jake media evaluation

EVALUATIONBy Jake Wyatt

The Brief

The brief was to create a new music magazine with a front cover, contents page and double page spread. While also using a minimum of 4 original images.

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

My magazine follows conventions by using a dateline

Barcode

Cover lines

Main image (Medium Close up)

Main Cover Line is usually larger font size than my main cover line. This is shown by the XXL magazine.

Main image (Medium shot)

Barcode

Magazine logo/ masthead


Main Cover Line

Breaking conventions with text on face

My house style is red and blue Cover

lines

Differently to my magazine the XXL

magazine has a lot of free space at the bottom so

that the main focus is on the image


Magazine logo/ masthead is repeated on the contents page this is something which follows

conventions

I have once again used a date line to follow magazine

conventions.

List of features

I have kept the use of red and white for my

contents page

I have followed magazine

conventions by using the title

“contents”

I have used anchors related to the features

above them. The fact that I have only used images for

a few of the magazine features shows them to be

the most important features of the magazine.


Differently to my magazine fails to use the contents page title

The magazine also uses a date line

This magazine has used a date line. however differently to my magazine it also has the title of the magazine.

This contents page lists fewer features than my magazine I have used.

However it uses a greater amount of anchors and

images.


I have used Pull quotes. This

follows magazine conventions

The text that I have used for the

headline of the article is uncommon

compared to the usual magazine

texts

I have used page numbers to follow

magazine conventions

I have also used a stand first

following conventions once

again.

I have challenged conventions by having the picture credit and by-line

together, as oppose to having the by-line at the start of the

article as is usually done

I have also used a large image to show the members of the band.

The image is a medium long shot

I have used the magazine logo/ masthead once

again on the double page spread in order to follow

conventions

I have continued the use of the red and white

colour scheme on my double page spread also

Magazine headline

Pull quote

This magazine has used a long shot as the main image for the double page

spread

This magazine has used page numbers. however differently to my magazine next to the page number it also uses a date line, while also having the title of the

magazine also

I have challenged media conventions

by using some slang words in my articles such as “yep” and

“haha”

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The imagery used in my magazine represents the urban youth of society. This is shown in my magazine through the use of a variety of young people wearing urbanised clothing, representing what some people may stereotype as ‘hoodies’. I have also used text to relate to the urban youth with the main group featured in the magazine being called ‘Street crew’ once again relating to the streets and urban areas.


Gender

In terms of gender my magazine uses both males and females. However the magazine features predominantly males, in reflection I may have decided to include more females in my magazine to cover both genders strongly.

AgeEveryone included in my magazine was between the age of 16 and 17. I used these people as they usually enjoy Hip Hop music the most. I could have used more people in my magazine who were in their 20s and 30s however older age groups tend to have less interest in the Hip Hop genre.


Ethnicity and race

All the people featured in my magazine were either white British or British from Asian descent. Traditionally the vast majority of Hip Hop artists are black, by using people of different race and ethnicity I have tried to show that there is a broader range of artists. However on reflection it may have been a good idea to feature some black Hip Hop artists in my magazine as they are more easily recognised as Hip Hop artists.


Social ClassThe Hip Hop genre is usually associated with artists that come from a humble background and the music is usually listened to by lower middle class (C1) and the working class (C2 and D). Because of this I have included people from lower middle class (C1) and the working class (C2 and D) in my magazine. As these are people from the social classes which are traditionally involved in the Hip Hop genre and that the readers would relate to easiest.

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

I have looked into many different media institutions that might distribute my magazine over the next few slides are some of the media institutions I have looked into:

IPC Media is a British magazine and digital publisher. That publishes magazines in many different areas such as sports and leisure as well as TV entertainment and also music. In the music sector that I am interested in some of the magazines it publishes include:

NME

Uncut


Is a German owned media company that first started in Britain during the 1980s. The publisher has magazines in various different areas such as football, lifestyle, cars and music. Some of the Music magazines they produce include.

