My music magazine uses some conventions of established music magazines, such as having a short, music-related title ("SOUNDS"). It also includes advertising text above the title. However, it challenges some conventions by placing the date and issue number underneath the title rather than in the bottom left corner. The magazine represents particular social groups through its colors, imagery of a black male teenager, and R&B-associated clothing. It could be distributed by a conglomerate company using various forms of advertising to reach a wider audience. The target audience is males and females ages 14+ interested in R&B, including those of African and African American descent as well as other ethnicities. The magazine addresses this audience through its color scheme, imagery

1. Media Evaluation
1) In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real music magazines?
My music magazine uses forms and conventions in some parts of my
magazine. I have looked at established music magazines, which are the same
genre of my magazine and liked some of the uses and conventions as it
shows what type of music magazine genre I have chosen. I have followed
the uses and conventions with my title; in R&B genre magazine the
magazine title is almost always a short title and associated with music in
some sort of way. 'VIBE' is the magazine that I have been inspiring me with
my ideas for my music magazine. The word vibe is associated with music in
more than just one way. I have decided to call my music magazine
'SOUNDS' which follows the uses and conventions as it is similar to the
established music magazine because I too decided to name my music
magazine one word in relation to music, Just like 'VIBE' did.
My magazine follows uses and conventions as similar to the established
music magazine I have been looking at. It also includes text as the master
head placed above the title both texts consist of advertising what is inside the
music magazine. It is a mean of advertisement for the magazine to make
readers want to purchase the magazine and read inside.
My music magazine also challenges the uses and conventions of a music
magazine the established music magazine I looked at 'VIBE' place their date
and issue number at the bottom left hand side of the page. I liked the idea of
including the date and issue number on to my magazine, but I did not like
the positioning of the issue number and date on this magazine and thought it
would look more appealing to the reader If I was to place it underneath my
title ' Heading'. I followed the uses and conventions as I wrote the text in a
very small font compared to the rest of the text, this was because this text is
not as important as the rest and if it was bigger it would have drawn
attention towards it meaning the other text would lose the readers interest.

2. My uses and convention challenges the ones used in the established music
magazine I looked at they included their main cover line on the side of the
image, whereas I placed mine on top of my image this was because the main
cover line is almost always in relation to the image placed on the front cover.
It would be clearer for readers to understand whom my main cover line is
about if it is in front of the image of the artist it is in relation to.
Similar to an established music magazine I have placed the image on top of
the title this makes the image stand out more as it is covering a lot more
space but it does not cover the title as much as 'VIBE' magazine as on an
established magazine it is ok to do it as the magazine is world famous and
people are familiar with it, whereas with my magazine I could not cover my
title head as much as my magazine is not well recognized and I want
potential readers to clearly see my title and be familiar with it.
2) How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?
My music magazine represents particularity social groups and the contents
are targeted at a specific target audience (people which enjoy the music
genre R&B and would like to keep up to date with the genre and the artists
that are associated with this genre). Through the colours used you can see
that my magazine is unisex and doesn’t focus on one specific gender even
though R&B is a more male dominated genre, women are still associated
with the genre. My colour scheme, which consists of navy blue, red, gold,
black and white, are all, seen as unisex colours as both genders frequently
wear these colours not one in particular.
The image that I have used also represents a particular social group, it is of a
male teenager again around 16-17 who is of black heritage this is associated
with a particular group of people as when people think of R&B they think of
black artists as this is what this genre mainly consists of and also this genre
originated from African American music. Even though now a range of
artists form different ethnic groups are associated with R&B, the artists are
mainly African American. The demographic for this music magazine is also
male and female teenagers up until the ages of 24, mixed ethnicities mainly
African American which is being represented on my music magazine
through the models that I have used up to the way in which they have posed
as R&B is seen as a tough music genre because of the lyrics and artists this
is being represented through the model. Even the clothes that he is wearing
are associated with R&B, as when people think of R&B they normally think

