Kay Murphy evaluated their magazine project. They chose to model their magazine after NME Rock/Indie music magazines to represent the conventions of that genre. Their magazine uses bright colors and images of bands to attract their target audience of 16+ music fans of both genders. They have learned how to effectively use Photoshop and other technologies to construct their magazine product and represent a media genre and social group. Through research and practice, they improved their skills and understanding of the magazine format and targeting audiences.

1. Magazine Evaluation
Kay Murphy

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
• Throughout my magazine, I have shown a number of conventions to
show my magazine genre clearly through different attempts of
challenging the magazines expectations. I chose NME Rock/Indie
music magazine as a template The black background works well
with colours of Red, Blue, Yellow and White on top of the black to
contrast and make stand out. A main image in the centre of the
front cover links to what rock magazines I researched and the
conventions that are shown such as puffs and plugs, advertise on
Rock magazines to the information. Medium Close up and Mid Shot
and Long Shot match to NME. They use the camera shots through
every issue they publish on their magazine which is my template, I
have used these camera shots for that purpose. All images are in
colour, as this magazine is filled with a lot of colourful colours on
this magazine already, it works a lot more. I did try with all images
being black and white but it didn’t have the same affect with the
colours. It shouts out to you lots more which is what I want.

3. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
• My media product represents social groups especially for
Rock/Indie music lovers. Rock is a very ‘in your face’ genre
so choosing bright colours and conventions to attract
others with the amount of information expressed in my
magazine, links to the target audience. A before, I thought
to go along with creating an Indie magazine, through my
research and creating the indie magazine, I decided that it
wasn’t going anywhere. There wasn’t any specific
conventions that would defiently show a target audience
member that it’s an Indie Magazine. Deciding to start again,
I began to create a Rock magazine. Conventions and target
audience will defiently show that my new magazine is a
Rock magazine from colours, conventions, main image,
puffs etc. It made the process a lot easier as well.

4. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
• I chose Bauer Media Group as this institution owns and publishes many different
magazines. The magazine categories mainly are women’s weekly’s, TV listing
magazines and music magazines. Q Magazine for example now have been
expanded from your magazine to TV and radio which is used to advertise and
make profit but also advertising their products that they own. They have a website
that informs news, shops and links to other products. The music area is a very big
portion that the institution have prize in for the likes of music video channels, such
as the very popular 4Music. This channel will contain adverts in between videos
gaining much profit as it’s common channel directing to the younger audience
which most advertisements will be centred upon. Institutions control its
distribution, for instance it may be advertised in other ways being their media
products on main channels. They sell magazines in big stores as they try and
appeal it to as many people as possible to make more profit. The products have
media conventions within them which people recognise easily which continuously
helps its admiration to regulars who buy/watch/listen etc. All these media
products that are shares of the Bauer Media Group will gain maximum of their
profits from the advertisers they get to act in their media products.

5. Who would be your target audience for
your media product?
• Both genders for 16+. This is because the age I
have chosen seems suitable. Rock is a deep and
hard genre that can contain strong language in
some magazines I read whilst researching. 16+
understand and develop more in depth what
music is and what genres they prefer and listen
too. They are enticed into bands, duo or solo
artists. Rock are known for band and their
instruments play a highlight through main images
on magazines which is why I used images that
showed a band with instruments as well in the
picture.

6. How did you attract/address your
audience?
• I attracted my audience through my magazines with bright colour
scheme throughout addressing both male and female. My images
were all centre of Long shots/Mid shots to show who the magazine
with be based on and it’ll attract the audience and especially target
audience from the main cover line advertising the band more
closely. As before when creating an Indie magazine, I was using
minimal colours and minimal conventions to grab the audiences
attention. The colour scheme was green and purple over a black
background. Looking back, there were no structure to the Indie
magazine as their were no information at all over all 3 products I
created. So deciding to go along with creating a Rock magazine,
seemed very easier to create. I have a colour scheme that links to
my chosen genre, Puffs and taglines giving an insight to the
magazine and drawing in audience. The Indie magazine was lacking
in all of those things.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?
• At the very beginning, we started off with a
lesson on Photoshop which helped me learn the
basics such as editing, font, colour, etc and
progressed a lot through the process of creating
my magazine. I have learnt a lot more than I did
at the beginning as at the start I wasn’t very
steady when editing a photo. I have used a
camera to capture my own pictures for my
magazine and edited those using Photoshop
learning different editing tools along the way to
cut even the finest detail such as Lasso tool.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the
fully product?
• Through the process, I have become much stronger
through my work and myself as at the start not
knowing how to use any tools on Photoshop, to now
using every tool on the side bar that could help me
through my work. I now have more of an
understanding of music magazine genres and any
target audience after applying such research in my own
work when producing my own magazine to attract my
audience whether it being colours or the main image
etc. Plus, I now understand that genre is a key part
when selecting your target audience through the music
that we hear today on music channels and on radio
stations.