Evalution.

In what ways does your Media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
my magazine is conventional as it follows the codes and conventions of music magazines.
whilst researching other music magazines, i learnt the common conventions and codes of a music magazine. My front cover includes a masthead, a main photo and two smaller photos for the plugs, a bar-code, price and issue number, which is essential pieces for a front cover. I forgot about putting the date, head line and the website address, if i had put these on, the magazine front cover would of been more conventional.
My contents page is conventional by telling the audience what is in this issue and on what page, the editors letter is an important part as well for a contents page. I think one way in which it doesn't follow the conventions is that i decided to have only one photo on the contents page, and that would be the background, but i think it works and challenges the conventions.
The double page spread is also conventional as the layout is used a lot and makes it easy navigate. I didn't want it to be brightly coloured as it reflects on to the bands dark sound.

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
the Social groups represented in my magazine are young men and women who are in bands or solo artists. The band i used for my main feature, As The Blessed Fall, are portrayed to be serious about their music in the original photos i took, but in the interview they are portrayed as normal teenagers who love playing music and who want to enjoy themselves. Which also reflects on to the audience. i also wanted the band to dress normally, i thought if i asked them to dress in a certain way, it would ruin the photo as it wouldn't be a natural look for the band.

What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?Bauer Consumer Media and Future publishing could be the type of media institutions that might want to distribute my media product as Bauer Consumer Media and Future Publishing distribute Kerrang! magazine and ROCK SOUND magazine, and my magazine is similar to those magazines.

Who would be the audience for your Media product?
The intended audience for my music magazine would be 16 to 24 years of age, but my magazine could be enjoyed by people over that age if they were interested in the music genres that my magazine will include and promote. It would be more suitable for 16 year old's, as it wouldn't contain bad language.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience by including bands that are popular within this music scene at the moment. I also used bold font so it would get the attention of the audience. As my intended audience age is 16 to 24, i kept the language informal and easy going so the articles wasn't to hard to take in. In my contents page, i also gave a brief description on what each article was about, so they would want to read on.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a few new skills on programmes such as Adobe Photo shop and Microsoft Publisher while producing my magazine. Editing photo's and how to place them in the best place to give the best effect possible is one of the new skills i have learnt, to plan ahead and be able to act faster to change things when they dont turn out how i wanted them.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since my preliminary task, my college magazine(front cover and a mock up of the contents page), i feel i have learnt how to place objects such as the masthead and plugs and photo to give the magazine front cover the best possible effect. I also feel if i had to go through the production of making another music magazine, i would be able to do it alot faster and alot m ore successfully as i am now aware of the problems that can occur.


On the poll that i put on my blog, i asked four questions which i thought would help me get a better understanding on how i did from other peoples views.

My first Question- Do you think my music magazine follows the conventions of my chosen genre? answers was either a simple yes or no, but i only got yes's, which helped my realise that other people thought it followed the genre convention of the magazine i was doing.

Second Question-What target audience is my music magazine intended for? the feed back told me that people who viewed my magazine thought its target audience was for teenagers and young adults with 56% for teenagers and 75% for young adults.

Third Question-Is the colour scheme on my magazine appropriate? overall, everybody who voted thought my colour scheme was appropriate for my magazine as i wanted it quite dark to reflect on the sound of the music. 12% of the people who voted thought the colour scheme was appropriate for my magazine, this could be because my music magazine is similar to "Kerrang!" bu the colour scheme is alot brighter.

Fourth Question-What Genre of music does my music magazine connotate? the options for this question was: metal/punk (my chosen genre), indie, Dance and pop.
every body who voted voted for metal/punk. this proves that i followed the conventions correctly.

From the people i got to look at my magazine and answer my questions, i was told that i had a few mistakes, like missing out words from a sentence.