Introduction-For my coursework project I worked alone to create a pop music magazine for young girls aged 8-14 (approximately) It also has a secondary purpose to go against stereotypical conventions and represent teenagers in a good light.

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

The genre of my music magazine is pop. I have used lots of bright colours and shapes such as stars and hearts to show this. I have used typical elements of a magazine for example, a barcode, price, issue number and date, to make it appear genuine. My magazine differs from others because there are no pop magazines for young girls available at the moment. I gained some of my ideas from the very popular and long running, Smash Hits magazine but made mine more up to date with special font styles etc. My magazine proved successful from my audience feedback questionnaires. Although my magazine is aimed at children who rely on their parents for income they all seemed very interested in it.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?My magazine is mainly dedicated to one artist so I have only represented one social group, a teenage girl, pop star.

• The costume she is wearing, a glittery dress, helps to create a more girly feel for the magazine. It also links in with the title, ‘Pop Partie’

• Her long blonde hair and natural make up help her to appear more clean cut, which is how my magazine is trying to represent this teenager. Although she is slightly older than the target audience, she looks like something they aspire to be.

• On the cover the artist is not looking directly at the reader this helps to create attitude but it could also be a bad idea as she is not connecting with the reader. However, on the contents page the artist body language and facial expressions are much more friendly, encouraging people to read on.

• The fonts I have used help to convey a fun, girly theme. Although my audience feedback shows that the font used for my feature article was not exiting enough to grab the readers full attention properly.

• In my article I have made my artist well spoken and polite as I want my magazine to represent teenagers in a better light.

• I have used no backgrounds for any of my photos as I didn’t want any settings to distract the reader. I wanted the full attention on the artist.

My magazine challenges the typical media stereotypes, as teenagers are normally represented as a dangerous social group. But I want teenagers to be represented as nice people and then my audience have someone to aspire to be like.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?I think that a publisher named Monarch Avalon would be interested in publishing my magazine. They have a similar magazine named ‘Girl’s Life’ which has been running for 15 years in the U.S. Although they do not specify in music magazines they normally feature pop star role models on the cover such as, Taylor Swift. There are no music magazines for young girls in the U.K that I know of so I think this publisher would be best, because of all the experience they have. There is a link below with information about Girl’s Life magazine:

http://www.girlslife.com/page/about.aspx

Who would be the audience for your media product?To find the correct audience for my media product I created a reader profile:

• Age 8-14

• Sex: female

• Hobbies/interests: listening to music/dance

• Favourite film: High school musical

• T.v: Disney channel programmes

• Music/artist: Pop/Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus etc.

I sent out 10 questionnaires to people I thought would be interested in Pop Partie magazine and the results showed that 80% of girls aged 8-14 preferred pop music to any other genre.

Results

rock

pop

R 'n' B

other

Also from my questionnaire I found that 100% of the children would ask their parents to buy the magazine for them. They are a good target audience financially because they have nothing else to spend their money on and music interests them. This has been proven with merchandise for high school musical making billions for example; Record-breaking DVD with over 8 million units sold and even figurines selling by the thousand..jpg

How did you attract/address your audience?• I chose the title ‘Pop Partie’ to attract my audience because the font looks fun and girly and the miss spelling of ‘partie’ makes it more interesting.

• The artist from the cover is posing with her eyes facing away from the camera, this is to create attitude for her. She is also wearing a glittery dress that adds to the party feel which I am trying to give for the magazine. The artist’s hair and make-up is very natural to give her a fresh faced look.

• On the cover, I have shown the celebrities featured but not given any clues to the storylines involved, this makes the reader want to open the magazine.

• I know that the contents page whets the readers appetite because when I handed out my Audience Feedback questionnaires I asked the question: ‘ Does the contents page simply inform or does it also manage to interest you in reading the rest of the magazine?’ and the response were very positive, for example:

• ‘It interests because of the picture’

•‘It interests you because it gives little snippets of information about different stories’

How did you attract/address your audience?• The editors letter on the contents page addresses the reader because it is friendly and personal. Although one reader commented saying that it was too long.

• The choice of articles featured on the contents page attract the reader because they are about artists that they like to hear about. I know this because when I handed out my questionnaires before the start of the project I asked 10, 8-14 year olds who was their favourite singer, the results came back as followed:

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

Jonas Brothers

BeyonceMiley Cyrus

Britney SpearsTaylor Swift

results

•I also asked: ‘Out of the following, whose music do you prefer the most?

• Miley Cyrus

•Kylie

•Lily Allen

And the results were:0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Miley Cyrus Kylie Lily Allen

results

These charts helped me to decide which artists would grab the readers attention the most, and I used this for my contents page.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?Before constructing this product I had never had experience using the ‘InDesign’ or ‘PhotoShop’ packages before. This is evident in my preliminary task. The layout is very plain, there has been no photos cut out or any exiting fonts used. However the more I practised using the technologies the easier it became for me and I feel that I can now use both packages effectively.

I had also never used a blog before this project. But I found www.blogger.com very easy to use and a simple way to display all my progress.

Another new website that I had to use was www.dafont.com it was very helpful, with lots of interesting fonts available.

My preliminary task

My Final Product:

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are needed to see this picture.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?Looking back at my preliminary task and my final product I can see that I have made a lot of progress. In my preliminary task I used a mid-shot for my cover page but after researching other magazines I found that it was more professional to use a long shot of the models full body as it looked more glamorous. Although I used a close-up photo for my contents page to give a more personal feel to the magazine. Also in my final product all the pages look like they belong to the same magazine because I have added colourful borders to each and kept the same colour scheme throughout. Another thing I have improved in my final product from my preliminary task is the choice of title and fonts. In my pre-lim task I used very basic fonts and my title was not very imaginative. Whereas in my final product I used www.dafont.com to find unusual and fun fonts that would suit my magazine. My title ‘Pop Partie’ added much more interest and suited the genre of my magazine.

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

It took me a while to get a good layout for my contents page. I rearranged the structure many times to make it appear less ‘blocky’ as it was quite boring. But I am now happy with the layout and I think it grabs the readers attention. My cover had a better layout than my preliminary cover because on my pre-lim task I did not cut-out the picture, I left the background in. This made the magazine appear quite plain and ordinary so in my final task I cut out all of my pictures and placed them on a coloured background to give it a funkier, more interesting appeal.

Conclusion-Overall I am very proud of how my final task looks. I think the fonts used make it look a lot more authentic. I especially like the font used for the title on the cover as it is a typical convention of a pop magazine. However I think that I should have used a better font for my feature article as my test audience group did not respond to it that well.

I am also proud of my photo shop skills as I had to cut all of my pictures out and then place them on a background and I think they turned out very well. Although I should have taken pictures with various different outfits as most of the pictures look very similar.

Out of all of my pages I like my feature article the most. As it represents teenagers in a good light as my artist is well spoken and a good role model for children. I also like the little details I added which make it more professional such as the personalised Pop Partie bullet points ( ADD PIC) and my artists album cover.