Evaluation Question 7

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

In my preliminary task we were asked to do a mock magazine for the school , the one on the left is what I came up with , the way I did this magazine was very different in how I did my front cover , for my preliminary task I did not plan the pictures , I just went around the school and took some pictures, I also did not edit them , they were just from the camera , I had never used Corel draw before this so it was hard to use so I didn’t know  how to change many colours , now I can use Corel draw really well, I learnt how to separate text from pictures , how to make it look like article text , I have also learnt how to ass text and make it fit into my magazine with the fonts and colours. , I also know the best sites to edit photos, which is what I used for my front cover, I learnt that the best site to do this was picnic , it had really good features like adding text and different effects , I learnt what made my pictures look best by going through all the different effects. For first my front cover, barely any planning went into it , I took the pictures on the day , I didn’t know what to take pictures of , so I took pictures of everything, I hadn't thought f the colours on the magazine so just went with what looked best , as I look at it now it seems really bad compared to my new cover but on the photo shoot for my music front cover , I learnt form my past experiences so  I planned a photo-shoot and spent ages picking and editing the right photo, it took me a few weeks to come up with the right features to put on and how to attract my target audience with it , I didn't even think about these things with my preliminary task but I now know ,you have to choose the colours and features which will make your target audience buy the magazine. For my music magazine front cover, I made an imaginary entity so I could picture my target audience, this would help me to write what features I would put in . With this magazine I made people gave me feedback so I could tweak things that they thought weren't right , which I didn’t do on my preliminary task, I learnt from the peoples feedback the things that I didn’t see. I think I have learnt lots from my preliminary task to my front cover , I’ve learnt the it skills to change all the layouts and pictures and I’ve also learnt about what actual things to put on the cover.

 

Evaluation Question 6

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

For this project I had to use lots of different new technologies to create it, they can teach you good skills which you can use all the time, the technologies I used in this project were good to understand and learn as I can now use them for other things as well.

Camera

The camera I used for my project was a Nikon coolpix camera , before the project I rarely used the camera so I didn’t know how to use it properly , but after going through it I found you could change the kind of scene you capture, it can also adjust to the picture I’m taking , for example it has an anti blur motion for taking pictures of something like a train. I wouldn’t of used this camera if it weren't for the project and learnt the things that help you take better pictures.

Internet

Internet- Although before this project I knew about the internet really well , it was the things I researched on the internet that helped me with my project, as I was looking things up for my research I found the site press gazette, it gives statistics and information that I put into my project which helped me understand it a lot better.

Its useful for looking at the different publishing companies as I spent many times looking at these sites, the internet is the biggest help into looking up things for my project

Blogger

Blogger is a internet site for blogger’s , people can blog about anything on this site but I put my media coursework onto it , I created a page , I put my diary and print screens of all my work and homework on here so its easy to access, this displays all of my work , I’ve used this technology the most as it’s the most useful.

One of things I learned you can do on Blogger is to organise all your work into labels, so people know what there looking for can find it at the side ,for example if they are looking for my diary but it’s a few pages you can just click on the tab called diary and it will take you straight to it, another thing I learnt to-do was to add multimedia to it , I added videos of people talking about my front cover on there, I also learnt how to add pictures to my bogs as well.

This is the main page where my work is displayed so I made a presentable background and fonts for the page.

Photo editing software's

In my project when I had to edit the pictures , Corel didn’t have any ways to edit the photo so I used different technologies.

Picnic is a good online site where you can use many different effects on photos , it helped my photos look more professional , on my front cover I used an old rustic effect which made it look more effective than just a normal picture , I also used it on her single front cover ,I used different texts and a brightness effect.

I also used power point as it could make simple effects like making my double page spread photos black and white, I tried different technologies for example , Photoshop, but I found that I didn’t need to do any detailed changing to my pictures so I found I didn’t need the software at all.

Corel

Corel draw was the software I had to use for my front cover , contents and double page spread , so I had to use a lot , I got accustomed to the software because its very easy to use , everything is clearly laid out.

I learned the skills of finding different colours to mix and use for fonts and backgrounds , I also learnt how to create borders to keep everything straight.

With this software you can create barcodes which I use don my front cover, I liked using this software because I find it easy but one of the disadvantages was that it kept crashing a lot and losing my work so I had to save it regularly but it was still a good software.

These technologies have helped me to understand new software's and now in the future I can use them for work or different topics/subjects, these have defiantly helped me advance in using different technologies as I can experiment more with what I'm doing.

Evaluation Question 5

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

I was thinking between which publishing house would be better for me , I thought of Conde Nast as it was high profile people on the magazine covers which look similar to mine but I think that because apart of my magazine is quite gossip filled that it would suit Bauer media more, so I have chosen bauer media as the perfect place for my magazine because, they have gossip magazine and good music magazine that my magazine is a mix and that type of publisher would know how to market this magazine , also if I wanted to expand my magazine they also do radio and TV , I could do a radio station that plays the music we talk about the magazine and maybe a TV channel which could play the latest music videos to the readers and maybe attract more customers , they can also advertise my magazine in there other magazines as they could have a similar audience and I know it would be possible to get readers as they have  following of 19 million. In my case study I noticed that if you were in a good publishing house then you re magazine would thrive and get better readership numbers.

Magazine make money from advertising and selling theirmagazines , the biggest way to get money is through advertising, in my rate card I wrote who I think should advertise and how much pages cost to advertise in and if done right my magazine should make and annual turnover of £22986000.

Evaluation Question 4

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

•Representation is when a symbol stands for something .

•For example , the McDonalds symbol is just the letter M which is internationally known and represents MacDonald's, but in media terms representation is the way something gets represented to someone , for example in the news if they are reporting on a war between the UK and France then they are going to represent the information in which is supported towards the UK, all representation goes through a mediating process so you get the knowledge from a third party source.

