Forms and Conventions
The media product that I produced, which was a music magazine cover, contents and double page article, followed the general conventions and forms of a real media magazine. The magazine cover consisted of a large central image of a new up and coming girl band called ‘The Soundwaves’. The lighting I used for the photo was very bright and they stood against a white background so that they stood out. Each girl spelt out a letter with their hands to make the word LOVE, I thought this was a good idea for my photo as it show the closeness of the band and also it hasn’t been done on a cover of a magazine before, making it look very original and different. On top of the central image, I put the title of the lead article which was introducing, and then the sound waves. I thought that this stood out on top of the photo mainly because of the colour choice and the two different fonts. I chose the title of the magazine to be VIBE as I thought that this fitted the genre of my magazine well and fitted in with the music theme. Underneath this I made a graphical feature of play and pause buttons and fitted them in with the colour scheme of the magazine which was blacks, blues, greys and purples. I used the generic conventions of a magazine cover such as the date, the price, barcode, a banner including an article, and a list of extra features included in the magazine.
Representation of Social Groups
The social group that I represented on my magazine cover was appealing to teenage girls. I created a girl band called ‘The Soundwaves’ and posed them on my cover. All the girls were dressed differently to complement each other but also looked very fashionable and edgy, following the style of a typical girl band. They were all very pretty girls but were all quite different in the way they look, they all looked polished but still had uniqueness to them. The fashion choices also showed each of the girls personalities, which is then gone into more depth in my article. I think that this appealed to a teenage audience as the girls are around the same age, and could be seen as role models especially to the younger audience. It’s a very girly looking magazine so the majority of buyers would be girls rather than boys. The music genre that I chose is a mixture of all different types of music such as pop, r&b etc. as it caters for a wide audience, but mainly teenagers. The is done by the different variety of people and clothing on my contents page as it attracts different types and styles of people and also the girl band on the front being a role model, as teenage girls would aspire to be like them and I think that that is the main attraction.
Distribution
A Media institution such as Prometheus Global Media would distribute my media product, as the magazine Billboard published by these is very similar to mine. As my target audience would consist of a younger generation, it would be suitable to make the magazine available in different ways such as making it available for viewing online. I also feel that a company such as Time Inc. could publish my magazine as they publish NME which is a rock magazine; publishing VIBE could attract a larger audience as the magazine is multi-genre. Also both of these companies do radio stations which would lead to more advertising of my magazine.
Audience
I tried to apply the typical conventions of my genre to my music magazine to attract a certain type of audience. The audience that I wanted to appeal to was mainly teenage girls of the social group/class of 16 – 20 year olds, these are the older teenagers who are turning into young mature adults, who are trying to build their confidence and become independent individuals, looking up to role-models. I wanted to portray my target audience, in a way that breaks the classic stereotype and the audience that I chose mainly spend their money on items such as music, magazine, clothes etc and my magazine caters for all of this. To make sure that this was effective, I asked a range of people from male to female consumers these questions...
What is your favourite artist?
What is your favourite genre of music?
Do you usually buy magazines?
If so what would you buy?
What content would you like to see in a magazine?
Do you ever buy CD’s or pay for downloads?
If you download how do you download/access your music?
What attracts you to a music magazine?
This gave me an insight into what was needed in my magazine to attract that specific audience. Knowing that 16 – 20 year olds are more interested in mainstream music and the popular music genre my magazine represents than any other age group, therefore this was the most fitting audience. In order to attract this certain type of audience I made sure I used a variety of different pictures and used banners and flashes that stood out from the cover, making it more eye-catching. As this age group does not have a lot of money compared to what a middle-aged person would have, I made the magazine monthly rather that weekly and made it at the affordable price of £3.99. I attracted the audience to the magazine making them feel part of this universe of celebrities, making them aspire to be like the celebrities characterized in my magazine. I used the relevance of the magazine to catch the attention of the targeted audience and I used the language and lifestyle to address the audience.
Media Technologies
Throughout making my magazine I learnt many new skills and how to use programmes that I had never used before. I am not the best at using technology but the programmes that I used were fairly useful. To create my magazine cover and contents I used either Photoshop or Serif Photo Plus X4 and to create my article I used Adobe Indesign. I learnt how to edit photos, import texts off of dafont.com and how to use blogger to present my work. Also I had to make my photos look professional, I did this by using Cannon MD 101 to take my photos with and on some photos I also used a photographers backdrop.
Personal Progression
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