Friday, 25 March 2011

Evaluation - Question 3

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

A media institution is any organisation that is responsible for the marketing, distribution, production and regulation of media texts, often profit based. In this case - music magazines - the distributors are responsible for creating, advertising and publishing the magazine - getting it into the shops.

In terms of magazine publishers in the UK, here are some examples of the companies:


IPC Media are the distributors of the music magazine NME. This distributor makes many smaller and more specific magazines aswell as the famous NME.
Here is the web link to their page:






Future are the distributors of magazines Classic Rock and Metal Hammer.
Future tend to distribute specific to particular hobbies or skills.
Here is a link to their web page:








Bauer Media are the distributors of magazines Kerrang! and Mojo.
Bauer Media are a large company, and distribute well known magazines, generally in the entertainment genre - another well known music magazine called Q, and the famous film magazine Empire. Bauer Media also distribute produce specific to particular hobbies and skills.
Here is a link to the web page:
http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands






Out of the UK major publishing companies, I have decided to choose IPC.
IPC are a large distribution company in the UK who distribute many magazines in the media industry.

I took this quote from IPC's website; PC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults – while our websites collectively reach over 20 million users every month.
This quote told me who they were, and helped make my descision to choose this company. They are clearly very iconic, and their gender statistics stood out to me as being quite even, which is ideal for my magazine as it is generally a split genre.

IPC are responsible for publishing well known magazines such as NME, Look, Marie Claire and TV Times. Despite only publishing one music magazine, I chose IPC because they publish NME, which I feel is quite similar to mine. NME is a popular magazine, and I feel that if my magazine were to be published this company could help to make it just as succesful.



With my magazine, as well as having the actual copy of the magazine, I would also have a website, for more music information for my readers. I feel this would extend my readership, because my audience may be looking for something inparticular, and using the website would be more useful to use, rather than reading the whole magazine. On the website there would be features of next month's issue, giving the contents, and showing the front cover. This would also help to widen my audience because it would give the readers information on the next magazine, therefore getting them interested in it, and result in them purchasing my magazine.

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Evaluation - Question 2

How does my media product represent particular social groups?

I feel that the audience of my magazine are really into music, and are open to discovering different genres. For my audience, music is generally a part of their life, either they are studying it, or do this as a career. This shows that they must be intelligent, and are also tolerant of other music. As my magazine is aimed at a younger audience, this suggests that they either go to university or college.

Gender
I feel that both genders are represented equally in my magazine. I have aimed the magazine at no specific gender.
However, my magazine mainly features women, in the pictures used, but in the actual features, the gender is generally male artists who are featured.  Although this doesn't match the make up of my audience - both male and females - I feel that this still appeals to all of my target audience, because they are open to any music, so therefore the representation of women and men will not matter as much in my magazine, as to the audience, it is the music that counts.
In my magazine, I feel gender has been represented as something that is not a great deal, and that despite there is a female on the front of my magazine, it is still very much for the male audience as well.

Age
The general age group that my magazine features is roughly early twenties, to early thirties, and also an older generation too, as my music features not only contemporary music, but also 60s rock, and Britpop. The age range my characters fit into are similar to that of my readership. The character on the cover, Ella Ruso is roughly in her early twenties - a young adult, much like the majority of my target audience. This is also the general age range for my other characters, and also the other bands featured in my magazine. Having the audience and the characters the same age allows the audience to relate to the music more; these artists are their generation. The older characters featured in my magazine clearly are and older age range, but this gives my audience something to look up to, and because they are so into music this appeals to them.






This photo is of the character Ella Ruso, a young music artist. I feel that the representation of age is portrayed here; she is smoking, which could represent rebellion in the younger generation. She is also tilting her head, and looks as though she could be dancing, portraying freedom and character in this age group.














In my magazine, age is slightly stereotyped, but not in an extremely obvious way. I have features within my magazine such as "Tommy Britton to perform at Leeds Festival 2011". This represents the younger generation as the generation of music festivals and gigs. I also mention the V Festival, which is a stereotype of people in their late teens early twenties. The character on the front cover is also smoking, which could represent rebellion and an attitude, which is another stereotypical representation of the younger generation. However, my magazine also challenges some of the ideas of typical representations, by featuring older, more classic bands and artists. This represents young people in a different way - that not all of them are interested in the latest releases and tracks, they can also appreciate older music.

Class
Middle class to upper class are the most dominant classes in my magazine. The character on the front cover, and the article about her in the double page spread is generally middle class, or she cam from a middle class family. I feel that my audience too are generally middle class, and upper class - they study a challenging subject at university or college, but I feel that middle class is generally the dominant class.

