1. What ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products ?

2. Using Conventions of Music
Magazines
When constructing the music magazine I wanted to keep to the
conventions of the magazine industry, as I wanted to make sure that
my magazine could be produced by a publisher.
To achieve this technique I looked at existing music magazines, that
focused on the genre of music that I wanted my music magazine to
focus on. By doing this I was able to see what features and
techniques are used in magazine production, and what features are
used in certain areas of magazines.
Other conventions that I have used during the construction are the
techniques such as drop cap, pull quote, masthead, byline, body
copy, end blob and a cover line are some of the many conventions
that I have applied to the magazine. I have applied these techniques
to create a professional quality to the magazine, so that it can
achieve a publishing standard. These conventions could also appeal
to my target audience as the features are related to their needs and
interests.

3. Developing conventions
During the construction of the product I wanted to achieve a magazine
that had the normal conventions of a music magazine, but used the
conventions to a further level. By doing this the product becomes more
appealing as the conventions are used for different aspects of the
magazines, but remain eye-catching to the target audience.
I developed the conventions that I had already applied to the product by
applying the feedback which was received from my target audience in the
form of a questionnaire. From the results I was able to determine what
kind of house style would be best suited for the product in terms of what
my target audience wanted, and applied these to the conventions that
were used.
For example I used the convention of the body copy in the double page
spread, and applied the genre of the magazine and the age and gender
of the audience to what the feature would contain. I changed the
formality of the main text, and the subject so that it could relate to the
target audience and the house style of the magazine. This added to the
continuity of the overall product.

4. Challenging Conventions
Through out the construction of the product, I was
constantly making sure that I was applying the
conventions to my magazine, however in some areas I
challenge the typical conventions of the magazine. The
challenging of conventions is difficult, as if a
convention is not meet the magazine may not appeal to
the target audience or meet publishing standards.
In relation to this I chose not to challenge many
conventions, as I wanted to make sure that my
magazine would appeal to the intended audience,
without taking away from the main focus on the
magazine. This could prove to be a wrong decision as
the magazine is too similar to existing magazines and
therefore would not attract my target audience.
The features that I
challenged during
the production of the
music magazine,
were based around
the overall layout.
Through the analysis
of existing music
magazine, from the
same genre, I could
see that a convention
was to use lots of
images.
However during the
Production of the magazine, I made the
decision to only use a few images. This
went against the conventions of existing
magazines.