Evaluation of my Music Magazine

By Connie Briggs

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

My music magazine follows most of the typical conventions that you tend to see on most music magazines. I have a title block which is central at the top of the page, which is common in most magazines as it is important for people to establish the title and name of the magazine they are buying.

. I have also included a date and the issue number just under the title block on the right hand side. This is typical of most music magazines as it informs the reader when the magazine is released and what issue they are on.

I have a barcode and price in the bottom right hand corner with a price. My main image of my artist on the front cover has a direct mode of address as she is looking straight into the camera, which appears to the audience as if she is looking directly towards them. This is a convention of a music magazine as most music magazines have an image with a direct mode of address because they want to have an instant connection with the reader in order to get them to buy the magazine. I have also used buzz words such as ‘free’ and ‘plus’ and added puffs in order to attract the reader’s attention and make them want to buy the magazine.

My contents page is structured with headings, sub headings, and then text to add more information and this is a repeated theme within music magazines as the audience wants to be informed and know what to expect and how to find the articles. It included a message from the editor and a subscription which again normally features in a music magazine.

. I followed the normal layout of a double page spread as well as i had an image first and then text with images throughout. This was because the audience are familiar with this style of layout, therefore will find it clear and easy to read. Overall I have kept to conventions of a music magazine as my magazine is quite mainstream, so I want to give the audience what they expect.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine is aimed mainly at females aged 16-21 who listen to mainstream music and that is why I chose to have a strong, empowered looking female artist on my front cover, as that would appeal to them and the way she is positioned also makes her seem quite sexual, so it will appeal to men, however it is aimed more towards women.

Also the anchorage text, ‘Life without J Cole’ is aimed more at young girls because they are more interested in the gossip behind what has happened, and men wouldn’t really be interested in an article about a break-up, where as girls will want to read it as they can probably relate to it.

my magazine will cost £2.00, which relates to how much my target audience will be willing to pay, as £2.00 is quite a reasonable price for a monthly magazine, and its cheap because my audience are mainly all students, therefore don’t have a lot of money, so £2.00 is an affordable price for them to pay.

My contents page and article is also very structured and neat, and I did this to attract a slightly older teenage audience, as if it looked messy it would seem childish, but because it’s neat it seems more sophisticated and will appeal more to older teenagers and young adults.

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

I think Bauer would probably be the best institution to distribute my magazine as they are one of the largest and already publish many music magazines, therefore probably have the most experience in that, as all the others only make a few. Also Bauer doesn’t just do magazines, they create websites and radio stations, so if I wanted my magazine to go further and perhaps branch out into radio, they have already done that, therefore it will be easy to do that with them as my distributer. Also they produce mainly well known, mainstream magazines on all genres of music, and as my magazine is mainly a pop/top forty/mainstream music magazine, they already have experience in distributing that sort of magazine; therefore I think they would be the best choice.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my music magazine is 16-21 year old girls who listen to mainstream music, however it isn’t a strict target audience as my house colours are not gender biased and my main image appeals to both a female and male audience as the pose is quite empowering and strong for women and can also been seen as quite sexual and provocative.

It’s not directed at a particular ethnicity as music is for everyone plus I have most races in all my photos so I am not directing it a particular ethnicity.

I have chosen this as my target audience because I wanted to show all different types of music, and my music magazine covers most of the popular ones.

How did you attract/address your audience?

As my magazine is a mainstream magazine, I decided to aim my images more at the pop and r and b genre, as most teenagers listen to that sort of music now, and they are normal the genres you will find within popular music. The different styles are shown in my images, as I show genres through them which again attract my target audience. My contents page images show mainly pop and r and b style images, as the costumes in the first two reflect more r and b artists, as they are dressed down, one with a big hat and the other with big headphones, so it gives off a more ghetto feel. Furthermore the mise-en-scene in those photos is a lot more dark and basic, and I think that represents that genre more as the music tends to be a bit more serious than pop music. My other images are more pop based as there more happy and fun, the mise-en-scene is played with more as one is a girl sitting in like a forest smiling, looking happy and the other is of someone in a phone box, again looking happy. This relates more to pop music as it tends to be more upbeat and about happy things. These will attract my target audience as its mainly pop and r and b music that is very popular and I address both genres, therefore my audience will be interested regardless of which one they prefer because they get a bit of both.

How did you attract/address your audience?

My main article is aimed at a female audience as it is all about getting over a break up and moving on from an ex-boyfriend, which a lot of young girls can relate to and it would interest them to find out what happened, where as a male audience wouldn’t really like to read about something like that. My magazine is quite organised, and this shows that its aimed at a slightly more sophisticated and older audience, as it has no crazy writing or random pieces of text, its sophisticated and neat, which would attract an older audience of 16-21 year old girls as the magazine seems less childish.

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

During the project I have learnt how to use a lot of different technologies in order to edit and put together all my work. In terms of production work I have used the adobe creative suit. I used Abode Photoshop to edit all of my pictures. Using Photoshop I changed some images to black and white, played with contrast and lighting effects.

I then used Adobe Illustrator to create my magazine, integrating the images with the texts and shapes I created. I

n order to take my images I had to use a digital camera, in which I used my own as it had different light settings. I played with these in order to get the perfect picture, for example when taking a close up I changed the mode to portrait as it made the image sharper.

To present all my work I created a blog, in which I had to organise posts and add links and images into. This was something new that I had to learn and use. I think presenting this in a blog worked well as i could show all my thought processes as well as my work.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In the progression I have learn many new skills especially in photo manipulation and in the conventions of magazines. In my preliminary task I didn’t chose to edit the photos at all, however all my photos used in my magazine were edited. I turned all the ones in the contents page into greyscale, added in lighting and shadow to my cover image and brightened all my feature images to make them look better. This made the images seem more professional and they looked so much better than the ones from my preliminary.

I think my layouts have improved, as I have looked at magazines and used a set house style with fonts and colours, so it looks more tied together and more professional.

I did a lot of research in the beginning as well so I knew a lot more about magazines and what needed to be included in them; therefore I had more knowledge to make it look better.