Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine audience is male middle class students aged between 15 -22, who have become disillusioned by the charts because they feel everything sounds the same, they hunt for new music across various platforms (radio, internet etc…) and look for a good gig to go to. The research done prior to creating my product showed me that this was a gap in the market.

My magazine covers this market quite well. I feel this way as they music discussed in my magazine is rather modern and people of this age range will have knowledge of these bands. The artists in my magazines aren’t dressed in designer fashion labels as to link in with the middle classes, who mainly wear high-street brands. Mainly men feature in this magazine so the men reading can relate to the men in the magazine as they are likely to be speaking of things that have happened to the readers or at least heard about. However, some girls will feature in this publication at some point as to draw readers in through visuals; the women that feature will be considered attractive.

The disillusionment involving chart music is the main thing that defines my audience. It is seen in the eyes of my audience that pop music is dead; that everything in the charts sounds the same thus making it terrible. This group are always seeking new underground music to listen to because the music that the radios play says nothing to them about my life and the underground music does. My research shows this as most of the people asked chose the alternatives to pop.

As mentioned above my audience are very keen gig go-ers. They are the people who like to seek about new bands in their local scene by going to see them live even if it costs a few pounds. This would be seen as their main past time as they feel it is the best way to have a good time because they spend all day studying and they want to enjoy the time they have off.

This is the type of gig that my audience would go to see; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhFwOr7NFdg

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Preliminary Task

For this section I recorded an audio podcast to answer this question, click the link to hear the recording. 

Final Task



How does your media product represent paticular social groups?

Their middle class upbringing means that the fashion sense of these people will be very similar to the male present on my front cover. The clothes will be of a good standard possibly branching into select designer items. They will be minimalistic as they do not wish to stand out but still want to appear visually appealing. This can be said about the images below. One image is from my magazine and the other is from NME

With regards to their looks both characters have very similar hairstyles; very messy and unstructured. This is the look most indie guitar musicians have in this present day. Thus meaning my imagery is up to date.

. Both characters body language is very similar, they both appear to be very uncomfortable with there arms overlaid upon their bodies. On both images the character has an eyeline match. This is essential to draw the reader in as it adresses them and makes it feel like they are making eye contact with a star.

However the lighting on the images isn't similar; one image is substantaily brighter than the other. This is due to the production costs involved, the one with more light can put extra expense into making the image look this way which is unlike the other image.

In conclusion, my target social group is very up to date as they follow trends set by those who are in the music scene. As well as being influenced with regards to looks, my group as follow the inspiration behind the artists. In my article, I have asked my interviewee about his influences as I found this happened in real music magazines. Instead of just reading about them my group seek out and listen to these bands. I can tell this because these questions wouldn't of been asked if they weren't judged to be neccasary. 
The same theory I feel applies to the musicains beliefs. Most young people will follow the ideals of their favourite musicians. Radiohead for example, support the Occupy Movement and post about this following on their website http://radiohead.com/.So young people are being influenced politically by their favourite musicians as well as being influenced visually.

        

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

My media product is a uses a lot of the usual conventions of real media products. I chose to make my product as conventional as possible without it being boring because if it looked too peculiar I feared my audience would find it distasteful and wouldn’t purchase it. 
Front Cover

The front of my media product has all of the usual information on such as; bar codes, issue number and price.

These three things are present on almost every magazine as they are conventionally put on the cover, not as a design enhancer but as a necessary feature. They are in similar places to those on existing magazines; they are usually small and hidden away in a corner so they don’t affect the design space.

 Other conventions that I have followed are the masthead in the top left hand corner. It has been put there as it is where you start to read from on a page of writing, so in that sense it’s the first thing you see.

          Most magazine of the music kind has a main sell line overlapping the main image. The image overlap is so that the words can label the picture below. This is an effective technique that I have applied to make my piece look effective. However I have taken this one step further and made the label contain enigma code. In this case, I have used a rhetorical question. I chose to do this to draw the reader into the piece as they would want to know who the person was. I took these examples (below) as inspiration but developed them. They use rhetorical questions in there sub headings; I took this a step further and put one in my headline. Another reason that I used this idea is because I used it in my preliminary task and I got good feedback from using it on that.