I feel that this class is represented as generally being a normal class, yet there are tickets advertised for festivals and artists, so therefore represents the class as having enough money for luxuries like this. 

My magazine is aimed at people who may be studying music, or may do something to do with music as their job. Because of this, my magazine does not represent the stereotypical jobs that go with middle class. Therefore my magazine challenges the typical representations of middle class careers or jobs.

Ethnicity
As there is not a large amount of pictures featured in my 3 pages, it is unclear of a lot of the ethnicities of the other bands/artists mentioned, however the characters in the pictures are white. This does not reflect my audience, as I have not aimed my magazine at one particular ethnic group, just like I haven't with a specific gender. I feel there are no real representations of ethnic groups, however I chose the main character featured in my magazine to be white, because a lot of her influence when growing up was Britpop, so therefore I made her British.

Monday, 28 February 2011

Evaluation - question 5

How did I attract/address my audience?


To attract my audience, I used features that I feel would be appealing to my specific reader.


I chose the genre of inde-rock as my main music genre to feature in my magazine, also with music styles such as classic rock and britpop. I decided to feature these styles, to fully appeal to my audience. As the audience I chose to appeal to are those that are into music, and can appreciate different styles, I feel the music I have included appeals to them, and this is one thing I have done to attract my reader.


Attracting My Audience


When creating my magazine I used different ways to attract my target audience. In my magazine, I included other typical methods in other magazines: Masthead, photos, colours, layout, coverline, price and specific things featured in my magazine (articles, gig reviews). Each of these I manipulated in my own way to effectively appeal to my target audience. Here I will analyse my own magazine, showing how I appealed to my audience.


Colour scheme:















On the front cover and in the contents page I chose the colour scheme to be blue, gold, black and white. I chose my target audience to be on average equal between gender, and I chose this colour sheme because I feel that it is neutral, and does not specifically appeal to males or females, as the blue is quite bright, and the gold contrasts with it, making the blue seem less stereotypically male. The two colours are quite bold as well, and also contrast with the black and white. I did this so the magazine would stand out to my target audience, and when in a shop the audience would clearly be able to read the text.
The colour scheme for the double page spread is a bright peach colour, black and white. The black and white are the more dominating colours on the pages, but the bright peach is bolder, and stands out a lot more. I used this colour in minimal amounts on the two pages, and I used it in contrast to the black and the white to represent the music that is featured in this magazine. The music stands out from the rest, which is appealing to my audience as they are fans of music of this genre.






Photos:




















Here are a few of the photos I used in my magazine.
The top right photo, I used on my cover. This photo I feel represents this music genre. The character has a cigarette in her hand, which shows rebellion, and also portrays being able to make your own decisions. The girl is wearing a leather jacket, and unique but contemporary, almost vintage clothes. The girl is also looking down, which helps portrays the some what modesty within this music - they're not in it to be cool, or for the fame; it's just the music that they love. As my audience will be able to relate to this, I feel this will attract them, and this also addresses them too. The photo in the top left is also portraying the music and the target audience, therefore addressing them; a lot of my audience will dress like this, or in their own own fashion similar to this. The girl is also stood with her head to the side, showing the carefree attitude she, and a lot of my audience have. The photo in the bottom right is a photo of a performer singing. I included this in my magazine, because it also shows an aspect of live performances, rather than just staged shots like a lot of the other photos. For the audience I have chosen live music is important to them, and they enjoy this, so I feel this picture would attract them. Portraying the characters/artists in my magazine to be similar to that of my target audience also addresses them - it gets them involved with the magazine, and also portrays their whole style.
The photo in the bottom left is a still shot of my character playing the guitar. Music, and creating music is a big part of my audience's life, and seeing this artist with an acoustic guitar (a common instrument used in this genre of music), will attract the audience in two ways - they will recognise the genre, and again they can relate to the magazine and the character.




Fonts:


Here are examples of the variety of fonts I have used within my magazine:




This font is used on the cover and on the contents page. I have repeated fonts to create a theme, and give recognition to my audience, which will attract them to my magazine; they expect to see this font. This font is quite vintage, and different to plain fonts, but not too fancy or hard to read. This attracts my audience because they are able to read it, but it is slightly edgy, compared to the conventional fonts you see in other magazines.


 This font has been used specifically for the masthead. It is a very simple font, but again it is slightly different to normal text you would find in an article. It is also memorable, so therefore will attract the audience when they next see this, and relate it to the magazine.


This font is very chic and different compared to the others. It is very plain and straight, but is distorted. This is almost like a logo for the artist, and will appeal to the audience, because it is different to the text on the rest of the page, and again will be repeated on the different pages the artist is featured.



