OCR Media Studies – AS Level

Unit G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media

Evaluation

Name: Hannah D’SouzaCandidate Number: 6827Center Name: St. Paul’s Catholic CollegeCenter Number: 64770

Set Brief - PrintMusic Magazine – Production

Preliminary Task, Log Book and Evaluation

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

For this coursework, I was asked to create a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. The magazine I created is called ‘Melody’, which lies in the Pop genre and is targeted to young girls ages 12-18. I used ‘Top of the Pops’ as my magazine of inspiration as it is considered one of the top Pop magazines in the UK. To ensure that I wasn’t ‘reinventing the wheel’, I replicated a lot of conventions from my magazine of inspiration. For example, the structure and layout of my front cover and contents page were very similar to ‘Top of the Pops.’ This form of ‘repetition’ (Steve Neale) enabled my magazine to achieve a professional look and got it up to a high quality standard. I also repeated the house style which included the colours, masthead, web-address, magazine logo across the four pages to create brand identity and awareness of that magazine. Furthermore, I repeated the placement of the stories on the front cover as you can see below. The masthead and the puff were also placed in the same place as my magazine of inspiration.

However, I did include some examples of ‘difference’ within my magazine, where I didn’t replicate some of my magazine’s conventions completely, to ensure I created some ‘difference’ between my magazine and my magazine of inspiration to promote the magazine I created. For example, for my double page spread, I laid out the interview so that it was on both pages. This was because, I would be able to add more detail in the conversation of the interview and keep the audience interested in reading more. My magazine of inspiration on the other hand, had a whole side of the double page with the image of the artist, and I didn’t like this layout, which is why I didn’t include this convention in the magazine I created.

The use of repetition and difference within the created magazine, ensures that the magazine would be original in its own way, although including some traits that make it look professional to the audience. The use of ‘difference’ within my own magazine helped me challenge the ‘norm’s’ of the magazines in the Pop genre and make my magazine look professional.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Through the four pages of my magazine, I have used conventions that would relate to the Pop genre. According to socio-economic needs, my magazine would appeal to the ‘B’ and ‘E’ demographics, which would be creative media people, graphic designers and also unemployed people like students. This would not effect my target audience as I’m focusing on teenage girls that are in education.

In my opinion, my magazine would appeal to teenage girls the most as they would generally have a lot of time on their hands and therefore want to read something that would interest them. In this instance, teenagers usually look up to a lot of artists as their idols and have ‘celebrity guy crushes’ like Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran. This is because young teenage girls are stereotypically associated with liking young female artists like Ellie Goulding and Selena Gomez especially in the Pop genre as they feel they could connect with them due to the fact that they’re a similar age. Therefore, my magazine would appeal to them. Therefore, they would want to read about their favourite artists and learn more about them, which is why my magazine would appeal to them. It could also be targeted to the male gender however, this could be anti-stereotypical, but the conventions of my magazine are targeted to female.

The artist used in my magazine and is presented across the 4 pages is meant to be an aspiring artist that has become famous and that is going to inspire young teenagers. The pictures portray the artist as fun and energetic. This is due to the fact that teenagers are generally enthusiastic and will be able to engage with the artist featured in the magazine. Furthermore, the majority of my target audience will be within the age group of 12-24, this is because this is the stage where people are still growing up into adults where the still like to mess about.

Furthermore, the ‘two step flow model theory’ (Katz and Lazarsfeld-1955) would work well with my magazine as the Pop stars featured in famous music magazines as ‘Opinion leaders’ and the audience would be the individuals in contact with the social leader. This theory is applied to my magazine as people would look at the Pop star featured in my magazine and want aspire to be like her through the main story of her road to fame.

What kind of media institution (Publisher) might distribute your media

product and why?From the research that was completed pre-production, my magazine of inspiration, ‘Top of the Pops’ was published by ‘Immediate Media Co-operation’ that features chart music, quizzes, posters. ‘Immediate Media Corp’ would want to publish my magazine as they would look at ‘Melody’ as a competitor with Top of the Pops because they’re in the same genre of music.