Kerrang

MOJO


Dennis publishing is a British media publisher first founded in 1974. The company publishes over 30 magazines and mainly operates within the UK. The magazine doesn’t currently publish a music magazine however it does have magazines in other areas such as lifestyle, technology and cars. Some of its most famous magazines include:

Auto Express

PC Pro


From the 3 main media publishers I have looked at the institution I have decided I would prefer to distribute my magazine would be IPC. I have chosen this institution because I felt it would be important to have an institution with vast experience distributing my magazine. I have therefore chosen IPC because differently to Dennis publishing the company has experience in the music field, particularly with NME which is a very long running magazine (over 60 years). The other institution I looked at was Bauer, the company also has a great amount o experience in the music field however I don’t feel that there experience is as great. In addition to that Bauer already produces a greater amount of music magazines than IPC and may be unwilling to take on any more.

4. Who would the audience be for your media product?

The main audience for my magazine would be teenagers and young adults as this is the group which are most likely to enjoy Hip Hop music.

In terms of the social class I feel that mainly lower middle class (C1) and the working class (C2 and D) would be my target audience as a lot of Hip Hop artists started from humble beginnings and their lyrics often relate to issues that working class people would understand better than other social classes. Due to this it is these groups that tend to take an interest in Hip Hop music the most and who would therefore be my main audience.

All the Hip Hop artists below have often wrote lyrics relating to issues they had growing up from humble beginnings and therefore relate easily to both Teenagers and the working class.

Jay-Z Plan B Notorious B.I.G.


In the past their had been a lack of female artists, however in recent years an increase of female Hip Hop artist has meant that there is more interest in the genre from females. Because of this differently to in previous years I would now consider my main target audience to be both males and females.

Below are some of the famous females that have elevated interest in the Hip Hop genre:

Nicki Minaj M.I.A. Beyonce


In terms of gender although most famous Hip Hop artists are black there are now more people of other races involved in Hip Hop music and therefore there is less of a specific ethnicity or race who would be my target audience.

Jay SeanEminem


Over the next few slides I will look at how psychographic profiles can help me to determine my audience.

Amaar Ahmed- (Aged 16)

Hobbies: Interested in football, enjoys playing computer games and watching films.

Favourite music artists: Jay Z, Kanye West and Rakeem.

Social Class: Amaars is working class his father works locally at Land Rover and his mother doesn’t work.

Ethnicity:Amaar is English from Pakistani origins. Both his parents were born in England however his grandparents were born in Pakistan.


Poonam Parmar (aged 17)

Hobbies: Enjoys reading books, playing netball and shopping.

Favourite music artists: M.I.A., Nelly and Drake

Social Class: Poonam is middle class as both her parents work as teachers in secondary school.

Ethnicity:Poonam is English from Indian origins. Her mother was born in England howver her father was born in India, as were all her grandparents.


Reece Williams (Aged 17)

Hobbies: Reece enjoys Rugby, football and computer games.

Favourite music artists: Jay-Z, Dr Dre and Tupac.

Social Class: Reece is middle class as his mother is a school teacher and his father is an engineer.

Ethnicity:Reece is from a mixed British background. himself and his parents were all born in England, however his mom’s parents were born in Ireland and his dad’s parents were from Wales.

4. Who would the audience be for your media product?The psychographic profiles I have created back up what I had previously said to do with the audience of my magazine. Firstly all of the people I have created a profile on are between the age of 16-17 fitting in with the teenagers and young adults category. Secondly 2 of the 3 people are from working class backgrounds fitting in with my expected audience. As well as this the fact that each person has a different ethnicity and lists Hip Hop artists as being there favourite, also fits in with my idea that people of all races and ethnicity can fit into my target audience.

Although all 3 people list different hobbies they all include a sport as being something they are interested, this may provide a link between sport and the Hip Hop genre. This is something which can be seen through Hip Hop artists themselves such as Jay-Z who has shares in American basketball team the Brooklyn Nets. Although the 3 people share sport as a hobby the fact that they all have different hobbies in everything else shows again the wide variety of people interested in the genre.