This font here I used in my double page spread. It is very simple and straight, but still has a modern feel to it. I feel this appeals to my audience because they are all about this music, and this font is easy for them to read the information about the artist, rather than just look at a cool font.


Price
I chose to price my magazine at £3.50. I felt that this was an appropriate price, because in my research I found that most music magazines are quite expensive, up to £5.00. I could have charged more, but I chose this price, because a majority of my audience are students, and thus not have a lot of money. This price will attract them because my readers are huge music fans, and because they will want to read about music gigs, and artists, then this price will add to the attraction, because it is not very much compared to other magazines I have researched.




Once I had attracted my audience, I then addressed them with both written and visual language:
In my double page spread, I used quite informal language, which helped to address my audience. This informal language addressed my audience by making them feel it was easy to read, and wasn't too heavy with many long pointless words in. I used phrases such as "brand spanking new". This casual phrase addresses the audience by making them feel at ease, and therefore allow them to enjoy reading the article.



















Evaluation - Question 4

The Audience of my magazine, are roughly aged 17 - 30, but there also may be older people who will read my magazine, as it will often feature older music, such as britpop and classic rock.


My audience are people into music; many of them will be students studying music, or other courses that involve music in someway, such as music technology, or events management. They will generally have an appreciation for lots of music, rather than just the charts. 


The audience that will read my magazine will also be into music festivals, and live gigs. They may also play in a band themselves, and if so play instruments that make up bands featured in the magazine, instruments including guitars, bass, singing, drums and keyboard.


For the older range of my audience, if they are not students, they may have a career to do with music, whether that be teaching an instrument or a class.


I found pictures of the type of audience I feel would read my magazine. I have used the artist on the front of my cover as an example, but I feel she is a good example of my audience:


 This is an example of my target audience; they play in a band; they're really into music. Notice again the make up of the band - a guitarist, bass player and a drummer.
 This girl is wearing a flower in her hair, a leather jacket, and has her own style. She is also young; this is what my target audience would look like, or this would be their style.














After creating the final product, I feel that my product is suitable for my planned target audience. For my final product, I feel the target audience may be slightly younger, late teens to mid twenties, because there are more contemporary bands, and music festival information, which is generally aimed at the younger generation nowadays.

I feel the class of my target audience is middle class/upper class. The majority of my readership will either be a student, or just into starting work. The fact that they are a student and have gone to university shows they are intelligent, and this makes the readership a higher class.

In the beginning I planned to aim my magazine at both genders, not wanting to be specific about which gender it was aimed at. I feel that I have successfully done this, by featuring a range of different artists and gigs.


I also made a reader's profile or media pack for my magazine, to make my target audience clearer:



This would be found on NBM's website.











Evaluation - Question 1

1. In what way does my media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


The conventions of a magazine are things that commonly appear in every type of magazine - each laid out differently but then conventions still the same. Examples of typical magazine conventions would be a masthead, page numbers, fonts, colour schemes, writing style, quotes etc. In my media product I have used many contentions of existing media products to make my product look authentic, but the way I have used these has defined the genre and target audience of my magazine.


The magazines that I analysed presented these conventions in many different ways; depending on the genre of music, audience and type of magazine. Looking at all three, they all have used these conventions in similar ways, all wanting to attract their target audience.


In my work, I followed the convention of putting a masthead. All three of the magazines I analysed used a masthead, and I too followed this convention:




NME; the masthead is in the top left hand corner.








This was my masthead, also situated in the top left hand corner.




The other two mastheads of the magazines I analysed were at the top, but aligned central. Either way, the typical convention of magazines is that the masthead is at the top.




Another convention I followed was using a colour scheme. When analysing products I found that a lot of products stuck to one main colour scheme. For example, Kerrang!'s colour scheme on the cover and the contents page is red, yellow, black and white:
 
Kerrang's contents page also follows the same colour scheme as the front cover:






Again, I have followed this convention - my contents page and front cover have the same colour scheme. However, for all three magazines I also analysed double page spreads, and for all three magazines, the colour scheme was different. I have also followed this convention; the colour scheme of my double page spread is different to that of the cover and contents page.

The same colour scheme; blue, gold, black and white. 

Another convention I have followed is the writing style on the front of the cover. On my cover, I have used short and simple writing style giving the information about the features in short sentences.


This is very simple and down to the point.










Very similar to NME's cover:




NME follows the typical conventions of writing style on the cover. 





















