OCR Media Studies – AS Level

Unit G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media

Preliminary Task, Log Book and Evaluation

Name: Arianne PlumleyCandidate Number: 6732Center Name: St. Paul’s Catholic CollegeCenter Number: 64770

Set Brief - Print

Music Magazine – Production

Preliminary Task Progression, Log Book and Evaluation

Preliminary Task Progression– EvidenceFront Cover

https://ternajogo96.wordpress.com/as-media-studies/

Preliminary task progression-Evidence Front cover- step-by-step

When making my front over I decided not to follow a layout, I started with a blank page and then added my borders to fit in with my theme for the year 11 magazine. I then built upon this

blank canvas and made a masthead and headline. Slowly adding in all the conventions

that the magazine needed.

Preliminary Task Progression– EvidenceContents Page

Preliminary task progression-Evidence Contents Page- step-by-step

For my contents page I used the template I made for the font cover, adding the border and the colors in, I added the stories and the images

I had come up with. I had to re position the layout a couple of times so that it looked how I

wanted it. After the layout for the contents page was how I wanted it I went on to write my

editorial and take my editorial picture. I edited the picture and positioned it where I wanted it.

Section 1) – Log Book

Music Magazine – Genre researchPop music magazines RnB music magazines Rock music magazines

Country music magazines Hip hop music magazines Classical music magazine

Music Magazine – Genre research

Music magazine genre research

Billboard magazine was founded in 1894

Founders: William H. Donaldson & James Hennegan

Billboard Publications became a major trade magazine publisher, acquiring The Hollywood Reporter, Kirkus Reviews, Adweek and Mediaweek.

Billboard is intended for music professionals, such as Record label executives, artists, music retailers and radio DJ’s.

The Billboard Music Award is an honor given by Billboard. The Billboard Music Awards show had been held annually in December until it went dormant in 2007, it returned in May 2011.

Why Billboard?I have decided to research Billboard as my starting point for this project, firstly as Billboard is an established magazine they have a wide audience, this is my aspiration for my magazine so it could offer me some guidance and direction hen making my magazine.However Billboard is also well known for covering Rap/Pop artists and writing articles on their career and how they got thee and the genre I would like to focus on is just pop, I want to talk about more gossip and drama in the music industry.Therefore by researching Billboard magazine I will be able to highlight areas of this magazine that I want to incorporate into mine and areas that I would rather leave out.

Billboards codes and conventions-Front cover

Masthead

Picture

Barcode

Main headline

Cover line

Web address, Price & Date

Established Magazine for my Research

These statistics show me what kind of people read Billboard and gives me an insight into the audience. If I want a similar audience to Billboard then I know what things I need to to. Billboards readers are generally quite young and as I want a younger audience I should ask the young Billboard readers what attracts them to the magazine.

Target Audience – Katz, Maslow, Hartley and/or socio-economic needsThe target audience for Billboard magazine varies from young teens, from the age of 16, to young adults at the age of 26. his is because the magazine provides its readers with the latest updates from the to charts, but of different types of music genders. Billboard magazine covers many genres including: rock, metal, pop, RnB and plenty more. As well as the mature layout of the magazine there are young artist’s which will draw in a young audience. This front cover links to the theory of “male gaze” as Drake is a pop icon and people want to be able to preform like him and some people also want to look like him.

What is the USP of this magazine? USP stands for Unique selling proposition. “The factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than that of the competition”. The USP of Billboard magazine is the simple format. The front page has a single image which is similar to Vogue magazine which is one of the best selling magazines in the world. As the magazine only has one image on the front it attracts an audience that likes the celebrity that’s on the front.

Publisher research

• Billboard is an American music magazine, headquartered in New York City, New York and owned by Prometheus Global Media.

• It was first published on November 1, 1894, and is distinguished as being among the oldest trade magazines in the world.

• Prometheus Global Media is New York City based business-to-business media company.

• The company was formed in December 2009 by the entertainment and media division of Nielsen Company to a private equity-backed group led by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners, Guggenheim would acquire Pluribus’s stake in the company in January 2013, giving it full ownership.

TOP OF THE POPS

When I started looking at the type of magazine I wanted to created I decided that it was to be an old school anthems/club classics magazine, so I thought that it would be wise to look into top of the pops magazine for some inspiration as it is similar to the type of magazine I am looking to create. Published by Immediate

Media Company.

The magazine was launched in February 1995

and is famous for giving girl group The Spice Girls

their nicknames.