3. of a certain colour scheme that I have realised through the use of my
questionnaire where people associated a specific colour scheme to R&B also
the clothes that the model is wearing are baggy which is commonly found
amongst artists in this music genre.
These particular things all link together to represents particular social group.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your music magazine
and why?
I could distribute my magazine by myself through the use of the internet,
where I can use below the line advertising to attract people to my magazine,
this includes creating a buzz by getting people to talk about it, this also
includes word of mouth through social networking sites and in person. This
will help attract people to viewing my magazine as they will hear about it
and will be interested in checking it out. Another way of distributing my
magazine is by getting a conglomerate company to distribute it and market
it. They will use above the line advertising, which includes advertising via
billboards, busses and TV adverts this will help my music magazine gain a
bigger audience as, by using above the line advertising more people will see
the advertising for the music magazine. The reason that this type of
distributer might want to distribute my music magazine is because they
might believe that the music magazine will help bring them a higher profit.
Also it shows a range of diversity from the distributor if they do not usually
work with music magazines this will help them be more linked into different
types of media outputs.
4) Who would be the audience for your music magazine?
The audience demographic for my music magazine will be female and male
people around the ages of 14+ that are interested in the genre of R&B
through either the artists that are associated with the genre, the lyrics in the
genre or everything about the genre. The demographic is also mainly made
up of a certain ethnicity of African American or African people as that is
where the genre originated from, also people normally associated this certain
ethnic with this genre as most of the artists for the genre are black, and the
audience for this genre is seen as mostly black also. But the demographic is
also Caucasian, Latin and Asian people as well as different ethnicities still

4. like the same type of music. These are the main of audience for my music
magazine, they are the people that are probably more expected to purchase
the music magazine as it appeals to them more then it appeals to any other
demographic group.
5) How did you attract/ address your audience in the forms of uses and
conventions used in your music magazine?
I attracted and addressed my audience in a certain way. I looked at
established music magazines that had the same genre as my music magazine.
I decided to use a certain colour scheme as I knew that certain colours would
appeal to my target audience better, so I followed the uses and conventions
of an established music magazine to decide on which colour scheme I should
use. I also done a questionnaire where I asked people that liked R&B which
colours they associated more frequently with the genre and the majority said
gold and black so I incorporated them specific colours into my music
magazine.
I used the conventions of having a small title head, which would be seen as
straight to the point, clear, and not to long to make people lose interest. This
is what I saw in various established music magazines with the genre of
R&B, all these music magazines had titles, which were straight to the point
and short.
I attracted my audience and also addressed them by only including one
images onto my music magazine front cover this followed the uses and
conventions of an established music magazine. This will address my
audience as the model used will be someone that is associated with the genre
R&B and they will be doing a typical R&B styled pose. This will attract my
audience into reading my music magazine, as they will want to see more
images associated with the music magazine genre and will purchase the
magazine to look inside and see these images and content associated with
R&B.

5. 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing your music magazine?
I learnt how to capture a great image by using a professional camera to
capture the medium close up which was needed to pass my main task which
includes the front page, contents page and double page spread. This was the
first time that I have used a professional camera and had it placed on a tripod
which helped the image come out straight and balanced. I had never used
Photoshop before. This was needed so that I could manipulate the photos
that I have taken and make them more attractive to the audience. On the
program I manipulated my photos by cropping them, which would get rid of
the pieces of the image that I didn’t need, I then manipulated the photo by
taking out the background of the image this was done so that when I placed
it onto my main task it looked neat and the background was not visible. I
also learnt how to edit my images by making the models skin look more
photoshoped this was done by one of the tools on Photoshop called the ‘spot
healing tool’ and the ‘blur tool’ this made the images look smoother and as
if they belonged in a professional magazine. These are all technological
products that I did not know how to used before hand and had to learn from
scratch.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
After looking back at my preliminary task, I have improved in many
different ways. In the preliminary task I didn’t understand the importance of
following my forms and conventions, which made the product, seem less
professional, I followed some forms and conventions in my main task, which
then allowed my main task to look more professional as if it was a real
music magazine. The fact that when I carried out my research I asked more
people on my questionnaires and also asked questions that would help me to
decide what to include in my main task that I didn’t in my preliminary task.
The fact that after my preliminary task I understood the importance of
aligning my work this then helped my main task look much better put
together and neater. Also during my preliminary task my main cover line

6. and cover lines where to look which would make the reader loose interest of
my magazine. In my main task I used shorter words for my cover lines and
my main cover lines, which helped, attracted the reader and helped them
stay engaged, as it wasn’t very long. By changing the technology I used to
create my preliminary task, I used a phone camera to take my photos and
used the software Microsoft to create, this made the images come out blurry
and not so clear and because I didn’t use a tripod they did not come out
straight. Also Microsoft isn’t really used to create a magazine on so it didn’t
look neatly put together and well done. When I done my main task I used a
professional camera and the software Photoshop which allowed my images
to come out clearer and more balanced and by using that software I was able
to use all the right tools needed for my main task which helped it look better
put together and better developed.