The document discusses the conventions used in the student's media magazine product. It summarizes that the magazine uses conventions such as having the masthead partially hidden, a banner displaying the band name and cover article, and a top strap highlighting interior articles. It also includes an editor's note, article listings with images, half page images with accompanying text, and pull quotes. The target audience is described as people in their late teens to mid-20s who enjoy alternative or rock music. The student learned about various technologies used in creating the magazine, including photography, scanning, and utilizing different software programs.

1. evaluation

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

3. My media product uses the convention of hiding part of the
mast head behind the main photo. This is because it gives the
impression of the title being less important than the members
of the band.
My magazine has a banner across the front of the
cover, as it is a convention to have the name of the
band who is pictured on the main cover, with their
name and a small comment about the article involving
them.
My magazine also has a top strap to display some things that
are inside my magazine to pull in readers. This is a convention
that many magazines use as it is often is on a part of the
magazine that is shown when it is stacked in the shop.

4. One convention that my magazine followed is having an editor’s note on
the contents page, which allows for a little message from the editor to
promote certain things or give an inspirational message, or whatever else
they could want to use that area to say to the readers.
Another convention that my magazine follows is
to have a list of certain articles within the
magazine. This gives the reader a way to navigate
the magazine as they read and highlights the best
parts that the editor has decided.
Yet another convention that was followed is having images in
the contents page. These are shots of things that will be
featured more later in the magazine. For my product, I used
images of artists and bands that will be mentioned in later
articles, to interest the reader from the first page and give
them an idea of what they have to expect throughout.

5. One of the conventions that my magazine uses is to have half
of the double page spread be an image, and the other half
have the article written out on. This gives the reader a clear
photo to look at which takes up quite some space and allows
for less text.
My magazine has a masthead on the double page for a
header, which is made of 2 different fonts. This follows a
convention as many magazines use this to make the headers
stand out from the rest of the page and draws the eye of the
reader to stop and pay attention.
Pull quotes are another convention I decided to not challenge.
This is where you take a quote from the article and highlight it
as important so that the reader can see it. It also attracts the
eye of the reader so that they can notice it and it doesn’t just
blend in.

6. How does your media product
represent particular social
groups?

7. My magazine represents white females as successful, as have been given the
most space on the magazine and the primary picture spots, while males are
given only minor pictures tucked away in the shadows of other things. This
gives the readers more of a look at the females in media than the males,
showing they have success and power. The images are bright and colourful,
standing out from the rest of the magazine and anything else on the pages. This
makes it so that you can see them, and they seem more like they should be
there to look at and not hide away from the eyes.
My product shows white males as less significant beings than those
of the white females, as they are hidden in the shadows of them,
with much darker images to blend into the background, instead of
stand out at all.

8. What kind of media institution
might distribute your media
product and why?

9. The media institution that may distribute my product would be Bauer Media Group.
This is because they already have a similar magazine out (Kerrang), so they may know
where to advertise it and would know where is best to sell it. They would be
knowledgeable on how would be the best way to approach the production of this
magazine.
They also have many other products already in production, meaning that they are very
knowledgeable on a range of subjects, and are extremely good at publishing many
different topics throughout a wide list.

10. Who would be the audience for
your media product?

11. The audience for my product is mainly people in their late
teens to mid 20s. These are people preferably with the taste
of more alternative, or rock music.
I am targeting the people more middle-class with money to
spend on a monthly music magazine and the time to read it
all. I would also expect them to have money to go buy new
albums as they are released and go to concerts or festivals.

12. How did you attract/address your
audience?

13. I attracted my audience by being bold. I had bold images and titles, to
try to attract my audience’s eyes and see how they would like it.
I address my audience by writing at a level that is not
condescending, but treats them like they are smart and are able to
read competently.

14. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?

15. I have learnt a lot about technologies from this process.
I have learnt about scanning things into computers, and photography. But mainly, I’ve
learnt about how to use the computer to it’s fullest when creating something like this. I
have used many different programmes and software to create the project as a whole.
I was able to use my phone as a camera, and experiment with the different angles and
light exposure options available to me. This was great for me as it made it possible to
have a lot of options once it got to trying to select the photos for the magazine.
I also was able to experiment with many computer
software programmes that I previously didn’t have a
chance to. This enabled me to try more and more things I
would not have thought about.

16. I learnt that you need to experiment with everything you can, and try to see how far you
can push it as you’re working. This includes many settings on editing software, just to
see what they do and if you can work that into your work.
Although, you also don’t want to use too much and less can be more. You don’t want to
clutter up your work with too many effects, just use simple ones and it may not look too
busy.

17. Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?

18. Looking back, I feel like I have learnt a lot of things.
I have learnt how to use the programmes that I was using a lot more as I went through. Part of
this is using Photoshop, as that was a main programme that was required to progress. During
the preliminary task I was inexperienced and did not know what most of the tools were or how
to use them, although through the progression, I learnt how many tools were used and how to
use them effectively.
I have also found out more about many various programmes, that were used including Ezvid to
create a video montage, and Blogger to consolidate all my findings.