I would also envisage that EMI may publish ‘Melody’ because as they are a production that is very successful in terms of marketing their magazines and are extremely successful with their UK and US headquarters with a thousand ‘Number 1’s’ in the last 85 years. They have also published over 1.3m songs in the EMI publishing catalogue which include a variety of genres. They’ve also been ‘Billboard Publisher of the Year’ for 12 years which signifies their importance. Therefore, if they were the producers of ‘Melody’ my magazine would recieve the publicity it needs to further my magazine branding.

Additionally, ‘Bauer Media’ would be a suitable publisher for my magazine as they don’t publish a Pop magazine yet. However, they do publish many famous music magazines like ‘Q’ Magazine and ‘Kerrang’ magazine. This would further my magazine brand to a wider audience due to the fact that fans of ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Q’ magazine would be exposed to another genre of music.

Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

Hartley’s seven subjectivities

By looking at Hartley’s seven subjectivities, I can state that the audience for my media product is aimed at teenage girls aged 12-24, which is why the colours and cover stories featured in it would appeal to the younger audience. For example, the colour ‘pink’ is stereotypically portrayed as a feminine colour. Hence, my magazine features a lot of pink and purple colours. Furthermore, for class, according to the socio economic needs, my magazine falls into the ‘B’ and ‘E’ category which clearly signifies how creative people and media people like graphic designers would be interested in my the presentation of my magazine. Also, unemployed people like students would be interested in my magazine due to their age, which is why my magazine is aimed at them.

Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theory

Katz’ Uses & Gratifications states that audiences are able to build a personal relationship with the editor of the magazine through the editors letter. Therefore, due to this, they are able to form a relationship with the magazine as well. The audience are also able to learn a lot about the artists featured in the magazine through the magazine as the magazine informs and educates the audience about the artists. Below is a screen grab of the part of my editors letter where I feel the audience will be able to build a personal relationship with the editor. Also, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are excellent ways for audience to learn more about the magazine.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs my magazine would appeal to social climbers as they would be interested in the latest updates about their favourite artist. Furthermore, it would also appeal to explorers who want to know the newest Pop artist in society. This is very relevant to my magazine as the main story of my magazine is an interview with a new Pop artist and so would appeal to explorers. Survivors would also be interested in my magazine as, as fans of their favourite artists, would want to know their artists welfare in the music industry and would therefore be interested in reading about their music lives. For example, the latest single coming out.

How did you attract/address your audience? In order to attract the intended target audience of my magazine ‘Melody’, I decided to take an eye catching picture for my front cover to attract the audiences attention. I did this due to the results gathered through the planning and research task using survey monkey as 66.67% of people asked, said they would be attracted to a magazine because of the main image. I also chose the name ‘Melody’ for the masthead of the magazine as it reflects the genre of music clearly and gives the audience the idea of the Pop music it will feature. Additionally, I made sure the headline of my magazine was interesting and appealing to the target audience. Hence, I decided to introduce a new artist to the Pop genre. I did this due to the feedback received through the planning and research which stated that 50% of people asked said that the headline of the main story featured would interest them in the magazine.

I also used an interesting puff for a One Direction competition to attract the audience as my magazine is aimed at teenage girls and are stereotyped to being fans of boy bands like One Direction. Hence, the puff would appeal to them and attract t hem to magazine making them want to buy it just to win tickets to see the boy band. Also, the use of the lexis ‘exclusive’ gives importance to the main story and attracts the audience attention as well. Hence, interesting them in the magazine. The featuring of the free posters at the bottom of the front cover also promote the magazine to a wider range of audience as teenagers would be fascinated by this.

