Media Magazine Evaluation BY LOUIS TAYLOR

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

Front cover My magazine uses numerous of forms and conventions that develop on what you would see on a normal magazine an example of a few of these are a masthead which is used in a the popular fashion used in the best magazine by being confident and only showing half of the masthead showing, another thing that develops the normal codes and conventions used is the use of a big feature title to make the main artist feature stand out and then smaller features, the reason for this is so that it can hook in readers who are interested in the main top artist but can also attract other readers to who are interested in different types of artist to the magazine front making a wider target audience so more people will buy the magazine. The way that I have changed the codes and conventions of a magazine is by having my issue number sideward at the top of the page, this leaves me more space around this area to put subjects and artists featured in the magazine making it more likely to attract a reader by seeing a feature which catches their eyes. In my contents page the general codes and convention I follow are the page splits in between each section to show where there would be adverts with in the magazine, this follows what the top magazines in the production industry do so it would be more likely to be looked at by a production company. Something that changes/challenge the form and conventions in my contents page is the way that I have used two photos instead of the usual long shot to be presented of the main artist in the context page, I did this because when the reader is looks at the magazine they will see to perspectives of the artist and also make it clear to the reader what the main double page spread article will be a about. Within the double page spread that I have made I decided to use a Q and A instead of just a normal article as I think through a Q and A in a magazine the reader gets to know the artist more personally and this may interest more readers e.g. people who are looking to make it in the music industry to help give them ideas of what they have to do to give themselves a chance. Something that I used in my double page spread that I used in my magazine that isn’t normally used with the general codes and conventions are the quote used going across the artist photo, the reason this is good to be in the magazine is firstly because It takes all questions away about who said the quote and makes it clear to the reader who says it, it also helps to give an initial representation of the artist as it is quite an eye catching thing to have on the double page spread so if the reader reads the quote and it represents the artist in a good way it may help convince them to read onto the other page where the Q and A is.

FRONT COVERAs you can see my magazine follows the general codes and conventions of a mainstream magazine through its structure, using the mass head at the top slightly covered by the models head as you would assume as a mainstream hip hop magazine the part of the mass head shown would be enough for the reader to identify it. It shows some of the artist and content that is included in the magazine that have been used as I best feel that it will reach my target audience of hip hop music listeners encouraging these types of people to buy the magazine. As a unorthodox move I decided to use a quote of my main headliner, by using this I feel like this will appeal to my target audience as it will encourage them to want to read more about what my headline artist has to say. I decided to use drake performing in the top corner as I felt he would be the artist in this genre that most appeals to most people as he is one of the biggest with in this aspect of music, by using this it will hook more people into my magazine and market it better.

Contents page

The content page that I produced for my magazine is quite basic as I feel like this page can easily become over crowded by magazine manufactures making it unclear to the reader. I decided to keep my Magazine name on every page of my magazine as this gives it a professional look used by a number of magazine such as Q and NME following the codes and conventions of modern magazines. I have kept content and the features clearly spaced out so that it is easy for the reader to find out what page certain content is on. I followed some of the general Codes and conventions of a magazine through using the editors note which is used by a number of mainstream magazine to express what their magazine is really about and why the content in this weeks/months issue has been chosen. The use of two photos on a contents page is different to what I have seen in contents pages that I researched but I think are a good thing to have on this page as it allows the readers to see two impressions of the model and be able to interpret a opinion on them.

Double page spread The magazine Double page spread which I

created helps to developed the normal codes and conventions of professional magazine today by using quotes from the head line artist to help hook the reader in and by using a Q and A format, I felt like the Q and A format was the best way to go because for the reader this will bring them close to the artist in question from getting their own personal answers not just a written article which may not give a real reflection on the artist. There are no major challenges of the normal codes and conventions of a modern magazine apart from the placement of the quote, which I decided was the best place to put it because it helped to make it clear to the reader that it was a quote from the artist and not just someone talking about him.