My main image contains an eye line match. This is a convention of magazine production because without this eye line match the artist/musician on the front cover can not interact with the viewer and they feel disconnected with the magazine and its contents. Viewers of magazines like this connection because they feel involved the person on the cover.

          My magazine looks like a magazine from the indie guitar rock genre. I have designed it to look like this so I feel I have achieved my aim. The colours on my magazine suggest this; the bright colours behind the main character on the front as well as those on the logos and sell lines. Bright colours ususally suggest happiness and upbeat themes which contrasts the dark colours present on a magazine whos genre is metal. The imagery on metal magazines is also dark and sometimes scary which clearly is not the case with my magazine which has more in common with an issue of Q magazine.

                                          

Contents Page



My magazine contents page also sticks to the conventions of magazine production. It has a standard layout; most magazines contents pages are the same every week because repetition of the same thing makes the reader become familiar with it and then they become more willing to interact with it. The images used on this page all have captions, having captions on images is a convention. I have used this as it is a good way to anchor the images on the page and for the reader to understand what the images are about.

My page has one main image, it has been placed on the right hand side of the page. I have put a main image on my work as it relates to the story on the front cover. To have one main image on the page is a convention of media product creation as it is a follow on from the cover story and takes it further by previewing the article.

However, not all of my work is conventional. The font used is the same throughout the contents page and the magazine for that matter. I chose to keep the font the same as I could not find a font that matched my initial choice. Pages on magazines normally have two different fonts or in some cases three to split the page into different sections without drawing lines and causing visual distractions.  

Double Page Spread

            My double page spread follows many of the conventions set by current media products. It includes a headline. Headlines are necessary for an article as it is key to drawing a reader into an article. It is conventional because without it you'd have limited ways to address the reader. It is considered conventional to have a single image on a double page spread, that is why I have done it. One single image is just enough to occupy the reader but is not too little to make the pages look empty.

            Pull quotes have been included in my layout as I feel they work effectively and also because they are conventional. They preview the article and give the reader a sneak peak at it before they read it. This draws the viewer in as they may read something that they like and want to read more. Page numbers in the corners of each page are conventional and have been included for the benefit of the reader; it is a benefit as they know where they are in the magazine.  

             Not all the features of my double page spread are conventional. It is conventional that the article on the page is across three columns of text but my article only stretches across two. I chose to do this because I tried it with three and it looked visually distracting. so I left it with two. As with the rest of my publication, I have only used one single font. This is unconventional as different fonts are usually used for different sections of the page.



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

I have learned that in the modern media industry there are lots of ways to put your message across. I have learned that digital cameras are substantially better than film cameras as the images are easier to get at and manipulate once they have been taken. The printer has been an important tool in my product development as colours on different images appear different printed out, to how they appear on screen. So using it allowed me to perfect my colours.
                  

I used a video camera during my research. It was used to film a focus group of people including myself discussing four different magazines and why they were so effective. The most important tool throughout this project has been Adobe Photoshop. It has completely changed how design work is done. It is easy to use and once you know the basics and you can create some outstanding images on it. 

Although not as regularly used as Photoshop, the internet has played a big role in my media product. All of the research tasks were done on the internet. This is because it is easy to access and use, also because it contains the correct and necessary information that I need.

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

If I were to publish my final magazine, first of all I’d have to find a publishing company that would publish it. If I were to choose a specific company, I’d choose “Future Publishing”. I’d choose said company because although they publish music magazines none of them cover the genre that I am covering with my magazine. They also cover the social class that I am after; middle class. Research would be done into whether my product fits in to the market or not and whether my product would be suitable for that said publishing company because they might already sell music magazine and they don’t what the sales of that product to decline because of my new product.  

They would choose to publish my product as I feel it would it allow them to reach a younger audience as I feel most of there magazines are aimed at older people especially with their “Classic Rock” magazine which covers music from the 1960/70’s. The same can be said for there computer music and guitar magazines they are all for people over the age of 25 years of age. 
I would use modern technology to reach this young audience. Most music magazines have websites; I would do this as it allows me to reach an audience that wouldn't normally purchase magazines. The internet also allows for online publishing; magazines offer digital versions of their publication for a subsidised cost because this way it doesn't need to be printed and distributed. it cuts out the middle man if you were and allows for costs to be lowered on both sides.