For the main double page spread story, I wrote an interview of the artist to appeal to the audience, so that the audience can learn more about the artist through it. The puff featured in my magazine helps promote it to a wider audience range as One Direction are seen as a popular teenage brand and younger people would generally be interested in it. The cover stories featured Pop artists like Selena Gomez that would interest the audience as well and would also further the magazine brand.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product? The denotation of the software used to construct the media product entitled ‘Melody’ was Adobe Photoshop CS4 to make my magazine. Through my prelim task, and a lesson with the Academy Class in London, I was familiar with the tools of Photoshop and the and how to use them effectively. For example, I used the pen-tool for the interview on my double page spread to write around the texts. This helped my magazine achieve a higher quality of production and gave it a more professional look. I also used it for the drop capital at the beginning of my interview for a more professional look. Furthermore, the use of the swatches pallet help me achieve house style for my magazine across all four pages as I used the exact same colour for consistency. These helped my magazine look fit for purpose for the specific target audience as well. I received this idea from my magazine of inspiration as most professional magazine tend to use the pen tool for a better effect around the text.

I had to edit my pictures across all four pages and make sure they looked professional. For example, to get rid of the background of an image I used the Quick Selection tool and the quick-mask tool tool and then selected ‘inverse’ and removed the background. This was a quick easy method that helped me get outstanding results across all four pages.

Additionally, I used different fonts taken from ‘www.dafont.com’ throughout my magazine. This is because this website is of exceptional quality and has over hundreds of different types of fonts which would appeal to the ‘Pop’ genre of my magazine. To make it look even more professional, I used different fonts on each page of my magazine. For example, I used a font for the masthead that I kept consistent throughout all pages and used a different font for the interview to show variation. Throughout this coursework, I’ve learnt about different websites to help with my coursework like ‘www.dafont.com’ and ‘www.picmonkey.com’ to edit the pictures for my magazine across all four pages as the website gives the pictures a professional, yet natural look.

Photography Planning – Front CoverTo ensure that the pictures featured in my magazine were up to an exceptional standard of quality, I had to plan when, where and how I wanted to take the pictures, keeping in mind the results I obtained from the questionnaire and survey I sent out for my magazine.

Through Facebook, I asked my friend Jessica to model for me as she is the ‘typical teenage girl’ I needed to feature in my magazine. Her bubbly personality, would work well with my magazine aimed at teenage girls. In order to portray this clearly, I had to ensure that the pictures I took would demonstrate evidence of her personality.

Therefore, for the front cover, I asked her to bring out her childish personality. I got her to pose like she’s having fun, like jumping in the air, pulling a funny face, laughing and looking ‘cute’ and ‘young.’ In the end I decided to use the one of her jumping as it really brought out the fun, young, teenager look I was looking for.

I also asked her to dress ‘casually’ by wearing a black hoodie and vans to show the audience the normal ‘scruffy’ teenager. I focused most on the main image and cover story the most as the questionnaire I carried out made it clear the those conventions are what interests the audience most.

After taking the pictures, I emailed them to my school account and inserted them into my magazine.

Photography Planning - Contents

For the contents page of my magazine, used Facebook again to communicate with the people I wanted as my models. I decided to meet up with them after school, or went to their house to take the pictures.

As these pictures were going to be posters and cover pictures for cover stories, I asked them to dress like the artist they were playing. For example, I asked the girl playing ‘Selena Gomez’ to look ‘cute’ yet classy, just like Selena Gomez is. I also wanted to feature Selena Gomez in my magazine as she is a Disney star and teen artist and therefore, is well known to a lot of teens.

Photography Planning - Interview

For the interview of my magazine, I met up with Jessica at her house. I used texts, this time to plan when to meet up and what I would need her to wear. This time I asked to pose in a more relaxed and calm manner, to create magazine photo-shoot effect for the double page.

This would enable the page to look professional and exactly like a pop magazine. The main focus of the double page is to interest the audience in the article, therefore I made sure the pictures didn’t stand out more than the interview, although making sure it did capture the audience’s attention and keep them interested by having attractive images to go with the article.

Analysing my Front CoverWeb address: Right at

the top to attract audience attention and promote the magazine.

Strapline: Used to help sell the magazine.

