to music being so loud that it smashes glass – when the majority of people think of loud, glass smashing music they stereotypical think of a loud genre that most teens listen to. The font I used was ‘Old Typography’ the conventions of using this font is that it has a decayed look about it showing the audience how it relates well to music; a lot of old music is sometimes seen as being a lot better than the music of today.
Colour scheme
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
For my colour scheme I decided that instead of challenging the design that I would make my design based on Kerrang’s colour scheme. But instead of using them in the same context I decided to use them in a different layout. I decided that for the background that I would use black as it would look the most effective because most colours work well especially the colours I've chosen to do. Throughout my magazine I have tried to use some of Kerrang's conventions.
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Age:16 - 19
Class:Working/ Middle class
Gender:Male
Music/Culture Sub-groupEthnicity/Culture:Rock is usually related with white people this is because not many ethnic people
Gender
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
The representation of gender within our society is that rock is usually associated with males. So with this in mind I decided that I would have my magazine containing photographs of the younger male generation with the exception of one photograph of a female; the reason I used one of a female was because I didn't want my magazine to come across as being sexist even though my magazine is mainly aimed at an male audience I still think some female readers could be interested in it. My magazine has a masculine feel to it because of the photographs I’ve used. The photograph I used for my front cover has one guy wearing a hoodie this gives the front cover a rebellion look to it. The colour scheme I’ve used could also be represented as masculine because of the three colours ; red can be defined as energy or anger. The majority of people think of anger as being related to males because of how masculinity is portrayed in today’s society. The photograph of the female is a counter typical image the reason for this is because even though majority of the magazine is very masculine the photograph of the female allows the male audience be even more attracted to it. There is a balance between the photographs both gender are wearing similar make of clothes this shows that both people are a part of the same social group/ music genre. The fact that she is wearing a short sleeve t-shirt shows that she still has some femininity about her. The light also contradicts with her being a masculine character because she has pink light shining on her it shows she again has some femininity about her.
Male Female
Age
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
The reason I decided to use young models was because I thought that a younger generation would relate more to them rather than using older models; because my target audience age range is 16- 19 I decided that it would be best to use two teenagers aged 17. Most music magazines tend to have an audience range between 16 – 22. I decided range my target age as 16-19 because the majority of answers I got from my survey from earlier on in the year found that most people who liked to read music magazine were aged between 16-19. The content of the imagery and text are used to mirror the audience this is because I want my audience to be interested in what they are reading and looking at. The fact that the two guys in the image are showing quite a positive look shows that they are none threatening and know each other quite well. The clothing the boys are wearing are quite stereotypical for today’s society, most teenagers are known for wearing hoodies, branded jeans and high tops.
The fonts and language used within my magazine has been used to allow the audience to relate and understand the information more easily. Cover lines such as ‘Find out who crashed the relentless party last Saturday night!’ relates to types of things that most teenagers know about quite well; energy drinks and parties. Using this type of information allows the audience to relate to the articles within the magazine. The reason I decided use this type of language in my magazine is because after researching ‘Kerrang’ I found that most magazine like to advertise something they know the audience will either enjoy or like the look of. Another cover line I used ‘Wanna be famous? See How In Just One Week!’ relates well to my audience because most teenagers dream of being famous.
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Working/Middle Class Kerrang’s target audience is both working class and middle class. To attract both types of class I decided that I would use one person from working class and one from middle. The photograph below shows the differences between middle and working. Most people tend to look at types of clothing and how people dress to determine what type of class they are; so with this in mind I decided to use two different types of shoes to represent class. I decided that I wanted to use a regular pair of white ‘airwalk’ trainers to represent working class and use a pair of high tops to represent middle class. The way both shoes are worn show the differences between the classes. The airwalks are no longer bright white and are mostly covered by the jeans whereas the high tops are fastened tightly and his jeans are tucked into the shoe in a fashionable way this shows that the boy in high tops cares about how he wears his clothes. In today’s society not many people care about class this is shown in the two photographs at the side.
Ethnicity
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Stereotypical rock music is aimed at a white ethnic group and has been traditionally made up of white musicians. In most magazines such as Kerrang , they only seem to use white people. In my magazine I didn’t want to challenge conventions so I decided to only use white musicians the reason for this is because I wanted to reinforce a similarity between Kerrang and my magazine.
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Bauer Media would be a good choice to distribute my magazine to because it would mean they would have less competition to compete with. This is because they are already the owners of Kerrang!, Q and Mojo. Bauer Media already sell a large number of music magazines that are very alike and have some similar conventions to mine. This means that the company is well known within the music industry . Bauer Media are an international company , this means that people from all around the world have the chance to read my magazine. An advantage of Bauer Media already selling three other music magazines means that they have a great deal of experience when trying to sell them.