Immediate Media Company• Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a combined

publishing house containing the former assets of Origin Publishing, Magicalia and BBC Magazines.

• It was formed on 1 November 2011 and is owned by Exponent Private Equity. It publishes over 50 magazine titles and over 30 websites, and it employs 750 staff in its offices in Hammersmith, London and Bristol.

• Its CEO is Tom Bureau who has a background in digital media as well as traditional publishing.

• 60% of Immediate's profit is generated by the Radio Times, which is now spearheading the company’s moves into online retailing.

• In May 2014 Immediate announced its acquisition of Future plc's Sport and Craft titles in a £24 million deal, acquiring 130 staff.

Immediate Media CompanyBBC Top Of The Pops Magazine is the biggest-selling teen lifestyle title in the market, focusing on self discovery, self expression and the world of celebrities. Featuring the

latest fashion and beauty, star gossip, real life stories and celebrity advice, the magazine brings readers exclusive and exciting content every four weeks.

“We bring our readers closest to their idols, because we’re the magazine that knows celebs the best. Every issue is packed with exclusive interviews and photos, as well as brilliant star advice and affordable fashion and beauty. We’re the friend our readers can rely on to give them confidence, make them laugh, and share all the juiciest gossip. And that’s why BBC Top Of The Pops Magazine is the UK’s biggest-selling teen title.”Peter Hart, Editor - BBC Top Of The Pops Magazine

Target Audience – Katz, Maslow, Hartley and/or socio-economic needsThe target audience for THROWIN’ BACK magazine can be denoted as young music lovers. The magazine could also appeal to middle aged women that were fans of old school music when they were younger. I want my audience to feel as if the magazine takes them somewhere else, it should allow them to forget their stresses and worries whilst reading.

What is the USP of this magazine? YOU MUST refer to specific conventions/stories from you researchFrom the research completed into this media product, I think the USP is the fact that there is no magazine out there on the market like mine. It appeals to an audience that there are not many magazines for. As there are not many magazines like mine there is then a wider audience that can target. My magazine has any unique selling points but the main one s the fact that it itself is unique

Section 2) – Evaluation

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

products? The magazine ‘repeats’ (Steve Neale) codes and conventions from magazine such as “Top Of The Pops” and “Billboard” as inspiration and a rough style idea which I decided to try and replicate in a few ways. “Top f The Pops” magazine has the same kind of colour scheme that was constant through-out all of my 4 pages. Pink, White, Black and Purple were the colours I used that were similar to the “Top Of The Pops” colour scheme. For my Front cover I had to include certain codes and conventions which included a Bar code, the date/price, the issue number, a unique selling point, a main image and matching headline, cover lines, a masthead and a strapline. Then when creating my contents page I also had some codes and conventions that had to be included such as sections, page numbers, promotions, sublines, web address/social networking sites. Also it was important that I included another image of the model I used for my front cover. By using all these codes and conventions I was able to ensure that my magazine looked similar to a real life magazine.

My double page spread repeated some of the codes, conventions and techniques that “Top Of The Pops” has, for instance on the double page spread from “Top Of The Pops” the writing is positioned to fit around Selena Gomez’ body, I reinterpreted this on my magazine and created a visually interesting page for my audience. The double page spread also contains images similar to the image on the front cover so when the reader is flicking through the magazine they recognise the celebrities and therefor making the reader want to stop and look at the double page spread ion more detail.There are examples of some ‘difference’, however, in terms of the forms and conventions in my own media product for example, a mainstream music magazine would use the initials of the editor when asking the question e.g. ‘AP:’ but I decided that I would represent this with ‘TB’ as these are the initials of the magazines name “Throwin’ Back”.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The definition of representation is “to act or speak on behalf of someone”. Although in my magazine it means whether or not I have managed to create a magazine that is appealing to a particular type of social group. If I was able to create a magazine that appeals to one or more specific social groups, it would be an classed as an economical success. This is because the larger the target audience the greater the amount of consumers who would purchase my magazine. However for the magazine I have created I do not believe that it would not appeal to such a wide audience because of the genre. As my magazine is about ‘old school anthems’ and ‘club classics’ it would not appeal to an audience of anyone who was born after the year 2000 as there is no music featured in my magazine written after about 1999-2000. My questionnaire asked people of my target age what their favourite genre of music was, there was a mix of results that came back, some said ‘rap/rnb’ but some also said ‘old school anthems’ so I decided to create a magazine that merged the two, it was to only feature ‘old school anthems’ but they would be more upbeat ‘pop’ kind of songs. The magazine, across the 4-pages, helps to represent the genre I was aiming to portray which is ‘old school anthems’, it does this as the colours I have chosen to use (pink, purple, black and white) are firstly seen stereotypically as ‘girls’ colours which is suitable for my target audience. Also when looking at ‘old school anthems’ CD’s I noticed that the reoccurring colours were purple, white, pink and blue therefor I designed my magazine using some of these specific colours.

