The document contains Lauren Oakley's responses to questions about her media product, which is a magazine. In her responses, she: 1) Discusses how her magazine uses conventions of real magazines like mastheads and cover lines but also challenges some conventions by featuring both a male and female cover star. 2) Explains how her magazine represents different social groups by featuring both male and female artists. 3) States that her magazine would be distributed by Bauer Media Group due to the genres they distribute being a good fit. 4) Identifies her target audience as being ages 15-25 interested in alternative rock music.

1. Evaluation
Lauren Oakley

2. Questions
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and
why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
the product?
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
8. How successful do you feel your end product is in fulfilling the task? How
well does it fit the brief?

5. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The magazine that I have created uses various codes and conventions
found in magazines.
I started out at the beginning of the project by looking at an existing
magazine to identify generic codes and conventions. Then throughout
the course of my magazine tried to include these conventions into the
making of my product and in the final product.
http://laurenoakleyasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/on-this-i-have-
identified-most.html
I tried to use as many codes and conventions as I could whilst also
making sure I used appropriate one for the magazine as well. I used
obvious conventions that are necessary for the magazine, these
include : a masthead; cover lines and a main cover line; main image;
barcode and date. I made sure I had all of these on the front cover as
they are a major part in creating the magazine. I then also added in
items such as the left third. This means putting your masthead on the
left hand side. My masthead spans over the top of the magazine so I
chose a bold font to make the masthead standout. I also used a very
simple house style using three colours red, black and white. I felt
these were the best colours to use as they didn’t distract from other
elements of the magazine and used enough colour to attract the
audience.
However not only did I use generic codes and conventions I tried to
challenge them as well.

6. Q1 Continued
Challenges and developments
In some areas I challenged the conventions of the ‘normal’ music magazine. One of these
challenges comes in the form of the cover stars. Typically in the media men are seen as dominant
and so quite a lot of magazines have mainly male stars on the cover. However the front of the
magazine I created has both a male and female star. The clothing of the stars are also pretty
similar to each other and show them to be ‘ordinary’ rather than a typical female in the eye of
the media who can sometimes be seen as revelling or ‘putting themselves out there.’ This helps
to link to the article which explains how they are just the same as everyone else.
Also throughout the magazine I do not mention any existing artists and have made all of the
names up for both bands and solo artists. This shows the magazine to be involved with smaller
artists who give a unique view on music. This also links to the article which explains how the
cover stars are bringing a new face to rock.

7. Q1 Continued
Initial influences
Overall I was mainly influenced by NME magazine, specifically the edition featuring ‘Royal Blood’
looking at this magazine helped me further my understand codes and conventions and helped me
in the layout process. At first I thought I needed more cover lines than I have however after
looking at this magazine I realised that I dint need more and that the layout was a big part in
making the magazine as well as cover lines.

8. Q1 Continued

9. Q1 Continued
Double page spread
I also liked they layout of the NME double page spread so
based the layout for my magazine on their magazine.
However to make my article fit I had to play around with the
layout of the two red boxes. I tried different positions until I
was finally happy with the one I have now.
However I didn’t just look at NME I also looked at magazines
that wrapped the text around the artist however I did not
like this look and felt it didn’t fit in with what I was trying to
make.
Overall I like the general layout of my
double page spread. I feel it looks realistic
and is kept simple and easy to read whilst
also attracting in the audience so they will
read the contents.
I continued the house style using similar
fonts to the front cover and keeping the
same colour scheme.
The positioning of my text is also a feature
that I really like about my double page
spread. I tried to make sure I had enough
text to make sure there was not much
negative space but also so it was not
overcrowded and I feel I have achieved this.
The main pull out quote is surrounded by a
red box this shows the statement to be
bold without the audience having to read it.
This links with the front cover as this was
one of my main aims.

10. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The target audience of my magazines are teenagers/young adults (15-25) who focus on the alternative
rock genre of music. This gave me an open area to focus on to try and represent various social groups.
My magazine was heavily influenced by Q magazine which helped me create the style of magazine I
wanted.
To create this appeal I tried to make the cover stars look like they not only had a sense of musical mise-
en-scence but they also looked like they fit the genre. I tried to challenge a gender stereotype by
making one of the members of the group female and showed them on the front cover of the magazine.
However the magazine still shows the male character as the dominant one as he stands out more on the
cover. However when looking through the magazine the two are shown as equal through the content of
the article as the quote for the page comes from ‘Emily’ the female lead of the band. This could show
to the audience that the male character is not always shown as the lead of dominant one as the people open
up through looking at the magazine.
My secondary image that went on the contents page contains two female artists that make up one of the
groups on the contents page. This makes the main majority of my magazines photos a female group. This
shows the female population to be the dominant people as they take up a larger portion of the magazine. This
could show to the audience the variety in the magazine but also who the magazine is aimed at (mixed gender.)

11. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine was heavily influenced by both Q magazine and NME so I decided to look into who
distributed these magazines. IPC is the distributor for NME however I chose not to go with this
distributor as some of the other magazines they work with do not fit in with my genre. I then looked
into who distributed Q magazine and found that the company was Bauer Media Group. I would chose
this company as looking at some of the other magazines they distribute it fits well with the genre.

12. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my magazine is for a mixed gendered audience from the ages of 15-25. I have
chosen this audience as the language and content of my magazine covers a wide range and so is
suited to multiple ages. Also the genre of alternative rock is primarily aimed at this kind of age
range so I thought this audience fit well
http://laurenoakleyasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/drafting-and-planning-survey-results.html
This link is a survey that I took to find out basic information before creating my product. From
this I compared age range to what genre they liked.

13. 5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Images
Through my magazine I tried to use various methods to attract my audience. Whist
taking photos and deciding what photos to use I tried to pick the ones where the
‘group/band’ had an element of attitude about them. I used a photo on the front of
the magazine that showed the band slightly looking down at the camera (low angle)
to show attitude and a sense of power. Then for my secondary images of a separate
band I had then facing away from the camera and only showing parts of their faces. I
did this to make them seem mysterious and give the magazine sense of having
different sub genres and attitudes.
Colour scheme
The colours of red black and white show clarity and make the magazine bold and
gives it a chance to stand out. I chose not to add in any other colours as I felt I
might over complicate the magazine and distract from the content, layout and
images used. I like the colours I used as they fit into the magazines I looked at as
part of research and fit into the genre I want.
Cover lines
The cover lines were created to be as persuasive as possible and to attract the audience if they were to read the front. I
used a range of text size and made the cover line for the band the biggest apart from the title. I also made it different
colours from the rest of the cover lines. To make the cover lines also stand out I used boxes around the text to give them a
bigger sense of boldness.

14. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
the product?
The main piece of technology I used to create the magazine was page plus. I used this software to
put all of the elements together. However before using this software I used a mix of paint.net and
Photoshop to take out the background from my front cover image. I used paint.net first and
found that the software was slow and did not cut out the image how I wanted it. This is when
Photoshop was used. The software ran a lot smoother and aloud me to get a cleaner cut out of
the people in the image.
I then took this edited image and put it into page plus to add in the text and secondary images for
my contents page and double page spread. I also used page plus to change the colour scheme
fonts and font size. For the image on the front cover I decided to slightly crop the bottom of the
image. This meant the image for the cover fit the magazine better and allowed me to get the
most realistic image possible.
I found page plus easy to use. This is because it allowed me to constantly edited the font, font size
and colour scheme whenever I want. It is also a very simple piece of technology to learn how to
use and gave me all of the appropriate features I needed to create my magazine.

15. Q6 Continued
Blogger
I used blogger to display the process of making my magazine. This included drafting
and planning, research and tasks that were completed to further our understanding.
I liked using this piece of technology as it is very simple to used and allows for
various methods of displaying work. (photo and text were the main ones I used.) I
also like how effective it was and efficient it was. It allowed for me to upload any
and all work rather than carrying a physical folder.
The process of using blogger was also effective as it allowed for me to view others
work to gather inspiration for my own work and gain feedback on what I am doing.
Survey monkey
Another thing I used was survey monkey which allowed me to
create surveys to gain information and feedback on this project. I
first used it before creating the magazine to find out what
magazines were popular with what genre and what people were
most interested in when looking for magazines. After this I used
it for feedback.
I liked this piece of technology as it allowed me to create a
survey at any time and get a link to give out to get feedback.

16. 7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I completed this preliminary task during the start
of the project to see what I could create with
what I knew about the conventions of a music
magazine.
Looking back on the task I realized I did not really
follow many of the conventions. The overall
appearance of the magazine is very empty and
there is a lot of negative space on both the front
cover and double page spread.
The image on the front cover uses the original
background and makes the masthead look out
of place as it has a white background. The
cover star is also not showing any direct
address with the audience which is something
I preferred when I included it in my magazine
now. The font I used and color scheme I used
do not stand out very well on the front cover
and the contents page doesn’t look bold or
interesting.
However considering that it was my first
attempt at creating the magazine I felt I did
some things well.
The final product compared to this task looks
a lot more professional in all areas especially
the images and how they were edited to fit
the magazine. I put more thought into the
final magazine and used more conventions
and used them in the correct way.

17. 8. How successful do you feel your end product is in fulfilling the task? How
well does it fit the brief?
Overall I am happy with the result of my magazine and feel that it fits the brief
well. I used typical codes and conventions that would be found in music magazines
and also challenged some of these conventions. Through researching magazines,
this also helped me find a audience and helped me with experimenting with the
creating of the magazine. I tried to make it look as professional as I could to make it
look the best I could to get the best result for a magazine as possible.