The magazine represents a middle-aged audience through its sophisticated articles but uses a bright cover image from the popular musical Wicked to also appeal to younger audiences. The simplicity of the bright colorful cover aims to attract both younger and more sophisticated readers. Technologies like Photoshop, Blogger and SlideShare were used and taught the author new skills, while making the production process easier. Bauer Media would be a suitable company to distribute the magazine globally due to their wide range of brands. The intended audience is middle-aged to elderly musical theatre fans seeking acceptance, though the magazine aims to promote musical theatre as an art form for all genders and identities. The author learned about pre-production materials like style sheets and interviews through progressing

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The magazine I made wasn’t too typical of music magazines for a number of reasons,
however, there are many ways in which it does follow the general conventions of a
music magazine. For instance, the text is written in columns rather than a page of text,
this is a very typical convention of magazines, alongside the big, outstanding,
masthead that appears on the page. Another way that it uses the conventions of a
music magazine is that it has a recurring theme throughout, the colour scheme is
persistent on every page, be it the background colour or even the colour of the text. A
convention of a non-gender specific magazine is the ideals of both sex’s are put into
the magazine, whereas the magazine I have produced only contains images of females
which seems to make the magazine appear to be a more feminine one; whilst also
portraying the idea that musical theatre is a feminine art and asserting the popular
thought that it isn’t masculine to take a liking to musical theatre, thus potentially
narrowing target audience greatly.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My product represents a middle aged social group, this is due in part to the higher level of
sophistication within the product, this is mainly seen in the articles. In spite of the
sophistication I chose the cover image, a bright alluring shot of Elphaba, from Broadway’s
Wicked, to appeal and attract a younger social group; as the show is a more modern and
well known show in comparison to a lot of the classics, such as Les Miserables.
The simplicity of the cover was done to
appeal to the younger end of the
audience, with bright luminous colours
and bright outstanding text. However,
the simplistic look was also to give the
cover a sophisticated aura which would
appeal to the typical reader of this
magazine.

3. How did you attract/address your audience?
How you attract and address the audience is a vital point of creating any form of
media. Due to the nature of my product being a very specified area, I had to think
carefully about how I would attract and address them. A key point to my magazine is
the Broadway show that is written about, it is for this reason that I chose
Wicked, because it is a very popular show and I thought it would attract an audience
more considering it’s the first issue. After this is was a matter of capturing the right
image that had all the mystery, the magic, and the beauty of the show contained within
it. After attracting the audience with the cover image it was time to think about
addressing them through use of articles, an interview with a Broadway star being the
main one. The interview was all about giving the audience what they are after. People
who want or like musical theatre often seek acceptance and courage, and the interview
gives them this by allowing them to read inspiring words that will influence them to
pursue their dreams and become what they want to be. After all that is what music is
all about, personal identity and acceptance.

4. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
Throughout the process of making the media product I have used numerous
technologies, blogger, Photoshop, slide share etc. I have learnt many things about each
of these; I had never used slide share prior to the production of this product so that
was something completely new that I learnt how to use. With blogger it was not the
first time I have used a blogging site before so this wasn’t completely new to me,
however, I found it was more complex and difficult to use in comparison to any other
blogging site I’ve used, so I had to learn a few new things which wasn’t too easy.
Although I have previously used Photoshop before but I learnt a few new features
such as I was taught about how to change the levels on pictures to alter the look of it.
Without the use of Using technology, such
photoshop and the as Blogger, to store
tools that it has to and organise my work
offer the product the production of the
would have been a magazine was made
much more difficult easier and quicker,
to create and look through it’s use of
highly commentary feedback.
unprofessional.

5. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
I believe Bauer Media would be a suitable
institution to distribute my media product,
this is due in part to the varied range of
magazines and other media outlets that
they’ve branded. They also have a lot of
brands under their name so I think they
would be happy to add another one to their
vast list of brands. Because of this varied
and wide number of brands they would be
able to distribute my product globally and on
a huge scale so it has more chance of selling.

6. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product would be mainly middle aged to elderly people,
probably of a middle class that take an interest in musical theatre. There is no specified
gender for this magazine as I believe, and want to promote the reality that musical
theatre, that it is not set to a specific gender or sexual identity as it is often perceived to
be. The audience will also be people who seek acceptance and a sense of belonging,
which is often the case.
The typical audience
wouldn’t have any
distinguishing features, they
would be a very average,
middle aged man or woman,
from a middle class
background, who neither
looks overly upper class nor
too lower.

7. Looking back at your college magazine task, what do you feel you learnt in
the progression from it to the full product?
For the college magazine task there wasn’t any pre production involved it was straight
into making it, however, in order to make the full product there was plenty of
preparation work required. Flat plans, style sheets, questionnaires, interviews etc.
Through doing all this I feel I learnt a lot, as I previously had no idea what most of
these things were, or how I would go about designing them. Whereas I now know
what they are and how to design them.
I feel the designs and ideas behind the
two products were improved between
the preliminary task and the final
product. The final product allowed me
to experiment more with technologies
and other effects to make it more
exciting for the audience to look at and
read.