1. evaluation of my music magazine coursework emma whitehand

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My media product uses conventions that are already used in well established magazines. It has a house style like magazines that are sold in shops do. Masthead. Shows the name of the magazine and it’s slogan in big bold letters to attract readers. Other magazines that I researched, such as Kerrang! and NME also had very big mast heads at the top of the front page. I used what I thought to be the most shocking part of my article for the pull quote on the cover which is used to pull readers in so they buy the magazine to read the story. I did this because music magazines that are already popular usually do this and I wanted to go with the already established conventions of music magazines.

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups? The readers of my magazine would get quite a good impression of the people featured in my magazine because I have tried to show that my made-up celebrity is quite hard on the outside to fit her style of music but is actually a very nice girl. I wanted my character to come across as quite a glamorous and pop star-y type of person but I also wanted her to be a nice girl and not at all narcissistic like some celebrity stereotypes. I made sure to keep her quite down to earth and most of all to make her likeable because that way I know that she will be similar to some already famous people such as Lady Gaga or Jessie J who both have completely unique styles but are wildly liked by many different groups of people. “This was fun. I hope all my future interviews are like this. Thanks!” These two quotes for the interview show that even though she is now famous and considered a celebrity she still remembers the people that were there before and she is very down to earth “I did have some friends. The ones you can depend on, y’know? Now that I’m…famous, I still talk to them. Its not like I’ve turned diva. I’m totally down to earth.“

4. She is supposed to be quite a young celebrity or teen superstar it could help people of her age group that listen to this type of music be seen in a better light. I decided that it would be important to keep my fake celebrity young because then she is more likely to appeal to my target audience, which is teenagers from around 13-19. I chose this age range because it is what I know most about seeing as I am in that age band myself so I thought I would be able to identify what people of this age want from a music magazine. This image of her that I used in my magazine shows her hiding most of her face which makes her look very innocent which should help people to see that she is just a young girl making music. The fact that I have made her look innocent and friendly helps keep up her images of just a nice young girl which I wanted her to have to attract the right audience to my magazine.

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Bauer is a German company that publishes Kerrang! Magazine, which I believe is one of the closest magazines to my own. Kerrang is the closest magazine to my own because of the type of music that it specializes in. Kerrang covers mostly rock and alternative bands which my magazine also covers.

6. IPC Media is the company that publishes NME magazine. This magazine is also quite close to what I cover in my magazine, because the music I cover isn’t as rock as Kerrang! But more so than NME, so I think that one of these publishers would be good for my magazine.

7. Who would be the audience for your media product? The audience for my music magazine would be people of my age or maybe from 13+ who are interested in pop-rock/alternative music more than any other type. I think that my magazine is suitable for this target audience because I have tried to keep it quite young looking and friendly. However, I used this font for my fake celebrity’s name because I thought it looked quite edgyand not too formal, which younger people seem to like. This could be because it makes them seem more rebellious which is a stereotypical trait of teenagers.

8. How did you attract/address your audience? I attracted my audience by using words such as “we” and “you” which is a device used to make the reader feel more involved in what is being read. This is a device used by people when they want to draw in an audience and keep them hooked. An example if this is my strapline, where I use the word we to make the audience feel like they are a part of it: where we take a different look at music.

9. In the box with the subscription offer, I wrote it very informally, which should appeal to the younger audience that I am targeting. I also made sure not to outright say “you should subscribe to us” which sounds almost as if the people are being told what to do which would probably turn readers off from actually subscribing. I almost died on stage— and I loved it! I also used this pull quote on my front cover of a very exiting and intriguing part of my article. I used this particular quote because I thought it would attract readers. I kept the reason why she “almost died” a secret until the actual article in the magazine because if I had put that on the cover then people would have just looked at the cover and thought “oh” and left without buying it. Keeping the reason in the article will convince more people to buy the magazine because they will want to know what happened.

10. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Whilst making this project, I learned more about the photo editing website, Picnik, that I used. I learned that rotating an image can give it a completely different feel. For example: The image on the left was turned into the image on the right, which I think is a much nicer image of her face and you can see her eyes which makes her seem more human and connects to the audience better.

11. I also learned how to group objects together, which made it a lot easier to move things around on my magazine. As you can see, here I have grouped the images and the names so if I were to move them they would all move together rather than me moving them one at a time. By moving them all at the same time I was able to keep the distances in between the images the same which is useful if you have set them all out exactly as you wanted

12. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? From the preliminary task, I have learned that contents pages need to be a lot fuller and have more information on them, otherwise its not really worth having one. I also noticed from the preliminary that the fonts used need to stand out a lot like they do on my music magazine because it makes the magazine look more interesting and professional. Looking at my preliminary contents page, I think the arrows make the page look almost childish and I am glad that I did not continue using them on the music magazine.

13. I have also learned from making the preliminary magazine that it is quite good to have a more busy front page because it gives the audience more to look at and makes it look more professional and appealing. I also think that the masthead on my music magazine is a lot better than the one on the preliminary because it does not have a solid colour background so that more the main image of Daisy can be seen behind it. I also made the strapline smaller on the music magazine which makes it look less important than the main title of the magazine, which I think it should be.