The document contains responses to evaluation questions about a media magazine project. It summarizes how the magazine challenges conventions through its typeface design. It discusses how the magazine represents its target rock music audience and why it would be distributed both physically and online by Bauer Media Group. Audience research with questionnaires was conducted to understand what the target 16-25 year old demographic wanted from a music magazine.
2. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
■ The type of media product I chose was a magazine.A magazine is defined as a
periodical publication containing articles and illustrations. Magazine conventions
encourage the reader to read the magazine.Without these conventions, the reader
would not know just by looking at the magazine if the magazine was right for them.
■ The way my magazine challenge a convention was in it’s typeface. Just by looking at
my typeface, you can tell it would be on a rock-type magazine, and wouldn’t find it on
an indie-type magazine for example. However, my typeface is a mix between sans
serif and serif. Comparing figure 1 and 2, my typeface clearly shows a mix of serif and
sans serif which normally wouldn’t be on a magazine however my magazine does
showing some of the edges of letters to be more extended than what it would have
been if it were sans serif.
Figure 1
From my
magazine
Figure 2
Shows the
difference between
sans serif and serif
3. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
■ Representation is the descriptive way of showing
someone or something in a particular way, this
case a magazine.
■ Figure 3 shows and stereotypical rock-genre
magazine. I chose Kerrang as it is the same genre
as my magazine. Conventionally, the cover lines
would be on the left side of the magazine, like
they are in figure 3.They are conventionally on
the left because magazines are normally stacked
on top of each other so you can see the cover
lines of each magazine. However my magazine
has the cover lines at the bottom of the front
cover, not conventionally on the left side. I did
this because I had two models in my front cover
photo, and I did not want one of them to be
completely covered up by the cover lines, so I
decided to put them at the bottom.
Figure 3 Kerrang Magazine Figure 4 My Magazine
4. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
■ I would distribute my magazine as a physical copy and have an online version.This is
because my target audience is 16-25 year olds so many of these younger people would
be more online than older people. However, it is good to have a physical copy as some
people do not like using online transactions because of safety and a physical copy
often engages the reader more.
■ The publisher for my magazine will be Bauer Media Group which I also spoke about in
the press release. I have chosen Bauer Media Group because they have published over
600 magazine and already have three magazines as the same genre as my magazine,
and the biggest rock-type magazine in the Uk, Kerrang magazine.
5. Who would be the audience for your media
product?
■ In the 1950’s, a theory was created by Katz and Lazarsfeld.This
theory is known as theTwo-Step Flow theory (Figure 5) and it was
suppose to show how the majority of people receive information
but our influenced by the opinion leaders.
Figure 5
■ Another theory is the Reception theory created by
Stuart Hall in the 1980’s (Figure 6). He states that there
are encoding (Sings and Codes) and decoding (Audience
interpretations) in media. Either the audience will
accept them as ‘Dominant’, ‘Oppose’ them and create
their own meaning or ‘Negotiate’ the meanings and
share some of the publisher’s but oppose the rest.
Figure 6
6. Who would be the audience for your media
product?
■ In order to find out what people wanted in
my magazine, I gave them a questionnaire
to fill out so I could know what my target
audience wanted from a music magazine.
People responded that they wanted
questionnaires in my magazine so in my
magazine I have a lot of questionnaires
(Figure 7) as people wanted to know about
the lives of the biggest bands.This means
people want to stay up-to date with the
bands they normally listen to, too find out
about more music and news about them.
Figure 7 my contents page
7. How did you attract/address your
audience?
■ When constructing my magazine, I wanted to ensure my
magazine attracted my target audience of 16-25 year olds, who
enjoy listening to rock music. I did this by first, constructing a
questionnaire to give to people of my target audience so I knew
what they wanted to see in my magazine. People wanted to see
questionnaires in my magazine so by adding questionnaires in
the finished product, more people would be attracted to the
magazine because it has what the people wanted in it. Another
way I attracted my audience is by having two models who are
similar to my target age range, and style (figure 4).This would
mean more people who be attracted to the magazine seeing
someone similar to themselves because they can relate to the
persons in the front cover.
Figure 4 My Magazine
8. What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?
■ One of the things I have learnt about technologies is that it is good to have a back-up
storage drive in place. My ram on my desktop got full up have way through the unit so
I copied most of my work onto the external drive so I had more space and had the
knowing that if the system crashed I would still have all my work.
■ Another thing I have learnt to do is use Photoshop and InDesign and also Premiere Pro
at some stages of my coursework. Before I started the course, I did not know how to
use any of the programs, but now I can say confidently, I can use all the software
needed for the coursework.
9. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
Figure 4 Figure 8 My College Magazine
• As we can see from figure 4 and 8, I feel
I have improved from the preliminary
task in my skills. In figure 8, the master
head doesn’t look as crisp or fit in as
well compared to figure 4’s master
head. Also in figure 4, the colour
scheme goes much better together
than the red and grey scale of figure 8.