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

From the research that was completed in the log book, I would assume that Immediate Media Company may publish ‘Throwin’ Back’ because they published ‘Top Of The Pops’(TOTP) magazine, my magazine and ‘TOTP’ magazine are slightly similar in the layout and as they both focus on pop music I think it would be wise for me to use Immediate Media Company as my publisher.Also Immediate Media Company is a London based company which is important as I want my audience to be Londoners. My target audience was pub-going woman in London. I specified that I wanted the women to be class C. this means that they are everyday working women. I believe that Immediate Media Company would be able to target my audience and attract them to the magazine.The similarities of my magazine to ‘Top Of The Pops’ (such as the way in which the front cover is displayed) also ‘signifies’ (De Saussure) that Immediate Media Company may think about publishing/distributing my magazine because it has similar codes and conventions as ‘Top Of The Pops’ which Immediate Media Company.

Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

Hartley’s seven subjectivitiesAccording to Hartley’s seven subjectivities, the target audience for my magazine would be for the age

range of 18 to 35 especially for females (Hartley) since most of the artists featured in my magazine are females, so having a female based audience would sell my magazine more.

Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theoryAccording to Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theory, a female audience would find it much easier to create

‘personal relationships’ with those who are mentioned in my magazine, however it may still appeal to the male gender (Hartley) as the images in my magazine are mostly of female, this could act as an attractant because females are often objectified for the pleasure of the male audience (Male Gaze- Laura Mulvey).

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needsAccording to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, ‘social climbers’ would make up a large amount of my

audience since they would try and find out as much information as possible on the celebrities mentioned so they were ‘informed’ and ‘educated’(Katz) on everything that was new in the music industry. Also the working class (Karl Marx) would really be targeted since they would be able to afford the magazine as well as appreciate the ‘diversion’ (Katz) it offers from day to day life, this is one of the reasons I have aimed my magazine at working, everyday women.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract my target audience of females aged between 18-35, I decided to use colors that would make it possible to attract a female audience, also by using a structured design I was able to attract the sort of women I intended to. My magazine probably would not attract a male audience as they may think the magazine looks “too girly” and that the colors are “too feminine”.

Also by having a Unique Selling Point (USP) it would be possible for me to make people want to buy my magazine. My USP was that you get a free iTunes download with every issue. People who are a fan of music would want to buy the magazine because of this, to make the USP even better I could have done a small print which stated that buyers could only download a song that was featured in the magazine therefor bringing the stats and download rates for old school anthems up.

I included codes and conventions on the contents page for example having an editorial. This helped to appeal to the target audience because I used direct address. By using second person pronouns such as “you” and “we” I was able to make the readers feel a part of something and they then may feel like they have developed a personal relationship with the editor.

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

The denotation of the software used to construct the media product entitled “THROWIN’ BACK” was Adobe Photoshop CS4. I used this because it had all they tools which I needed in order to alter color, saturation and contrast of my images used. Also it gave me the ability to choose what fonts I wanted to use, by using Photoshop I could position my fonts in suitable places to make my magazine look as real as possible.

When beginning my Photoshop process I started by using the shape tool n a blank page, this was helpful for me as I could then have a visual understanding of how my magazine was to be laid out. I placed boxes on the 4 pages and added text into them which told me exactly what to write/place in each box. This sped up my whole work process as then I did not have to waste time making decisions about my layout.

I also used the mouse tool to move the shapes I made around to get them in the correct positions. By having the mouse tool I was able to constantly alter the appearance of my magazine before I put any of the actual content into it.

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

I feel that, having completed the preliminary task and learning about the demands of this production process, I have learnt how to use Photoshop to a relatively strong standard, therefore my final product looked professional, clean and well made, I have also used some of the tools which at the beginning of the year I had no idea ho to use. As I used to study ICT I had limited knowledge in other applications like Photoshop for example I used fireworks to do a previous ICT project which used some similar tools.