Media Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


The media product I have produced is a music magazine. I have used many conventions of a real music magazine, such as the full bleed front cover of a magazine, the contents page containing a preview of the content that lies ahead in the magazine and a featured article, double page spread on a music icon.
To develop the product I have produced, I used a full bleed picture for the front page so that nothing else is on the front cover. This is a typical form of some magazines so that we can see what the main feature of this magazine will be and it also gives a stylish effect.
I have challenged a typical form of a magazine by creating a simple title and not a particularly creative front page. I have done this because I think it makes the front cover look more attractive to the target audiences. As it is a rock magazine a big picture along with a simple title makes the whole theme of being a rockstar a lot more relaxed and cool.

How does your product represent particular social groups?


The product that I have produced represents the rock theme. It targets social groups that look up to people such as rockstars. In the product I’ve mainly tried to concentrate on one central figure. This is a person who follows the typical conventions of the rock and roll lifestyle and some people look up to this figure and want to live their life in the same way. Alot people see rockstars as their idols, so i followed this social group as i think it would appeal to a wide variety of audiences.

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

A company named 'Future' is a media institution that would be a suitable publisher that might distribute my product as they seem to be reliable as they publish around 170 magazines. They say they target special interest magazines. A rock magazine such as mine i think would suit them as a lot of people in the world have a big interest in rock and roll, as throughout the years it has grown dramtically. This is why i believe that this media institution would distribute my product.

Who would be the audience for your product?

The target audience i am trying to aim for is the youth of today but also the older generation as they are the ones who grew up with the real rock and roll era. The older generation who have lived through the times when rock was big, want to keep interest in the rock culutre so therefore they want to keep up to date with the new rock of today via the magazine product i have produced. The youth who are interested in rock would enjoy reading about rockstars as although they werent alive during the time when rock and roll was at it's peak, they find it interesting and want to know more about that culture. It also makes them want to become more like these rockstars.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience mainly through large photographs. Using big full bleed photographs i believe are key when attracting people. The front cover is the main element when attracting people as it is the first thing people will look at when they see the magazine. I used a black and white picture, with colour writing as i believe they suit eachother perfectly.
It addresses the audience with a simple quote on the front cover, which obviously has something to do with the rockstar on the front of the magazine. Although it is a simple quote, it engages the audiences mind as they want to know what it means, so therefore they want to read on in the magazine.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have used various technologies in creating my product. I first used digital camera technology which enables me to take my photographs of the icons on my magazine. This then let me import these photos starigh to the computer where i can then edit them. I then used adobe photoshop cs4 as it has various features that let me edit the photo. I could crop the photo to concetrate on one charachter instead of a group of them, i turned the photo in to black and white, to make it look more stylish. It then also let me put text on to the photo which helped me create my title. I could use various fonts, colours and sizes. Then to create my double page spread i used adobe indesign cs4 which has many of the same features as photoshop but makes it a lot easier to create a double page article. I have learnt from these technologies that we can now to so much more with photos and manipulate them so easiely. If we dont want something there it doesn't have to be there. This is good because we can then get the perfect picture but it is also bad because sometimes we are not getting the correct representation of our idols.

Looking back over the year, what do you think you have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full product?

I have become much more skilled when it comes to using software such as photoshop. The full product which was the magazine was a lot more challenging than the preliminary task as i had to use different technologies and softwares. I also had to take many pictures to find the perfect one. I have learnt that it is much harder than i first thought to put together a magazine and the amount of effort it must take to produce things such as magazines and newspapers all the time. I have learnt how to analyse the typical conventions of a magazine and incorporate them in to my product whilst being able to also put some individuality in to it at the same time.

Media Studies: Magazine Cover

Today i took my photo for my magazine cover. My front page photo is of a man passed out on the lilo, with a bottle of alcohol,a pack of cigarettes and an electric guitar. This magazine is based on the theme of Rock. I want to convey to the audience that this person on the front of the cover has had a really heavy but good night. Just like the 'Rock N Roll' lifestyle that has always been known to the public. The front cover is going to be quite stylish and quite plain as i want it to look modern and trendy. Its only going to be the title and the picture. The picture is going to be a full bleed picture.

To make it look more sleek and trendy i took the photo from colour

to black and white

The contents page used a more loose type of font, in a more attractive wild font that would attract the target audience which in this case is rock n roll fans who are quite loose and open to the idea of random and colourful fonts. I also included four main stories and their titles as well as pages on other bands as well. I have two pictures that were to do with the text on the contents page. They included a pictures of champagne, a passed out celebrity in a jacuzzi and a cigarette and a direct question asking if the reader would like a chance to live this lifestyle. Also on that page is a picture of a different musician and the magazine has included a new free track from this musicians new album. The pictures used on the content are below.

On the double page spread three photos were used to display the main story throughout the magazine with a musician named Ollie 'The Slumdog' Stone. The left hand page of the spread has 3 photos showing the cycle of his life. They are

The start of the night, when the musician is looking at his best and very dapper. He is also wearing his glasses to partially hide his face like a lot of celebrities do. I changed this photo to black and white so that the rockstar looks more chilled out, relaxed and a cool rockstar role model.

This is the middle of the rockstars night and as we can see her has two women wanting a photo with him and he still has his glasses with him on his jumper. This shows that he's got that rockstar attraction for girls to want photos with him. Here i boosted the colour of the photo so that it would make all the people have a positive glow about them.

Here we see the rockstar has passed out with a cigarette in his mouth and his top off, passed out in a jacuzzi. This shows that he has had a crazy night out and has been a true rockstar. Here i also faded out a bit of the colour to make the picture seem more early morning

On the right hand side we have two columns worth of interviewing between the musician and interviewer. Two different fonts are used to differentiate the interviewer from the musician. Also the musician's speech has speech marks to let the reader know his exact words. I used a large white italic stylish font and a black background so that they both would clearly contrast each other.

These where the final results of this project

The Front Page, The Contents Page And The Double Page Spread

On friday i finally put the two photos together. I first had to decide where the best place would be to put the student. I decided that the bottom left corner would be the best place to put it because it looked empty. I then had to decide where to put the St Edmunds crest. I decided that the top left corner would be best as it also looked empty and all there was, was sky. The last thing i had to decide was where to put the title. I chose to put the title next to the crest in the sky so that i would fill more of the empty sky and look nice in contrast to the crest. The colour i chose for the title was dark blue which is also the St Edmunds college colour.

On thursday i spent an hour on editing the pictures slightly. To edit the photos i used a different software called Iphoto (mac). I changed the temperature of the chapel picture because the picture look gloomy and cold, so i decided to make it look more like summer so it would give it a warm feeling. I also straightened so the picture would level out and look balanced. The last thing i did to the picture was crop it so that most of the cars at the front of the school were out of the picture. If there were still cars in the picture is would make it look less attractive so this is why i decided to crop it.

For the student picture is used photoshop. I cropped the photo so it would only focus on the students face and the book. Then i used the magic wand tool to highlight the remaining unnecessary background and then erased it so it would only leave the student and the book.

I uploaded the 24 pictures i took last week of students and the school. Out of these pictures a picture of a chapel was the one that caught my eye. It got my attention because when looking at the picture it conveys to me (and the audience that will see the front page cover) that this is school respects religion and usually parents find religious school also are very dedicated to their education as well. The other picture i selected was of a student reading a book. The reason i chose this, was because it shows the student at work which shows hard working. Also the student has a gentle smile which can show that as well as hard work the student can enjoy himself also. All these little details of the pictures make a big difference to what the parents might feel about this school and these were the conventions i was trying to create.

This morning i took around