Masthead: In bold across the page to

promote the magazine

Cover stories: Include star appeal (Richard Dyer) of well

known artists to the audience.

Quiz: Used to engage the audience

Some of the images of examples of posters that the magazine will

feature.

Social networking links promote the

magazine to a wider audience.

Barcode, date and issue number makes the magazine look

professional.

‘Bauer media’ are the publishers of this

magazine and therefore, their logo is

inserted here.

Subheading: Gives the audience a bit more information

about the main story

Name of celebrity featured in big, to attract the audience and show star

appeal (Richard Dyer).

“exclusive” shows importance of the

interview

Other cover stories to promote magazine

Price with the logo of the magazine

Puff: to keep the audience interested and promote

the magazine.

Analysing my Contents Page

Social networking links and web address to

promote the magazine to a wider audience.

Image of front cover- To add some variation

to the contents by inserting arrows to the

specific pages.

‘Inside your mag’ this shows repition (Steve

Neale) from my magazine of inspiration.

The headings are also repeated from my magazine of inspiration and are categorised

according to the stories.

The page numbers are in different colours to add some variation to the contents. The brief of the story is also in a different colour for the same

reason.

Images of posters at the bottom to interest the audience with the page number they’re

on/

Web address at the bottom to show consistency and promote the magazine.

Page number

Smaller image of the puff that was also portrayed on the front cover to

keep the audience ‘hooked’ or interested in the magazine.

Editors letter to create a ‘Personal relationship’ (Katz)

with the target audience.

Editors picture to work with the editors letter and to give the audience an idea of what the editor

looks like.

‘Contents’ in big, bold letters to attract the audience and inform

them of where they can find what they’re looking for.

Smaller replica of the masthead to demonstrate consistency

within the magazine and promote it.

Analysing my Double Page spread Interview

Masthead: To show

consistency and promote the

magazine brand

The ‘exclusive’ shows the

importance of the article and attracts

attention

Page number

Web address: To promote the magazine brand and

give the audience a chance to look for more online.

Standfirst: With a drop capital to show

beginning of the introduction and attract attention.

Caption: For the picture to

give more information about the

image.

Quote: I used this to appeal to the audience as it’s an important part of the article. I also used the pen-tool to insert it

between the texts.

Editors details: To build a

relationship with the audience

Social networking

links: To promote the magazine.

Images: To interest the

audience and grab their attention

Interview: Name of Interviewer and

interviewee in pink and question in blue to keep consistency in colour and add some variation.

Name of artist in bold to stand out.

Headline: Attention

grabbing as it’s a big bold quote

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

I feel that having completed both production pieces, of the preliminary task and learning about the demands of this production, I’ve learnt what the expectations of the targeted audience’s are and when they look at a magazine. For example, the front cover for my final version looks more conventional because it has more features compared to my prelim task. I made sure it looked attractive and that there weren’t any blank spaces, to give the audience a variety of articles and pictures to look through and keep them interested in the magazine. I also made sure the final version of my magazine pages had a consistent house-style throughout. This is evident in my magazine masthead and web-address. Furthermore, the use of Adobe Photoshop CS4, helped my get my pictures to a higher standard. For example, the use of the pen tool around the text of my interview. This helped me get my interview to a professional level.

In the prelim task, my use of Adobe Photoshop wasn’t to a very high standard due to the fact that I didn’t how to use most of the tools. For example, ‘Quick mask tool’ for my images. However, my music magazine was much better and professional as I learnt how to use the same tool more effectively and to a better standard. I also felt my time management improved throughout the whole course, especially during my prelim task compared with the final music magazine. This was mainly because I felt much more comfortable using Photoshop and learnt shortcuts to use my time effectively.

Overall I feel my magazine is conventional and appeals to its target audience. This is proven through the audience feedback I gathered from people of those ages. However, the negative aspects within the front cover of my prelim task is the fact that there’s a lot of white space. Although, I did make sure to cover up all blank areas in the final version of my magazine. I am proud of the progress made from the prelim task to my final version and look forward to completing a similar task in the future.