1) The document discusses a media product created by Tonia Bennett - a music magazine that uses conventions from the existing magazine "Kerrang!" while also incorporating feedback from a questionnaire. 2) The magazine aims to appeal to a variety of social groups within the target audience of teenagers and young adults interested in alternative music. It features a battle of the bands review covering different music genres. 3) The intended audiences are teenagers and young adults who enjoy alternative music. Features and layout aim to attract these readers while addressing different social groups within this audience.

1. Media Studies Critical Evaluation Tonia Bennett

2. In What Way Does The Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? I used a lot of media conventions from an already existing music magazine that appeared to be popular in my music questionnaire, and was also a major part of my textual analysis, ‘Kerrang!’ magazine. I used conventions such as titles written at crooked angles, used to grab the attention of the target audience (teenagers and young adults). My textual analysis showed that teenagers were my target audience, therefore taking idea from ‘Kerrang!’ was a good idea. However, I didn’t follow the conventions used in ‘Kerrang!’ when it came to choosing background colours. I used my questionnaire to decide which colours to use, as I felt that this may be more of a view that varies despite target audience age, so I used the question based on colour schemes from my questionnaire when designing my magazine

3. How Does The Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups? The magazine is based around Rock music and any sub-genres of Rock. Therefore my magazine is designed to appeal to all of the social groups that it appeals to. To do this I made sure that my magazine didn’t have anything in its design that appealed to only one of the social groups in the target audience. The articles in my magazine, including the battle of the bands review on my double page spread, appeal to a variety of different social groups. I made sure that the bands mentioned in the review were of a variety of musical genres. The alternative music scene has a lot of different social groups, therefore my music magazine had to not be too generic of any in particular group. This was done by focusing more on characteristics of the target age group, rather than social groups.

4. Who Are The Audience For My Media Product? Teenagers and young adults that like the alternative music scene are my target audience. My magazine has a juvenile feel to it, with off-centre crooked titles, and simple yet effective words and phrases. The themes in the magazine, as well as the layout, apply to fans of the alternative music scene, teenagers and young adults. The battle of the bands is made to appeal to all of the audiences as the acts vary in genre.

5. How did I Attract/Address The Audience? I used conventions such as off-centred titles lots of pictures to attract my audience. In order to address my audience I needed to make my magazine appealing to a variety of social groups that come with the sub-genres of rock. My feature on Battle Of The Bands was perfect for this, as all of the bands that played were of a different genre. This meant it was easy for me to make my content as well as conventions appeal to my entire audience. My pull out quotes address most of my audience, one of them states that ‘no one’s too cool to mosh’. Moshing is specific to rock, therefore this will attract the attention of my audience, and encourage them to read on. My articles that weren’t included in the double page spread, but were mentioned on my contents page were also relevant to my audience.

6. What Media Institutions Would Be Interested In My Product? My Magazine would be made available at newsagents, supermarkets, and music shops. It could also be distributed via live music venues and music festivals. Making my magazine available online as a PDF file for download would be a fairly new way of distributing this type of media. It’s not a commonly used method of distributing magazines, therefore, perhaps bringing in a bigger audience, as it makes it more accessible to the reader, saves money for the magazine as less copies would have to be printed and as a fairly new idea as far as magazine distribution goes, would work well as a gimmick, even for those not completely interested in the magazine.

7. What Have I Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product? I’ve learnt how to use Photoshop more confidently, and as a means of editing and arranging a media item, as well as the simple manipulation of pictures. I’ve also learnt different ways of processing and editing text on Photoshop, such as adding drop capitals and embossing a title.

8. How Have I Progressed From My Preliminary Task? I’ve learnt how to use a background more effectively with a cropped picture, rather than just using the entire picture as a background. This means that I have more control over the colour scheme of the page. I’ve also learnt more interested ways if presents my text, such as embossing and drop capitals. I’ve also experimented more with fonts. I’ve also learnt how to use conventions more effectively, rather than just having them there. For example not over using off-cantered text, or using it in the wrong places. I’ve also learnt the importance of how you set out your text on the page, and holding the readers attention. On my double page spread I broke up the review with pull-out quotes and pictures.