2. QUESTION 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
3. I wanted my media product to be as authentic as possible and this required
me to follow a lot of the conventions of normal magazines to ensure
that it does look like a real magazine. The conventions I decided to
follow were conventions similar to that of a magazine called Kerrang,
this magazines main audience consists of people who enjoy listening to
rock music and this is a similar audience of people who I targeted my
magazine at. If I was to follow similar conventions to that magazine I
would have a better chance at my magazine to appealing to my
audience. I haven’t copied the magazine in any way as seen from the
pictures below but I have tried to use some of the conventions that this
magazine has used. Some of the obvious conventions that I used in my
magazine were one large image this isn’t the main focus of the
magazine but the model is looking directly at the camera and I used this
convention because I felt like It was an important part of the real
magazine and I thought using would make my magazine seem more
authentic.
4. The real magazine uses a lot of black, whites and reds and I decided to use
a similar colour scheme to this a I felt that that colour of a magazine can
greatly effect whether people from a specific social group will actually
want to read this magazine or not, so I decided to follow the colour
scheme quite closely but I did deviate a little but as my target audience
is slightly different to the Kerrang target audience. Just to make my
magazine look at real as possible I added things that all music
magazine always have, I made sure I had pricing, barcode, some form of
advertising and numbered pages, I did these things and other things
that would be in every other magazine to ensure that my magazine
looked more authentic.
I had looked at many different music magazines and a magazine called Q
inspired me to make my masthead the way I did, I also gave me ideas on
how I would set out my entire magazine. As you can see from the mast
head of this magazine, mine is quite similar and you can tell that I took
my ideas from it, I didn’t originally mean to replicate as closely as I did
but after I had created it I felt like it fitted in extremely well with my
ideas for the magazine and I kept it.
6. My media product aimed to represent the rock genre social group. I believe
it succeeds at doing this in many ways, one of which is the colour
scheme, as people from this social group are stereotyped as liking
leather and dark colours so I tried to use colours that would normally
represent this social group so my magazine could represent them. My
magazine has a lot of colours that are dark and this is what appeals to
this the social group and would represent them.
7. I also attempted to represent that social group through images on my
magazine; people from the rock social group are stereotyped as
wearing a lot of leather and have certain facial expressions more often. I
took advantage of this by using imagery of people that could be
considered to be part of the social group and this allowed my magazine
to better represent the social group, it does this because when people
see images of people that could be seen part of the rock social group
they would know that the magazine represents that social group. The
models on my magazine had to fit the part, all of the models in my
magazine are seen wearing leather and dark clothing because this
allows them to seem part of the social group, I also made sure that they
had serious facial expression and they were looking at the camera as
this makes them better represent the social group.
8. QUESTION 3
What kind of media institution might distribute
your media product and why?
9. A magazine institution such as IPC would distribute my
media product. This is because this institution is well
known for distributing magazines that have a similar
target audience to my magazine. This allows for my
magazine to be distributed to an audience of people who
want a specific type of magazine. Using this institution
would allow for my media product to be marketed and
distributed correctly as IPC understand how to distribute
magazines such as mine
10. Using this institution gives my magazines a better chance of
getting to its target audience and also give to it’s target
audience and also give it a better chance at success as if
it was a real magazine.
My magazine would be distributed in places where most
magazine would be sold such as newsagents but could
also be sold in places such as rock music shops as this
allows for my magazine to better reach people that might
like my magazine.
12. My media product had a target audience similar to magazines
such as Kerrang as this magazine is in a similar genre to my
magazine.
I had did some research to see what people from the rock social
group would want from my magazine. I question I asked was
about the age and from the results the most common answers
the ages that I would target my magazine at people aged
between 17 to 25 as this was the most common age group for
that social group.
I also used the questionnaire to find some other information about
what my magazine should be like, another question I asked was
about how often people would want my an ideal magazine to be
published and this allows me to adjust my magazine to better fit
my target audience.
13. From my questionnaire I found at that the majority of people
that from the social group are male and this means that I
would have better chance of making a more appealing
magazine to my target audience if I also tried to follow
conventions that would better fit a magazine for males.