•The main people I want to read my magazine are ABC1 , this is who my magazine is aimed at. Social stratification is the way I know who I want to aim my magazine at , social stratification gives magazines knowledge of who is reading there magazine , whether they are middle class or working class , they can also separate this into male or female or age or religion.

•As the encoder for this magazine , I thought that as I am the age group for my target audience then I would have  a bigger advantage as I know what people my age like , I choose things to put in that would be interesting to me and my friends , I asked them what kind of things would make them buy this magazine and what would attract them to it in the first place.

•I think my representation links in the fact that it can be placed in the same genres as other magazines so that the people who would buy that magazine would also buy mine.

•The representation is  very denotative, the magazine is aimed at teenagers and I don’t really think it needs to be more complex , I am aiming the magazine solely at them so I just need to write the things that they would like the most.

•I think my representation is  gives a positive light on the social group I aim my magazine at , its fun and interesting , its not completely dumbed down which shows try's to put a positive light on teenagers.

Evaluation Question 3

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

 

•Genre is what a something is put under , it could be a type of music , we categorize pop or hip-hop as a genre of music as not all music is the same.

•The general things that come into a magazine , is normal things like for the front cover , you need a masthead, plugs, barcodes and articles in the magazine , normal pages would be a contents page and a double page spread, these are the things you would find in a conventional magazine.

•In magazines they also have generic textual features, narrative, this is the way the text stays consistent throughout the magazine, basic themes, this could be the way you layout your pages or how the magazine has similar colours throughout. Iconography is a easy part to put across because your title would be a icon and would make people know this was your magazine brand.

•The encoder of a magazine tries to understand the target audience so they put a lot of research into it , this means that when they create the magazine they expect the decoder to understand the text and enjoy it , they create the magazine specially for this market and hope they understand it to buy it as money is probably there main reason for selling and making the magazine.

•In my magazine I believe that I conformed to how a usual magazine works, as the encoder I created a text that teenagers would understand , it wouldn’t challenge them as hopefully that would make them buy it, I created an iconic masthead that I have put throughout the magazine so that it would become a recognised brand  almost. I did change the layout on pages and I changed the colours on all the pages to make it more interesting.

•I didn't do anything too different to what a normal magazine would do , I obviously changed things that would attract to my target audience more , but I thought that sticking to the normal formula for a magazine would be better as there is nothing wrong with them in the first place.

 

These are the main types of forms and conventions that go into a magazine , I will look at how I’ve used/not used/changed them into my magazine.

•Masthead- I’ve managed to use this on my DPS, Front cover and contents as I want to create it into a brand so that its instantly recognisable that why its everywhere in my magazine.

•Cover lines -  I’ve also stuck to this as my front cover has got three of them , I think they attract the customer to the magazine if they are interested in it so they are something to keep.

•Cover price – I’ve also kept the cover price in a area which you can see

•Fonts – They are all the same on the front cover , apart from the masthead as its meant to be different , I’ve also tried to use the same font throughout apart from titles.

•Puffs – I added a puff as most people like free things in magazines as it could attract more customers.

•Barcode

•Feature article photo- My feature article photo takes the whole page , so I have not added any other as I don’t need to attract attention to any other photos as this is the main feature article as my front cover.

I have used the form and conventions as I  feel they make a normal magazine , and my magazine isn't trying to be edgy or different its supposed to be something a lot of people would like.

Evaluation Question 2

How do you attract/Address your audience?

 

My target audience is 16/17 years old girls , to attract them to my magazine I need to address stories that they would be interested in, for example on my contents page I get to go into more detail of what my magazine fully entails, one of the articles is Jessie J answers your questions , I think that having this feature will attract teen girls to my column as she is someone is current , has a new TV show and is currently in charts, they would value her opinion and would be something they would buy into.

The way I would address my audience would be too use language that they would use all the time  , I would try to use this all the way through and make this be the mode of address I use to them, it would probably abbreviated in areas but most of time would be normal , nothing too complicated to understand but no very stupid either. Throughout my magazine I used simple language which everyone could read, I chose to do this as I want it to be a magazine to enjoy , to relax and unwind, not to figure out what every word means.

I am clear in that because of my target audience I use a certain mode of address to them.

I chose my cover star as a controversial figure which I hope would attract people to read to see if everything she had done was true because that what's people want to know, especially at that age , its interesting to read about other peoples problems .

From my audience feedback I feel I have create a magazine that would attract and keep entertained 16/17 girls, from the fonts and text which are clear and easily read, to my pictures which are fun and colourful which makes the page looks nicer and the layout which is clear and looks conventional to normal magazines but this is what would be attractive to my audience as they don’t want to venture outside of anything that’s not normal.

To look at what people thought of my target audience, I devised an imaginary entity

where they could answer questions in what they thought was my target audience. I asked three people to do this so I could find out what people thought of my target audience and when I got them back, I got the right kinds of answers I wanted.

Evaluation Question 1

Who would be the Audience for your media Product?

My target audience for my product is 16/17 year old girls, who like to listen to new music and get all the new gossip from the magazines, this person would have an active lifestyle and always be out, they would have a job and be well educated. I chose this target audience because they are around my age and easy to relate too, I can realise what will attract them to my magazine, concerning features, colours, pictures.

As the encoder, I want the decoder to read the front of my magazine and decide that this would suit them, I have done this by giving away free downloads which is what people would like at this age because they don’t like to spend there music on money when they could spend it on better things, I’ve also mentioned on my front cover about new young artists (Rihanna,Rizzle Kicks), and also x factor would be a popular show so they might watch this and like to know the gossip about it . I have chosen all these articles because I know they would attract my kind of target audience.