Music Magazine Evaluation

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Present and Evaluate audience research

• After my 3 questions I have found that my target audience is most likely going to working class, 16 and female.

• With this information I can include more content that would appeal to this group.

• I have also found that most of my audiences are belongers who care for their family and friends or are wannabes. This tells me I must include articles and competitions that allow my audience to connect with their friends and family.

• After my psychographic questions I have found that my target audience like rock music the most which brings me to the conclusion that I should have an indie type magazine with bands that fit that genre.

What genre of music are you interested in?

Pop

Rock

Alternative

Indie

RnB

Hip Hop

Rap

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

What would you rather do?

What would you rather do?

• After these 5 content based questions I have found that my audience likes more pictures than text and the text to be a medium amount, the easy to read bite size text will be appealing to the audience because they won’t want to spend a lot of time reading through everything. Whereas an older audience that read ‘Q’ for example would want to know more about the band rather than the music and therefore have more text in their magazine.

• I have also found that would pay £2.00 for a magazine and would rather win festival tickets than go back stage.

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

• I used the same conventions of an NME double page spread for my own double page spread. I used the same format for the layout of the magazine.

• Having the main title on the top right corner of the right page as the double page spread made it easier for me to organise where I wanted the text and how much room I had.

• I also has a main image or at least a couple of images on the left page just like the NME magazine. I chose to do this because my target audience didn’t like a lot of text, so I decided to take that idea of one main image on a complete page and add it to my double page spread.

• Finally I had a small image across my text page to space out the text even more and make it easier to read which is what the NME magazine did as well.

• For this page I used some similar ideas from the Kerrang! contents page. For example I put my page list on the left hand side and layer boxes underneath the writing to make it stand out, this is also what the Kerrang! page did.

• However I developed the page by having pictures on the right along with the main cover stories making the page look more exciting whilst also having the main cover lines easily accessible to the audience in that they can quickly turn to that page without having to read the whole list of the pages.

• For my Front Cover I also used the same layout/format from an NME front cover in the way that I used a main image as my background.

• I also used the same picture layout, as I had a boarder around the image and had it tilted at an angle, I thought this would look more exciting and also a very clever way of putting a lot of images but not making it seem crowded or busy.

• I developed the idea of having cover lines around the main image and layered white blocks underneath the writing to make it stand out, also adding images to go along with the cover line. This helped to attract my audience I was targeting.

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

• I would think IPC Media would most likely distribute my media product as they also distribute NME and my magazine is loosely based on the structure and form of NME making it easy for them to sell something similar.

• However I think the best media institution to distribute my media product would be Bauer Media Group as they also publish Kerrang! and the audience I’m trying to target also reads that magazine because they are young and prefer pictures more than text.

How did you attract/address your audience?

• I used a certain type of magazine and music genre to attract my audience. For example, in the top left corner you can see ‘Reading Festival’ which is a famous festival and known for rock and alternative music which was the genre I aimed for, also underneath are some pictures that fit in with the title. Using this festival attracts the audience that I want because they would be interested in this type of performance, as I had found out in my audience analysis.

Also the general style of the magazine having a dark grey background and a masthead that has a small wave across the letters in order to fit in with that image.

I also used my model as a attraction because she matches the genre I’m trying to aim for as she has a slight edgy look and her hair is died.

• In my contents page I used popular rock bands to attract the audience's attention because they recognise them, I also used a white on grey colour scheme to make it stand out.

• I also used a lot of my questionnaire for my pages as I needed to find things that would be interesting to the audience I was targeting.

• For example having ‘What band do you belong in’ and ‘Your stories’ allows my belongers type audience to know how to fit in and share stories with others.

• Finally I used this article to attract the readers attention as the audience I’m trying to target is young and this article was about a new young artist.

• I used a pull quote “I just want them to see young artists as just artists” as another attraction to the page making the reader want to read the whole article so they know what they’re talking about.

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

• I have learnt how to properly construct a magazine through Photoshop as before I was unable to use Photoshop at all, having made my School magazine on Word Document.

• I also learned

how to cut and transport a picture onto another image by using the cut tool on my bar, I used this when transporting my model onto the blank page.

• I have learnt how to use special effects on my images and text in order to create shadows or certain effects on to them, I did this by clicking the small FX button at the bottom of my screen as a short cut.

• I also learned how to stretch my text in order to fit around my pictures and to make it more appealing towards the audience.

• I have learnt how to properly organise my layers into groups so that my layer bar is simple to navigate around.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• My media product represents the young teenager group who enjoy rock or alternative music and who are also belongers. I used this to my advantage and wrote an article about young artists trying to succeed in the world in my double page spread, this representation of young people is very positive as in the article ‘Kitty’ is very mature and talks about serious stereotypes of young artists.

• I also used a lot of young models as in the age range of 16-17 because I wanted the magazine to have a young fresh look to it, the people I used can be smart looking and fun, representing them as mature goes against the stereotype of young people as they are seen as immature.

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

product?

• I have learnt a lot more about how to make an audience believe a certain thing. For example you can influence someone into making them believe that a certain band is terrible or that a political party must be ignored. You do this by having certain images or text involving the subject you want to be positive or negative.

• In my magazine I learnt that adding in young and exciting images onto my article about young artists puts a positive view onto teenagers and young people because they are represented as mature and uplifting rather than ungrateful and a nuisance.

• I have also learnt some useful practical skills in the way of understanding how to format a magazine, with the example of using the three columns of the a magazine and showing what the most important story or image is by putting it into the centre third.

• I used this format for my own magazine in my front cover as I put the main image in the centre third and placed my other stories around that image.

• I also learnt how to take pictures properly with a camera, by using focus or zoom to create a certain image. I then downloaded them onto my computer to export them onto Photoshop.

• When before hand I had to import my pictures onto word document and change them there for my school magazine. This skill has improved my magazine as I can change something on the image without having to take a different picture.