I feel that my psychographic profiling has been useful in terms of backing up my previous ideas and providing me with other links between the Hip Hop genre and my audience. I also feel it showcases the fact that anyone can enjoy Hip Hop music no matter where they differ as people.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I have attracted my target audience of teenagers and young adults by using people of that age group in my magazines pictures. I have also attracted my audience by discussing things which I thought would appeal to them such as fashion, festivals and interviews with Hip Hop artists. The people I have used in my magazine are wearing fashionable and urban clothing in order to relate to the target audience and the kind of clothing they would wear. In addition to this there is a use of slang in the main article on my double page spread in order for it to be easier for the target audience to relate to.

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

The creation of my magazine was done through Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. Over the next few slides I will look into some of the things I have learnt about the programmes I used in the creation of my magazine.


I have learnt how to use a lot of the features that are part of the Adobe Photoshop toolbar. One of the main features that I learnt how to was the Polygon lasso in order to do a cut out of an image. By doing the cut out I was able to remove the shadow that was present on the original image and make it more professional.

Before After


I created a cut out for the first time by using the cloning stamp. I used this in order to remove the shadow on the original image by replicating the colour of a nearby area of that image.

I used the move tool throughout creating my front cover in order to move things around and experiment with layout of my front cover.


I learnt how to use the swatches in Photoshop to make sure that I saved the colours that I had used in the magazine. This made it easier for me as it meant that I could select these swatches for other parts of the magazine in order to make sure I was using the right shades of certain colours and therefore continuing the colour scheme throughout. For the front cover this was important as I used different boxes and fonts in different places and needed to insert the same shade of red from the swatches to maintain the colour scheme.


I also used many of the tools from the toolbar in InDesign.

I learnt how to use the eyedropper tool so that I could easily copy attributes from one thing to another. I did this with text to copy the font type or colour from one piece of text to another.

I also used the text tool often to write texts in different areas of my contents page and double page spread, I also used it when creating my article and writing pull quotes.


I learnt how to drop shadow images and objects this was an important effect for me to learn as I felt it was very eye catching and would improve the quality of my magazine.


Some of the fonts which I used such came from Dafont.com this is an online font website which I used in order to find some more unique fonts than the ones which are available on InDesign and Photoshop.

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

The first main thing I have learnt when creating the full product would be how to produce a double page spread. During the preliminary task we didn’t produce a double page spread and so this is an extra skill I have learnt. Now that I now have experience with a double page spread it means I am aware of how to create a magazine feature and not just the front cover and contents page of a magazine. This is a good thing to have learnt as with a feature you have to set it out different to a magazines front cover and contents page, as well as this you need to write an article so creating the double page spread has enabled me to learn a lot.


I think I have learnt a lot since the preliminary task in terms of how to produce a front cover. The front cover from my preliminary task used basic fonts, where as my full product used a variety of different fonts and font sizes. I think this shows that I have developed how to make the front cover of the magazine more clear and eye catching to the reader. I also think I have developed a greater sense of spacing, the front cover of my preliminary task magazine had a lot of empty space particularly on the right hand side where as my front cover uses most of the space available and doesn’t have a lot of gaps. I think I have also developed my use of imagery greatly, the image from my preliminary task is slightly to the right where as the image from my preliminary task is centred better. I think all the things I have learnt have helped me to create a more professional looking front cover.


I think I have also learnt a lot in terms of creating a contents page for a magazine. Firstly I think I have learnt how to make the fonts used clearer, I think the colours used are much easier to read in my main task than what they were in the preliminary task. I have also realised that it’s a good idea to list more features which are in the magazine in order to attract the reader easier. Finally I also think that I have used my images better on the main task than the preliminary task as the images on the preliminary task look slightly stretched and as if they should have been cropped better. I think all the things that I have learnt have helped my to create a vastly improved and much more reader friendly contents page.

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