The document provides an evaluation of how the media product uses, develops, and challenges conventions of real media products. It discusses using page numbers for navigation, editing the main image over the masthead on the cover, using a non-primary color scheme, informal writing style, consistent fonts with variations, cover lines with large and small text, including a barcode, using a pull quote, mixing direct address and natural photography, and representing gender, ethnicity, age, and social groups. It also covers what was learned about technologies, software, research methods, the importance of planning, and skills with design programs.

1. Evaluation
By Francesca Davies

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
• Page numbers are are useful forms for making the magazine easy to navigate. It means you can
pick up the magazine whenever you want, find a particular feature you want to read in the contents
page and use the page numbers to easily find it. I also used these to create consistency throughout.
• I have used a well-known magazine convention of editing the main image on the front cover over
the top of the masthead. I have done this because I think it looks professional.
• Many magazines use at least one primary colour in their colour scheme however I have challenged
this convention because my colour scheme does not use any primary colours; it uses purple, black,
grey and white. I used these because I feel they are more suited to the genre of my magazine.
•The writing style throughout my media product is fairly informal because that is how my target
audience would speak and relate to.
•I have used consistent fonts throughout my magazine for mastheads and text however I changed
the font to a handwriting style for the pull quote in my double page spread article to make it seem
more personal. Also I changed the fonts when mentioning the names of my featured bands ‘The
Blackhearts’ and ‘The Patron Saints’ because it makes them more defined and stand out from the
rest of the text so people will take more notice. Bands like these in real magazines also sometimes
have a particular font they always use for their name therefore I used that convention too.
•For my cover lines I used one buzz word in a large font to attract attention then an elaboration in a
smaller font. This is useful for telling the reader what some of the best bits of the magazine will be
which makes them want to buy it .
•A barcode is a common convention on all the front covers of the magazines I researched and I stuck
to it in order for consumers to be able to purchase my media product.
•Pull quotes are a convention which I found many magazines sometimes use and sometimes don’t
however I decided to use one in my double page spread article because I believe it gets the reader’s
attention giving them a hint to what’s in the article and will make them want to read it.
•Style of photography – in the majority of images used in the magazines I researched they always
used direct address and I too used this technique because it is an effective form of interaction
helping the audience to connect with the person in the images by breaking the fourth wall. However
I challenged this convention in my double page spread image because I wanted to give the
impression of it not being a staged shot and rather that this was in their natural environment which
would give the reader a feeling that they were getting an insight into the band’s lives.

3. My media product represents the female gender in it’s colour scheme as one of
it’s main colours is purple which is stereotypically associated with females.
Similarly, the clean layout of my magazine may stereotypically reflect females
more than males. However the people featured in my magazine are neither
predominately male nor female, there is a fairly equal number of each sex.
The ethnicity most represented in my media product are white people. This
could be due to this ethnicity being the majority in York therefore my band and
models were all white. Also research has shown me the majority of the
alternative/indie rock genre is dominated by white people and my magazine
reflects this.
My magazine is aimed at students aged 16 to 21. This age group is represented in
my media product by features such as a countdown to the Leeds and Reading
festivals which are attended mostly by students. Also my double page spread
features an up and coming band The Patron Saints who are students at York
College therefore represent other people this age.
Class is not heavily represented in my magazine as they are students who
technically have no class and their money could be from parents who represent a
range of classes. However my media product attempts to adhere to the ‘student
class’ by having a fairly low price as many students will have little excess money.
The social group of teenagers and young adults are often represented by media
as rude, anti-social and with extreme music tastes. My media product challenges
this idea by exploring an alternative genre which could be new to many older
people in a layout which is sophisticated yet still suited to this target audience.
How does your media product represent particular
social groups?

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?
• I would want either IPC Media or Bauer Media to publish my
magazine Plectrum.
• These two companies are both big in the publishing and
distribution of magazines. They have a mass audience and
already publish magazines of a similar genre to mine for
example IPC Media publish NME and Bauer Media publish Q.
This is good as it ensures the success of my magazine
because when they distribute my magazine their existing
target audience are likely to be interested in my product and
buy it. Similarly ABC says IPC media’s circulation for NME is
20,011 from January to June in 2013 meaning my magazine
has the potential to reach a large audience.
• Bauer also owns other media brands including TV and radio
channels such as 4music and other magazines such as
Kerrang!. This could benefit my magazine as Plectrum could
be advertised on these platforms and receive an even wider
readership.

