SHAUN LIDDLE

AS MEDIA STUDIES EVALUATION

It is made quite clear throughout my music magazine that the

specific audience targeted are teenagers. The age boundary in

which my magazine is aimed at is 13 years – 19 years. I have

chosen this age as many teenagers read my style model music

magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang!’ Another reason in which I

have chosen this age category is because I could not imagine

people of an older age reading my media product, due to the fact

that music and magazines now a day does not favour in the hands

of older people, and they would much rather read a book of some

kind.

As I set out to produce my music magazine I knew from the

very first second that it would be aimed at a teenage audience.

Audience profiles in which I can imagine my audience would be are:

Name: Les Gotham

Age: 15

Favourite shop: Primark

Name: Kelly Hogg

Age: 18

Favourite Shop: River Island

Name: James Crook

Age: 16

Favourite Shop: Topman

Whilst conducting audience research I specifically targeted

people who looked between the ages of 13-19 years. The majority of

people I asked within this age band favoured my music magazine. I

asked the audience some questions about their likes and dislikes of

my magazine. I asked questions such as:

Do you like the colour scheme on my magazine?

What grabs your attention when you first look at my media

product?

Does my magazine look like a magazine you would usually

find in newsagents?

This helped me a great deal in production as I knew I was doing

things correctly from the audience’s positive responses. Certain

aspects of my magazine which the desired audience approved of I

kept within my magazine, and some things they advised me to

improve, I improved it as I want the magazine to suit the audience’s

standards.

The magazine attracts the teenage audience as I have used a

teenage model.

Model: Natalie Harber

Age: 16

Interests: Reading magazines

My model particularly relates to the rock music magazine, as

her favourite genre of music is rock. As rock is a niche genre, I

needed to attract my audience in every way possible, as it would be

competing against certain popular media products such as pop

magazines. My music magazine isn’t particularly expensive

therefore the working class audience will be to afford it. I could not

imagine middle class teenagers reading my music magazine as it

specifically relates to music and people. Although some middle class

individuals may read this, the primary audience is working class

teenagers.

My magazine is aimed towards females and males so it has a

larger desired audience. From certain aspects of my magazine the

audience can clearly se that is aimed at mixed gender. I have

avoided using boyish/girly colours such as blue or pink, and stuck

with colours like red and black, which relate to the genre and both

of the sexes.

I feel that teenagers would like to read the story in my

magazine as it revolves around a teenager who has shot to fame by

a video on You Tube. As some teenagers dream about getting a

chance in fame they would wish to read the story about my

character ‘Natalie Followill’. This compares to the theories of

Blumler and Katz 1974, as the audience are active with my media

product.

Competitions are made clear on the front cover such as ‘WIN

TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2010’ which will attract the desired working

class audience as they cant afford to buy things such as albums

themselves. My magazine also includes a free song downloads bar

which the audience will be interested in which leads them away

from illegal downloading. The competitions make the audience

involved with my magazine as they feel the need to compete with

other people in the same situation, therefore adds aspects of

excitement within my media product.

If my magazine were to be sold in newsagents or

supermarkets it would compete against those such as ‘NME’ and

‘Kerrang!’ As these are two massive music magazines my product

would have to stand out enormously. The price is a massive aspect

when it comes to competing against other music magazines,

because of this I have made my magazine price come in between

£2.00 and £3.00, this is also the price boundaries in which the music

magazines NME and Kerrang!, come under.

Another feature in which my magazine challenges forms and

conventions of real media products is by the competitions. Even on

the content of my front cover the magazine clearly shows that

within the magazine it has three competitions. If you look at

magazines such as NME and Kerrang!, they have some competitions

but not a varied amount, therefore this would make the audience

chose my music magazine over these specific two. My music

magazine includes the two colours red and black in which give

connotations of blood and death, therefore relate to the rock genre.

Magazines like my style models Kerrang use red and black to suit

their genre of rock.

My magazine primarily aims at a working class audience.

When conducting my audience research I targeted working class

individuals as I knew from the beginning of my project this would be

the audience which would be interested in my product. From past

research I have learnt that many working class individuals read

music magazines as they are surrounded in a life of media. The

secondary audience would be middle class, even though some

middle class teenagers read music magazines, they do not read

them as much as the working class society does.

My music magazine does not necessarily represent any

stereotypical groups as all groups are interested in different music.

If I were to choose a group, which would be interested in my music

magazine, it would be those in which have favourite music genres of

rock.

An institution in which I would want to have for my magazine

is IPC media groups. The company own music magazines such as

NME and Guitar and Bass. I feel that this company would

distribute my music magazine as my style model is NME, and IPC

media publish this magazine. The company would therefore be

interested in my magazine, as they are interested in magazines

such as NME.

Throughout producing my music magazine I feel that I have

learnt about many new aspects of media. First of all I feel confident

while using Photoshop compared to when I first started out using it. I

am comfortable with working with the tools on Photoshop, as

throughout the past year I have got used to certain tools in which I

didn’t know about before.

My writing skills have improved over the production of my

music magazine as the style models have helped me understand

how a music magazine should be written thus my writing skills have

widely developed. BlogSpot has been a massive new learning

achievement for me, as before AS Media I knew nothing about it. I

have learnt how to post work in different ways to entertain the

audience for example:

Slide Share - a programme in which I can post my work through

presentations, therefore include illustrations to how every fraction of

detail.

Windows Movie Maker – I can now make videos which show

rolling titles to describe how I have worked over the past year, I

used videos especially for my project evaluation, and they can also

be used to show the production of my media work in detail.

At the start of the year I produced a practice ‘School

Magazine’ which prepared me for my actual media project. I

produced a front cover for this task which helped me produce my

actual music magazine. This helped me an awful lot as it helped me

develop skills including the layout of magazine front covers and how

to use different colour pallets for representation of certain genres,

within the technology of Photoshop.

I have also developed skills in presenting work with pie charts

to show audience research, rather than just writing the results, they

are shown to the audience by illustrations and statistics. I have also

gained skills in photography as this year I got the chance to take

photos individually. I have found that to make a perfect photo I need

to concentrate on other things than the positioning of model, such

as the set and the lighting. Other improvements in learning include

how to use different colour pallets in order for the project to relate

to the specific genre. Colours such as red and black go together to

give connotations of blood and death, therefore this relates to the

rock genre of my magazine.

Overall my progression throughout AS Level Media Studies

has been huge as I am now confident with new ways in which to

produce and present work in ways which I have never done before.