My Ideal ReaderBelow is a detailed description of what my ideal reader would be like (taken from my audience research material) on the slide before there are many different products that my target audience could relate to. For instance, in today's society stereotypically every teenager owns a mobile phone.
How did you attract/address your audience?
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Entertainment: Colours
Provides information
Sense of belonging
Topic of conversation
Sense of community around music
Role models
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
I wanted to create a magazine that allowed the audience to feel a sense of belonging, to allow the audience to reflect and relate with what my magazine offers to them. To do this I provided them with a lot of information within my article detailing about the types of things my target audience enjoy; I did this by using the research I gathered together. I used two teenage boys to symbolize them as my target audiences role models to do this I made sure that the boys were aged 17 same age as my ideal reader.
When addressing my audience I made sure that I used a similar convention to Kerrang’s language technique I did this by using ‘THIS WEEK’ on my contents page; I wanted to make my magazine connect to my target audience as much as possible. Using words such as ‘WANNA’ allows the audience to feel apart of something. Aiming the language to teenagers between 16 and 19 meant that they would always have a topic of conversation. This means that if someone they knew read my magazine they would be able to chat about the articles and features, this also enables a sense of community around music. I tried to attract my audience by using the same three colours throughout my magazine; I used white, black and red to keep the same conventions methods as Kerrang’s magazine.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
www.surveymonkey.com
www.google.co.uk
www.blogger.com
Throughout this whole project I have used many different types of technology; ranging from search engines such as Google to image editing software known as Adobe Photoshop.
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
www.slideshare.net
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Adobe Photoshop is a image editing software, I used this for the construction of my final magazine design although it was one of the hardest piece of technology to use I found that the more practice I did the more I became more confident with using the tools. For my magazine I used the majority of the tools but mostly used the lasso for cutting around the models heads to allow the mast head to be placed behind. I used the crop, copy and paste tools for mainly all my work.
I began by using Google to research information and images about my audience. This then lead to the convergence of PowerPoint and Slideshare. PowerPoint is a proprietary commercial presentation program which allows people to write information on and then present it in a slide presentation; because of this I thought it would be a good idea to upload some of my work using Slideshare. Slideshare is a website that allows people to upload presentations and then upload them to blogs.
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
The most important piece of technology I used in this project was a website called Blogger this is where all my work was uploaded and displayed for people to read; after learning the basic understanding of how to use it I now know how to read and edit old posts, upload new posts while adding images along side it and how to add hyperlinks to my blog.
Another piece of technology I used was a website called survey monkey; this is where you can create a survey then use the hyperlink to place it on any website ranging from Blogger to Facebook to allow different types of people the choice of filling it in. I thought that overall it was a very easy and simple piece of technology to use this is because all the user needed to do was type in the questions you wanted the audience to answer then once I had enough results collected I could then convert it into either pie or bar charts. I used this website to gather results for my target audience research which I did at the start of this project.
To take my photographs I used a DSLR camera with a black dropdown background to create the converge of rebellion between the camera and the models.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the
full product?
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Layouts
Photography
Software
Writing
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Photography
Since the preliminary task I have improved my camera work skills this is because when I first did my college magazine photographs I hastily took a photo of a random girl in my class; whereas with my final photographs I did a lot of planning about how I wanted them to look. So after carefully planning how I wanted them to look I hired out the photography studio and had my models pose in many different ways until I found my perfect photographs. From my preliminary task I have found that when trying to create a good image you need to make sure you do plan carefully.
Software
By Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Throughout my preliminary it is clear that I have improved with my Photoshop skills as you can tell with my college front cover and my music front cover. I have learnt not to precipitate when trying to piece things together. The progression throughout my magazine has helped me understand the use of Photoshop's tools; such as using the lasso tool helped me cut around the two boys head to enable me to place the mast head behind there heads.
LayoutsWhen I first started to create the college magazine I did not have a very deep understanding of the forms and conventions used in magazines neither did I have any understanding of how to use image editing software such as Photoshop. Over a few weeks I began to understand these more thoroughly allowing me to produce a much better magazine as when I first created my college magazine. In addition, I hadn’t gathered any audience research for my college magazine so my understanding of what people thoughts were on what types of things they enjoy reading in a college magazine were hard to decided on.
OverallBy Jessica Murray AS Media Studies
Overall I think that my final music magazine looks much better than my college magazine this is because as you can tell I have taken much more care with the use of planning and thinking about how I wanted my final piece to look. This is due to my deeper understanding of the forms and conventions used within magazines and the many hours of product and audience research.