5. Based on my survey analysis and my audience interview my target
audience are students aged 16 to 21 and the average reader would be
a 17 year old female. However I think I would direct my magazine to
both genders. My audience may have little excess money due to being
in a ‘student class’ but would spend it on my affordable magazine
because they enjoy reading interviews with their favourite indie rock
bands such as Arctic Monkeys and being the first in their friends to
discover up and coming bands which are featured in Plectrum. They
similarly love the free posters which come with the magazine. My
reader also likes to use social networking sites to discuss music from
this genre and find out about live music events so she can share this
information with her friends and family.
Who would be the audience for your media product?

6. How did you attract/address your
audience?
The low price of the magazine addressed my audience because they are students who may have
little excess money.
I also addressed in my media product by including features such as a countdown to the Leeds and
Reading festivals which are attended mostly by students. Similarly my double page spread features
an up and coming band The Patron Saints who are students at York College therefore my audience
who are of a similar age can identify with them.
By having multiple social media links to follow in my magazine I addressed my audience because
social media is one of the main ways my audience communicates therefore they can discuss my
magazine’s content such as up and coming bands and gigs/festivals.
I attract my audience to my magazine firstly through the colour because of the bright purple next to
the black white and grey it makes it stand out. The purple may attract more females than males but
I would think it’d be mostly equal.
Then the photograph on my front page uses direct address helping the audience to connect with the
person in the images by breaking the fourth wall. However in my double page spread image because
I wanted to give the impression of it not being a staged shot and rather that this was in their natural
environment which would give the reader a feeling that they were getting an insight into the band’s
lives. I also tried to use a fairly equal text to image ratio because I think my target audience wouldn’t
want to have to read loads of text with no images or anything else.
Also my cover lines attract my audience by using one buzz word in a large font to attract attention
then an elaboration in a smaller font is useful for telling the reader what some of the best bits of the
magazine will be which makes them want to buy it . For example the free posters that come inside
the magazine will attract my audience as they would be expensive to buy otherwise therefore
they’re saving a lot of money. Or the exclusive interviews with new bands.
Finally, the writing throughout my media product is fairly informal because that is how my target
audience would speak and relate to.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
One of the most important bits of software I used whilst constructing this product was my blog
on Blogger. This is where I could upload all of my work. When uploading everything I used
these programmes:
• Microsoft Word to create the contents page for my college magazine, my audience interview,
reader profile, pitch, contact sheets and my double page spread article.
• Microsoft PowerPoint to create my magazine analysis, publisher & audience research, survey
analysis, style sheets, photography planning and this evaluation and then SlideShare to upload
them to my blog.
•Plus I used a Dictaphone and Adobe Premier Pro to record my audience interview and turn it
into a video file.
Before I could upload any of this I had to gather information:
• I used Google to find previous music magazine pages and publisher information for me to
evaluate whilst using SurveyMonkey to collect research about my audience by posting it on
Facebook.
Once I had done that I had to start creating my product:
•I used a digital camera to take all my photos and I then used either Photoshop or Adobe
InDesign to create the pages of my music magazine.
I could not have completed my media product without the use of technology.
I could have used Adobe Photoshop for all three pages of my magazine however Adobe
InDesign was more effective for a double page spread and would give better results. Instead of
using SurveyMonkey I could have printed out multiple questionnaires and given them out and
waited for responses but that would not have been cost or time effective to gather all the
information for my research; unlike technology which is free and quick especially when using
social media. I could have also left my audience interview just typed up but I wanted a
video/audio recording of it as I think it is quite professional and there could have been a link to
that in my magazine for people who wanted to listen to it.
I could not have worked without blogger or a similar site in order to post and keep all my work
together. I also would have definitely needed Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint or at
least one of them to convey all my research.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
I have found that is essential to plan in order to create a better product.
When researching previous magazines I found out about forms and
conventions of magazines which gave me ideas about what mine could
look like for example the use of direct address in photographs, certain
language in cover lines and pull quotes.
I did research in order to find out what my audience likes and came up
with a profile for what my magazine should include so that It could adhere
to my target audience. Without this plan I had no idea as to what my target
audience would like to see in a college magazine and if I had created that
properly the content could have been irrelevant uninteresting to the
students.
Also, without having done the research and planning via my style sheets, I
could have created a product with good content, but the style would not
have suited the genre. Similarly, with no flat plans or photography plans, I
wouldn’t have known what images I wanted and how they would fit in with
the layout of my magazine and I could’ve ended up with pictures that
wouldn’t fit the theme or layout.
When producing the pages of my magazine I learnt a lot about Photoshop
and InDesign and how I could use these to create a good, professional
product. For example I learnt about how you can cut-out and layer the
image on Photoshop so that it fits over the masthead on the front cover
but the cover lines are in front of the image. Similarly about how to create
columns on InDesign so the text is not all in one big chunk but is split up
professionally.
I also learnt about the importance of social media and how it can be useful
to create interactivity as well as relevant interesting content.