2. In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The conventions used within my media products are those of magazines, billboard adverts and
radio adverts.
3. Magazine Conventions
My magazine has ideas that I took from real example that I looked at, the bold, bright masthead
that is featured on Billboard magazine and the bright colours within the magazine like in
Grapevine magazine. I wanted my magazine to be music based and to focus on the artists more
than local events. My audience, young people between 16 and 25 have access to worldwide
music magazines like Billboard and NME however not one that is based on music close to home
which they have more access to.
Another convention that I have used is the front cover consisting of one picture in the centre of
the page and filling up most of it. This makes it obvious to the audience who the main article is
about and engaging them to the magazine. A couple of magazines that I looked featured smaller
but still important article on the front cover therefore I included some of the articles that would
help sell the magazine, such as a competition, to the front cover.
Instead of having list for the contents page with a few relevant pictures, I used a picture with
the title and page number over it for each article included within the magazine. I did this
because my magazine would consist of no more than 10 pages and some of the articles would
be double spreads therefore I was able to include a picture from each article on the contents
page and go against the normal conventions.
4. Billboard Advert Conventions
My billboard advert uses the conventions of existing billboard posters like Elle with the magazine
title big and bold at the top. This will catch the attention of the audience and then they will read
the information below, which consists of the release date and a pictures of the band members
whose interview is the feature article allowing the audience to see what they can expect from
that month issue.
Unlike most billboard posters I included the name of the band and placed it in the centre of the
poster to attract more attention and hopefully get more people to purchase the magazine.
5. Radio Advert Conventions
My radio advert uses many conventions, including background sound, this being the single of
the band featured in the magazine, and including the release date and where it can be
purchased. The voice is a teenage of the same age to the target audience allowing them to
relate to the voice and make them more likely to want to buy the magazine.
6. How effective is the combination of your
media product and ancillary texts?
7. I think that the combination of media product is very good. I did my best to make sure that
all of my product linked and I think that it shows.
After making the magazine and figuring out what font and colours I was going to use I
incorporated this into the billboard poster. I also used the band members from the front
cover of the magazine on the billboard poster. The masthead on the magazine was also
used in the billboard poster using the exact same font and colours.
To link the radio advert in with the magazine and billboard poster I mention the name of
the magazine as well as the release date which is featured on the billboard poster, and
mentioned that the band has given an exclusive interview, just like it says on the front of
the magazine.
Linking the radio advert was hard because there is no visual aspect and it has to be done
using information about the magazine to show that they are linked.
Linking the products together is important because it has to look like a full project and at
big magazines such as billboard it shows that all departments work together to make the
best products possible.
9. I learnt through my audience feedback that it is important to see what your target
audience thinks and to take on their advice in order to create the best products
possible.
Before I made my products I did a questionnaire in which I asked which one of the
three products did they like best, what would be the most successful and what
improvements would they make?
I learnt that a music magazine would be the best idea as it would target them and
it would be most successful as there isn’t anything like it in Suffolk at the moment.
It helped me understand that knowing the target audience’s wants and needs is
important in creating a product that they will consume and help to make
successful.
Audience research help to clarify what I needed to include within my products to
make it the most appealing to the target audience and how to improve on my
initial ideas.
After the products were created I asked the same audience what they thought
89% said that they really liked it and would but it while the other 11% said that if
made changes to the colours and added more genres then they would buy it.
Therefore if I was to do this again I would take in to consideration these points and
help make my product appeal to a wider audience.
10. How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research , planning and evaluation?
11. In the creation of my media products I used some media technologies that I have
previously used e.g. Windows Movie Maker, Blog Spot, and Photoshop as well as media
technologies that I haven’t used before e.g. Screen-O-Matic and SoundCloud.
I used Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher to create the magazine. Editing the photos in
Photoshop and adding the text and setting everything out in Publisher. I also used
Photoshop when creating my billboard poster. The use of layers allowing me set
everything out. I used both of these in my AS Media Studies but now have more
knowledge of them.
For my radio advert I used a Dictaphone (which I had used for my GCSE media) to record
the voice over and the song used, I then used windows movie maker to put both sound
together before adding it onto YouTube so that I could convert it into a sound file using
download.cnet.com so that I could upload it onto SoundCloud.
Within my blog I have used BlogSpot, Screen-O-Matic to show me creating part of my
magazine, the video was then uploaded to YouTube. I also used Prezi to create a
presentation on how I edited my billboard magazine. As well as SlideShare to upload
PowerPoint presentations.
When doing my research I used the internet and sites such as Google Images and
YouTube to find previous example to find conventions and give me more idea as to what
I should include within my media products.
Some of these technologies I have used before and have developed my skills using them,
others I have never used before and now have the skills and understanding to use them.
