The document analyzes a media product created by the author, a magazine aimed at 15-20 year olds interested in indie, pop punk, and rock music. The author evaluates their use of magazine conventions like headlines, pictures, and double-page spreads. They also discuss representing their target audience, potential distributors like Bauer Media, and lessons learned about design techniques.

1. Media Evaluation. By Ben Blackmore

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The first step was to analysis some existing magazines and picking out key features. There are a number of features on the front cover of magazines, such as; Headline, title, pictures, strap lines etc…These features are important to both draw the readers eye and to make the magazine stand out. As well as this a magazine has to be factual and informational. The contents page in a magazine also has a number of features on, these include; Headlines, the title of the magazine, bullet points of the page numbers and other information about page numbers. Double page spreads have a lot of features on them. Some of these are, a big quote on and a lot of writing. The main feature of a double page spread is usually a few big pictures and some big writing. Sometimes double page spreads are just an interview or a review. Mine was an interview. My product doesn’t challenge these ideas, I tried to use all of these features in my own magazine in order to make it successful. I used a lot of writing on my double page spread and in all 3 components of my magazine I used big bright pictures and writing.

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My magazine was aimed at 15-20 year olds who are interested in indie, pop punk or rock music. In order to appeal to this audience I used genre specific text and pictures. The text I have used features words such as “Reverb!” which is to do with guitars and people who are keen on music will know this. My front cover features more picture than text, this is to attract the readers to pick it up. My contents page is pretty much text based although it has a big picture on it. The double page spread I have produced is a pretty even ratio of text to pictures, there are 3 big pictures on the top half of the page and 6 columns of small text across the bottom. The pictures all feature the ‘star’ who is on the front cover, as I wanted to be consistent throughout my magazine. The pictures are all set in a rural location and feature mainly pastel colours. The ‘star’ on the cover is a young adult you can tell this just from looking at him, this immediately interest readers as he will be a similar age to themselves.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Bauer media produce such magazines as; Kerrang, Q and Mojo. They may be interested in distributing my magazine as it has a lot of similar features to that of Kerrang. However mine is slightly different as it features more genres of music than Kerrang does. This means that it would feature a different audience to Kerrang and would compliment it well. Another reason why they may want to sell my magazine is because it would be sold monthly therefore more time can be spend producing and compiling a quality magazine.

5. Who would be the audience for your media product? The ideal age for my magazine is 15-20 year olds. Maybe people who are interested in buying a monthly magazine filled with interviews and reviews. Either gender would be interested in this magazine. As it features a lot of artists and everybody has a different music taste but I have tried to include all the most popular genres in order to maximize the sale of my magazine. The type of people who buy my magazine would be music lovers, specifically in the genres my magazine features, which are pop punk, indie and rock.

6. How did you attract/address your audience? In order to make my magazine attractive to my target audience I used a lot of pictures and a text that was different to ones that you usually see in magazines. I also used colours where necessary, like on my double page spread to break up big chunks of text. My front cover features a big title in bold colours to make it stand out. As well as this it also features a picture with a nice backdrop that catches the eye. As I have stated before I chose a model for my magazine who is the main feature throughout, I made sure that they were a similar age to the target audience so that they could relate to him. The front cover also has a number of cover lines on just to inform the buyer what may be inside the magazine.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? The main thing I have learnt is that I needed to make my magazine look more mature. I feel I have done this by learning new techniques on publisher such as making textboxes transparent so that the front cover looks better and there aren’t big white blocks on there. Another technique I have used and developed my skills in is the picture taking, before I took my pictures indoors and they didn’t look very good, this time I took my pictures outside and I feel they came out really well. I also used gimp to edit some of my pictures, this meant that I could change the colour of certain things If I felt they didn’t look quite right. To create my front cover, double page spread and contents page I mostly used publisher, I used publisher because it is easy to use and it is easy to move thing around on the page so that I can see how different layouts look.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? My preliminary task looked a bit too amateur and featured a lot of word art and bright colours. For my full product I toned down the colours on my magazine and tried to make it look more grown up. I feel I have achieved this and feel that my magazine looks quite sophisticated. Another way in which I feel my product has progressed is the pictures. My pictures from my preliminary task were blurry and out of focus, I made sure my pictures in this one were clear and were taken in a good location that looked realistic and not as though it has just been taken in a room up against a wall. I wanted the pictures to be taken outside as I feel they look good and it provides a good background to the picture. Overall I feel my magazine is more mature.