Question seven.

7:Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task (The School Magazine Task), What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To Full Product

I have learnt a lot since creating my college magazine. I learnt how to download different fonts from the internet which I didn't know how to do before, this helps a lot as you can get a lot of different types of font which help to make my magazine look more proffesional, whereas I didn't know how to do this whilst making my college magazine, so I just had to use the existing fonts already stored onto my laptop. I also learnt how to use adobe photoshop which help to create more profesional looking images, I previously did not know how to use photoshop, so used a more simplier photo editing programme for my college magazine called Piczo, however you could do a lot more on photoshop than you go on piczo, so it made the images look better. I also learnt how to make certain parts of the image transparent so I could place it on another images without that part obstructing the view. I have learnt more about the conventions of magazines by the time it came to creating my music one, so my music magazine looks more like you would expect a magazine to look than my college magazine did.

Question six.

6:What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process of Constructing This Product

I have used various different types of technology to complete my media magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. These different technologies and software include:

1. A digital camera, I used this to take all of my photographs for my media magazine, I then took the memory card out of my camera and put it in the laptop to store my images on.

2. Memory stick, I used this to transfer any information on it between different computers, such as my own laptop and college compters.

3. Dell laptop, this was the main computer that I used throughout creating my magazine, I was able to do everything on this and store all of my information on it, however I also used the computers in college when I was not in my home.

4. Microsoft powerpoint, I used this to create mainly my mock-ups on, I also used this to help me create my final versions of my front cover and contents page.

5. Microsoft word, I used this to write out all my notes from my research on, for example, I analysed the already existing magazines on Microsoft Word before putting it on my blog.

6. Microsoft publisher, I used this to create my double page spread and parts of my front cover and contents page.

7. Adobe photoshop, this was used to edit my images that I took for my magazine, like to crop bits out of the image that I do not need, or by changing the lighting on my image to suit its need for, such as making a photograph black and white.

8. Internet, I used this mainly to conduct my research on.

9. Blogger, I used this to keep my blog on and to update it saying what I have done and in what order I have done it in.

By using these different technologies a lot it has enabled me to learn to use them better; I had never used blogger at all before, or used microsoft publisher or adobe photoshop properly, so by having to use them a lot during the making of my magazine, it has taught me how to use them and I can now use all of these without help, such as I now know how to set up and complete a blog.

Question five.

5:How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience

My audience would get attracted to my magazine by the front cover of the magazine, as it has a list of bands on the front then it will attract my target audience of teenagers and young adults as my targeted social group is of those who listen to the type of music on my magazine. However, it also shows a little bit of different types of music, like my main story solo singer, this helps to attract a more wider audience. By having a female singer on the front and male band names it helps to attract both male and female, also the bands I have in my magazine are not all young bands so it won't only attract young people.

Question four.

4: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product

The target audience for my magazine would be both male and female music loving people, generally between the ages of 16 to 22. The image on the front of my magazine is of a female, however this is just one issue, the colours I have used on it do not favour neither males nor females and the music in it is relevant to both males and females. The language inside my magazine and the layout suggests that it is for younger people, as in teenagers and young adults. The target audience of my magazine will be interested in rock and indie music and will be interested in everything to do with music, such as the bands, concerts, reviews, when the next albums are out, etc...

Question three.

3: What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

I think that the media institution Bauer would be the best to distribute my media magazine. I think this would be the best media institution for this as it reaches a large amount of people, roughly about 20 million and operates in 15 countries worldwide meaning it would get to a lot of people. Bauer already distributes music magazines such a Q and Kerrang, which are a similar type of magazine to the one I will be distributing, so I know that they would be able to distribute it well as both Q and Kerrang are big selling magazines. Also if I used a different institution these magazines could become rivals and have competition between which sells the best, however as they are not in different ones instead of being rivals, they can help each other to sell.

Question two.

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

My magazine represents both female and males who listen to that type of music by the type of music I have shown in the magazine and also the colours that I have used throughout my magazine represent a more younger social group, like teenagers and young adults. My magazine isn't too extreme in anything that it contains in it, also the image that I have used on the front of the magazine is pretty normal looking, suggesting also that it just represents normal young people who are into their music.

Question one.

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


Whilst creating my music magazines front cover, contents page and double page spread, I conducted research on other popular music magazines in order to get a sense of the conventions of them. The two main colours in used throughout the whole of my magazine was black and red, these two colours both symbolise power and danger, which a rock magazine always has an element of. Also, these colours are bold and stand out, which most rock/indie magazines do. I used bold font as it would be easiest to see and all of the magazines that I looked at had bold, simple font, however the mast head uses a different font as it is the title of the magazine and the audience would identify my magazine by the mast head font. The mast head is on a photograph of a guitar nec that I took, one of the main conventions that you would see in a rock/indie magazine would be a guitar, so I have used this and placed it on my front cover and all throughout my magazine. My main image is of my singer holding a guitar, so again I have a guitar on my front cover, I chose to take my photograph like this as ona  lot of the music magazine I looked at the main image was of a band/singer, usually posing, not performing, but still somehow showing that they are singers, so by my model holding a guitar and standing infront of a graffitied wall it suggests that she is a singer and suggests what sort of singer she is, her instrument and where she is standing suggests she is a rock singer, however her clothes and body language suggest more of a indie singer. I created my model like this as she was previously in a rock band, however she split up from them and went solo, changing her image and music style slightly to a more toned down style, e.g. indie. In my double-page spread I created an interview with 'Katie', this follows the conventions of a music magazine as 'Katie' is my model on the front cover and all the magazines that I looked at had a main story in the magazine about the main image on the front page, so I created the double page spread about her, however this challenged the conventions of a rock magazine as I have created the main story on a single female singer/guitarist, as all of the magazines I looked at focused their main article on single guy singers or a band full of guys. This will interest the audience into buying it as it is something different, so will stand out more and most likely introduce them to a new type of music. I used words such as 'haha', and 'phew' in my interview as in magazines like this one the interviews are usually chatty and informal, but whilst getting information at the same time, so I created my interview like them ones. Also, on the front of the magazine I used words such as 'plus' and 'win' as these are what are expected on magazines. The double page spread continues with my theme colours and so does the contents page. In contents pages that I have seen, they have images them and there is always something about a concert review, so I used this and got a photograph of one of the concerts that I have been to and used this image on my contents page. My magazine does have a lot of the conventions of magazines, however I have also made it my own by challenging the conventions as well.