1) The document is a student's evaluation of their media studies project creating a music magazine. 2) The student discusses how they used conventions from real magazines in their design, such as color schemes and consistent fonts. They also included standard magazine features like barcodes and cover lines. 3) The student reflects on how they represented their target audience, which they identified as 14-25 year old males interested in hip hop and R&B music. They also discuss the technologies they learned in creating the magazine, such as Photoshop.

1. OCR Media Studies – AS Level
Unit G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media
Evaluation
Name: samuel watson
Candidate Number: 6765
Center Name: St. Paul’s Catholic College
Center Number: 64770
Set Brief - Print
Music Magazine – Production
Preliminary Task, Log Book and Evaluation

3. In what ways does your Media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
In my magazine across the 4 pages I have used codes
and conventions from magazines like VIBE and XXL
such as the simple but effective white, red and black
colour scheme which is consistent on all of my pages.
I also used the same font on all of my pages as it
makes the magazine look more professional. For my
front cover I had to make sure I had all of the main
conventions such as: barcode, date, price, issue
number, main image, cover lines and a masthead.
Continuing my theme I used most of these features
and a lot more for my contents page a few of these
are: Page numbers, promotions, another image and
web address/social networking link.
The last two pages I had was my double page spread
where I took incentive from VIBES editorials where
they have a main image on one side and then have
the
Interview along the side of the picture as this gave it
a look of professionalism. I began with my main
image on the opposite side to my heading however I
then had to change it as I could see it didn't’t look
very good at all, so I moved my heading so that it
would fit just above and slightly to the left of my main
image which is where I thought it looked best.
The rest of my double page spread was very simple as
I made the questions clear and easy to see as I
followed my colour scheme by having one colour for
the interviewer and a different colour for the person
being interviewed.
Just like all of my other pages I put the web address
for my magazine as it meant that people would be
able to see it throughout the magazine and then be
more likely to go to the website.

4. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
The denotation of representation is to act or speak on behalf of someone, whereas in
this context it mean does my magazine consist of material to appeal to all social groups
such as “hipsters”, “Goths” and “Emos.” if my magazine did appeal to all of these
audiences and many more than it would very economically successful as there is a wider
range of people who will want to buy my magazine. However in my opinion I feel that my
magazine really only appeals to “hipsters” as it doesn't’t have the sort of music that the
other audiences would want to listen to as it consists of the more popular chart music
rather than than the “sreamo” type of music. I used a questionnaire to see what genre
would be best and Hip-hop came on top with rock close behind so I have incorporated a
small amount of rock in my magazine but I mainly kept it to be aimed at the hip-hop
audience as this was what most people wanted to see. The genre of my magazine is hip-
hop hence the representation of the well known boy band MKTO, I aimed my magazine
at a younger teenage audience as they are the sort of people that will want to hear about
boy bands such as MKTO as it’s a young boy band who have good voices and look good. I
also incorporated a bit of pop into my magazine as it’s a very popular type of music and it
also allows for the popular kids to look for pop as its popular and it allows them to climb
a metaphorical ladder of popularity.

5. What kind of media institution (Publisher)
might distribute your media product and why?
Bauer Media is a multi-platform UK-based media Group consisting of many companies
collected around two main divisions – Magazines and Radio - widely recognized and
rewarded as being industry innovators.
From the research that was completed pre-production I found that Bauer would publish
“REBEAT” as they like to make personal relationships with their readers which is what my
magazine does through my editorial and double page spread. My magazine also has a lot
of cross media convergence as I have the social networking links on most of the pages I
created, I have also added the website link for REBEAT.
I think that Bauer would publish my magazine as they don’t tend to publish the genre
that I have used however they are looking for a change and through the research I did I
found out that they are looking for a new magazine who focus on R&B as their genre.

6. Who would be the audience for your
media product and why?
According to Hartley's seven subjectivities the age range for my magazine would be males around
14-25 years old as most of the artists I used were of the same gender, meaning I would get a
larger audience of men rather then women due to the fact of men being stereotyped for
rapping which is what I wanted my magazine to be stereotyped as.
According to Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theory my magazine would appeal more for men as women
don’t generally listen to R&B or rap as its more of a masculine type of music. However it could
appeal to a female audience as they could see the men as objects and be seen as “eye candy.”
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, social climbers would be more likely to buy my magazine
as they are looking to get as much social information as possible to use in their life.

7. How did you attract/address your
audience?
In order to attract the intended target audience for my magazine I had a lot of unique selling points
or USP’s as from a questionnaire I found out that they made people want to buy my magazine
more.
Also using language like “exclusive” and “win” it brings peoples attention to my magazine so they
pick it up and are then enticed to buy it. This also makes them feel special as it seems as if the
are getting chosen to win the product as it stands out a lot.
In my contents page editorial I used a lot of “you” to make the customer feel as if they are part of
the magazine.

8. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
The software that I have used to construct my magazines title REBEAT was www.cooltext.com I
used this website as I found it was the easiest to use and had the nicer text available. However
to edit my images I used adobe Photoshop cs4 to add contrast, to crop and to saturate them so
they looked the best as possible. Before this project I had minimal knowledge of Photoshop but
now I feel like I can do most of the things that Photoshop has which will help me in the future
when creating other things on Photoshop.
In order for my magazine to fit the target audience I have already spoke about. I used a variety of
tools to help it fit this target audience such as using hue and saturation to brighten the pictures
to remove any sort of shadows on the peoples faces. This makes my magazine look a lot better,
also to give the image a good finish I used the rubber tool to fine out all of the edges.
Overall after this project I feel that I have learnt a lot about Photoshop from making the images
clear to making the text fit around the images.

9. Photography Planning – Front Cover
This was the image that I chose for my front cover as I didn't’t think it looked
to bad and it went very well with my colour scheme. I cropped the picture so
it was just the artists which made it look more professional.

10. Photography Planning - Contents
These are 3 photos that I was debating to use for my music magazines
contents page, I ended up only using the first two as they seemed a lot
more useful and fitted a little better than the other picture.

11. Photography Planning - Interview
These are the two pictures that I was deciding to use for
my double page spread however I then thought that I
could use one for my front cover and one for my double
page spread and the second worked better for my double
page spread

12. Analyzing my Front Cover
Cover lines to say what
will come up during the
magazine.
Issue number which
shows if people have
missed an issue of
REBEAT
Masthead to
show the name
of the
magazine, has
to be bold and
memorable.
Main image of
two starts who
will appear later
on in the
magazine
Social networking
links so that
people know
where to find out
more information
about REBEAT

13. Analyzing my Contents Page
Heading so they know
what page they are on
Social networking
links so people can
view our Facebook
and twitter pages
Image of the editor
so they know who I
am
Page number to help
out the readers
What is in the
magazine so
people can see
what they have to
look forward too

14. Analyzing my Double Page spread
Interview
Main image as it shows
what the double page
spread is about
Introduction into the
questions
Interview of
Malcolm from
mkto

15. Analyzing my Double Page spread
Interview
More questions
from the interview
Heading of the page that
stands outMain image again
but other person
in the image
Social networking
links

16. Looking back at your Preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
I feel that, having completed the preliminary task and learning about the demands of this
production process, I have learnt a lot about Photoshop as before I started I didn't’t have much
knowledge about it however as I went along I slowly got to know it and now I feel quite
confident using Photoshop.
There is evidence of progression that I feel particularly demonstrates how I met the demands of the
production process, for example in my front cover there was a lot of things that needed
changing however I didn't’t really have the time to change it so I made all of my other pages
and then went back to my front cover to improve it more than before.