Evaluation - question 6

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


The hardware and software I have used in each stage of production:
Research - hardware:
- Computer
Research - software:
- The internet; facebook, surveymonkey, magazine's websites, blogger
- Word
Planning - hardware:
- Computer
- Camera
Planning - software:
- Internet; blogger
- Paintshop Pro
- Publisher
- Word
Production - hardware:
- Computer
- Camera
- Phone camera
- Memory stick
Production - software:
- Paintshop Pro
- Publisher
- Internet; blogger
- Word


Things I have learned through using this technology:
Firstly, I hadn't used a blog before, so I learned how to use this. I created the blog, and then learned how to publish posts, add photos and links which is what I needed to do for this particular blog. As I did more research and planning, I continued to use the blog, adding things as I did more work, and therefore learning about the blog itself.


Another thing I didn't know how to use was Survey Monkey. This is a survey website which allows you to create your own survey, and publish it on different sites to collect responses. With this site, I learned how to create a blog, and then publish it on a website such as Facebook.


When I used the camera, I learned how to adjust the settings to that I got the picture I wanted. I learned how to adjust the brightness and darkness, and also the sharpness of the photo. I also learned how to use the colour setting, allowing the colour to change from black and white, to sepia and so on.


I could not have completed my blog without technology. This business relies on technology - taking and manipulating photos and creating media texts on computer software programs. If I had not used any technology, my media product would not have been realistic at all, and not have been suited to the type of media text it was categorized in.


There were not many pieces of technology I could have done without, but I could have created my product without the program Word, because I could have written my article straight onto my blog, and onto my media product. I could have also done without a phone, because I already had a camera. Otherwise, all the technology I used was necessary. 


The main bit of technology I couldn't have done without is Paintshop Pro. This is where I manipulated my images, and also created the layout and text of the whole magazine. Without this, my magazine would not have been able to have text or different layers of photos on.


The positives of using technology are most of them are easy to use, and the result after using them is far better than if you didn't use them.


The negatives are that technology can sometimes be temperamental, and if you haven't saved your work, or the program crashes, then you will have lost your work.











Sunday, 27 February 2011

Evaluation - question 7

Looking back at my preliminary task, what have I learned in the progression from it to the full product?


Since my preliminary task, I have learnt a lot about addressing target audiences while creating a media product, the conventions of typical music magazines for various genres and audiences and also how to use different technologies to create my product.
When I began to create my preliminary task; the college magazine, I did not really address my audience, I just began to make the front cover and contents page without putting much thought into the way it looked, or the way the text was worded. However, after studying many products that relate to my final produce I learned that media texts should address a specific target audience,in the way they are presented; using fonts, colours, writing style to appeal to this audience.
I also learned through my research, and analysing 3 music magazines the general conventions of magazines in general, and also in particular music magazines that matched the music genre I had chosen for my product.


When I began the process of planning to make my full product, I had to go through 3 stages before it could be make, and finished; researchplanning, and production.


In my research, I did various things to find out the conventions of magazines. I analysed three other magazines, I created a survey to help me with my audience research and I also looked at the typical audience for other music magazines. When creating my first task the college magazine, I did no research at all, and just began to make the magazine. I have learned that research helps a lot to understand not only the conventions, but being able to aim it at a specific audience and demographic based on these conventions.




When I planned my magazine I went through many processes to make sure that my magazine was thorough, and well though out. I created a pitch giving information on my target audience, flatplans to roughly draft out my magazine layout, a stylesheet to give me various options on fonts and colours, planning photos and writing my article. When creating the college magazine, I put a minimal amount of planning into my work. The result of this was not very good, compared to my final product. Through this planning stage I have learned planning too is very effective when creating work like this too.
I also learned to write articles for the style of music magazines, and the specific target audience. I learned through research and planning whether to use formal or informal language, and I learned how to address my audience through this text.


In the production stage, I feel I learned the most about creating a media text. I learned about image manipulation - changing an image on a computer program, text manipulation and layout design & manipulation.


Here are the things I have learned about manipulation, and using technology in my work:
Firstly, I learned how to cut out an image on paintshop. I used the lasso tool to cut out the person in the photo so she could be on a white background. Before this task I didn't know how to do this, but I learned to do this, and used it a few times with some of the photos I used. I did not use this in my college magazine, I just put the whole picture on the front, and because of this my college magazine does not look as good as my actual product.


Another thing I learned was how to layout my page so that it looked authentic, and would appeal to my target audience. I firstly learned about magazine layouts in my research, and then put this knowledge into my planning - my flatplans. Then when it came to producing the actual product I had an idea of what to do, to make it look properly like a magazine. I feel I progressed from my first task, because although the layout was similar to a magazine, I feel I didn't plan enough, and I hadn't researched fully how magazines were set out, and why.