MY MEDIA EVALUATION

Jessica Mackenzie

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

media products? My media product is a magazine of mixed genres. Throughout making my magazine I was influenced by different magazines such as Q and NME, theses magazines have a much wider audience than those such as top of the pop. Then more people would be more willing to buy and read the magazine I have created. Whilst still sticking to pop, r&b and rock music it would then increase the number and type of people interested.

The colour, fonts and images all work together and define the genre of my magazine. With the three main colours being red, black and white it means that my magazine has a wider audience as these colours do not have stereo types, such as colours like pink and purple for girls. They are more bold and simple colours, drawing attention to the magazine. The font I used for my front page was FangSong, I kept to one font so it would stick to the simplicity of my magazine. I have made sure that the fonts and size of my writing stands out so that it draws attention from the audience.

Another thing I have added is the barcode for the magazine. All magazines have this so I found it important to create one for my product.

The main image on my magazine is straight on and is a close up of above the shoulders. This creates eye contact with the audience and draws them in. I have also edited the image so that it creates a more friendly setting, making sure the lighting is right. My magazine uses conventions and forms of other magazines as the model on most magazines is a female solo artist and I have chosen my model carefully to address this.

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

Particular social groups including teens and above are represented in my product by the way I have created it. I have made sure that it would catch the eyes of that particular group by the images, colours and design. The colours are simple and can be liked by many, the images are attention grabbing towards the people I want to be interested. People who are interested in music will clearly be interested as the magazine is based on music, similar to existing magazine like Q and NME.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product

and why? I believe that distributes such as Bauer Media Group will be ideal for my media product. Q is published by Bauer and because I was influenced by this magazine it has aspect similar to it, therefor this institution would be most likely to distribute my magazine. Bauer Media Group is a multinational media company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany which operates in 15 countries worldwide. This shows us that it is very well known because of how successful it is, this would be

great for my magazine to get well known and popular.

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

The audience that would be most interested in my media product would most likely be teens and younger adults who have a fond interest in music. My magazine Influence includes the most up-to-date music and news that this type of audience would be interested in. It includes gossip from what would be popular musicians and singers; this is what teens like to read. They like to keep on top of what their role models are up to and find out all the interesting things.

Here is my contents page, it shows what my target audience would be interested in. For example the V-fest competition, this is a popular event that many of this age group would attend.

In this image the band being shown are of an age group similar to the target audience. This would engage the age group more as they will be interested in the success of someone of their own age.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The best way I could attract my audience was to add colour and make it stand out from all the other magazines that exist, making it unique whilst still being influenced by other magazines. The colours I have chosen were all bold and relate to the sorts of music in the magazine. I made sure that all the writing on the front was bold and would draw the readers in by keeping the headlines minimalistic whilst making them want to continue to read. By adding an image that was eye level to the audience it makes them feel as though their being looked at which again draws attention to it.

This is my masthead on my front cover and it shows the colours I have used throughout my magazine, somehow linking the genre of music it includes. Black and red are quite dominant colours so shows that my magazine will be dominant in the market and able to stand out from the rest.

The name influence shows an importance in the music industry towards the age group its aimed at, as music is something that’s involved with their everyday life. Making my magazine very ‘Influential’.

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

There’s a wide range of technology, I have used a lot that has gone towards creating my magazine. Programmes such as publisher, paint and even fireworks have all been used to either set out my magazine or add images or edit the final copy. An important part of creating my magazine was to make sure the images were right. This would include a high quality camera and the ability to edit the images; I used things such as Photoshop and online programmes such as picnik. All these were used to create the friendly and welcoming front cover I wanted whilst also adding an edge to it. Fireworks was good to use for adjusting the position of picture or writing whilst also adding affects to the magazine. Photoshop and picnik worked best for editing my images so they were good enough for my magazine and there was a big variety of effects and tools I could use. Whilst publisher was used to create the fonts and different styles of writing that I used.

This is the camera I used to take the pictures for my photo shoot.

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

it to the full product?

My final task has been a lot more successful that my preliminary task because I was able to stand back and evaluate my preliminary task and decide what I could do better to create my music magazine. I took more time planning what and how I was going to create things. I noticed that it was important to take more time taking and editing my images for my pages as they attract a lot of attention. I was more aware that I needed to use a bigger variety of programmes to get my magazine aesthetically pleasing to the public eye. I experimented with more programmes and more technology to see what was right for my product.

I also completed a questionnaire so I was able to get the opinions of my target audience.