Evaluation of my Media Coursework, the Student Magazine and Music Magazine projects

1. Evaluation Media Coursework

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My music magazine has stuck to many of the codes and conventions of real media products as my magazine was influenced in many different ways by the magazine ‘NME’ From ‘NME’ I have taken a few magazine conventions but I have also done things to my magazine that are not conventional, this shown when you compare my front cover with a cover of ‘NME’.

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Here is my front cover:

4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Here is a front cover of NME:

5. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? You can see from the two covers what is similar and what is different: The main similarities are bold red masthead, main image in the centre and the main cover line is slanted. The main differences are that my cover has a bold coloured background and NME has boxes with taglines around the cover.

6. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My media product, I feel, represents different social groups, the main group that has been represented is teenagers and the young generation. As they are my target audience they need to be well represented as they are the people who are going to be buying my magazine.

7. How does your media product represent particular social groups? I have also represented the ‘gender' issue as my magazine has a female on the front cover, they will feel like they have been fairly represented as in the past females have been discriminated against. Also my magazine is easy to read and buy which means that all different races and social classes can buy the magazine as is for anyone who is a fan of the music.

8. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? There are many different media institutions that could distribute my music magazine. A few of these include: Bauer Time Warner Development Hell

9. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Some of these institutions distribute other magazines of a similar genre to mine. Bauer distribute Kerrang, Q and Mojo magazine.

10. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I think Bauer would be the best media institution to distribute my new music magazine. As they already distribute successful music magazine’s of a similar genre to mine, they know how to make this genre of music magazine work when they distribute them. I also feel that they would be in favour of adding another indie/rock magazine to their institution.

11. Who would the audience be for your magazine? My target audience for my music magazine will age from around 15 – 25, I feel that this age range represents the genre of music and my magazine itself The target audience of my magazine would probably be from a working class to middle class background, this is because these social classes are more likely to buy magazine’s and especially teenagers who are more likely to buy it than others.

12. Who would the audience be for your magazine? My magazine would appeal to both genders but if their had to be one it probably would be males, as they are more interested in indie music that females usually but as my front cover has a female on the front that would appeal to them as well. My magazine is open to all ethnicity’s but I expect that my magazine will be bought by mostly Write British males/females.

13. How did you attract/address your audience? In my music magazine there are many different elements that show who the target audience is and what genre of music it is for. For example the guitar on the front cover lets you know straight away that this magazine is for an rock audience as this a typical rock instrument.

14. How did you attract/address your audience? One way I got feedback about my work from the audience was by Questionnaires. I set up a Facebook group inviting people to fill out my Questionnaire by looking at my work which was uploaded to the page. I received some positive response from my work which helped me understand my audience better.

15. How did you attract/address your audience? This graph shows the number of people who though my magazine looked expensive, those who though it looked cheap and those it didn’t look cheap or expensive.

16. How did you attract/address your audience? From my Questionnaire’s I gained a lot of knowledge of how my magazine was looking and if was appealing to an audience in the right way. They also made me aware of what was going well within my magazine and what needed to be changed as well. It also showed me that overall my magazine was designed well to appeal to my target audience.

17. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I have learnt a lot about the different technologies during this process and I feel that I am know confident about using the different software's. During the planning process I used Word to help plan out my interview for my double page spread. It was effective as I was able to type my interview and proof read it before I put it in my actual double page spread.

18. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I used two different pieces of software in order to construct my pages, they were Photoshop and InDesign. I used Photoshop for my front cover and contents page as I more confident with this program. I felt it was effective as I was able to use different tools like the magic lasso and the blur tool to make my pages look as best as they possibly could.

19. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? For my double page spread I used InDesign to help me construct this section of my music magazine. This program was effective for this part of my music magazine because I was to formulate columns to make my double page spread look professional which gave my pages the correct layout for this part of my magazine. I learnt first of all how to use the program, I learnt how to fit an image to a certain size and I also learnt how to set up a two page document on InDesign.

20. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I also created a blog which documented my progress from when I started creating my music magazine. I used the website Blogger to post my blog on and this site enabled me to be creative with my blog and add images of work which could be viewed instantly. This website made it easy for me to create an interesting blog with colour and images to make it stand out and of course document my progress effectively. Link to my Blog

21. Looking back at your preliminary task, what you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? When looking back at my preliminary task, which was to create a student magazine, I can see that I have made clear progress from that task to the music magazine task. I can see that I have improved my skills when using the software, whether it be Photoshop or InDesign. The best way to show what I’ve learnt is to look at my work from both tasks.

22. Looking back at your preliminary task, what you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Here is my work from the preliminary task Front Cover Contents Page

23. Looking back at your preliminary task, what you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Here is my work from the music magazine task Front Cover Contents Page Double Page Spread

24. Looking back at your preliminary task, what you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? It clear from looking at both sets of work that I have progress from when I started the preliminary task. I have learnt more about the Photoshop and InDesign which can be seen by looking at the final product in the music magazine task. As I am knowledgeable about the software in the music magazine task I was able to create a more professional looking magazine than what I created in the preliminary task.

25. Looking back at your preliminary task, what you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I have also learnt about the world of magazines as well during this process. By doing different types of research about student and music magazine’s I was able to gather a sufficient amount of knowledge which would help me throughout this process. This new found knowledge has enabled me to be able to create magazine’s which would easily fit in with other magazine’s that are currently on the market which shows that I have gained a lot from when I started the preliminary task.