question 1

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

FRONT COVERConventions Followed

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


Image

The main images in Q and Worship Musician are long shots (LS), while NME and Christian Musician have Medium Close-Ups (MCU). I have used an MCU on my front cover, as this is the more general convention of music magazines overall, even though Q and Worship Musician have not followed this convention.


Image

The model is looking straight at the camera, which follows the conventions of Q and NME. This also catches the reader’s attention and appeals to the audience.

However, this goes against the convention of Christian magazines, as the cover stars are not looking at the camera in these images. However, the reason for the artist on Worship Musician seems to be that it is an action shot from a concert; yet Christian Musician was taken in a studio, and the artist is not looking at the camera. I have chosen not to follow this convention as having the model looking directly at the camera would appeal to my audience more.


Image

The model is not wearing a lot of make-up, which follows the conventions of Christian magazines as we can see on Christian Musician and Worship Musician that the cover artists are not wearing make-up at all, while my model is wearing limited make-up. I justified my model not wearing a lot of make-up as I did not want her to be over-sexualised, which would go against Christian values; however, it would also have gone against Christian music magazine conventions.


Masthead

The masthead of my magazine is in the top-left hand corner, which follows the conventions of Q and NME. The mastheads of Christian Musician and Worship Musician are not in the top-left hand corner, however this is because they are larger than the mastheads of Q and NME, and would not have fitted in the top left-hand corner.


Colour scheme The way that I have used my colour scheme is similar to the way that the colour scheme is used in Q, especially with the masthead. In Q, the masthead is the name of the magazine in a coloured box, with the writing in a contrasting colour, while the colour scheme flows from this masthead throughout the magazine. This is similar to how I have used my colour scheme, though my colour scheme is blue and green rather than red and white. However, when I designed my masthead as part of my House Styles, one of the colour schemes that I picked out for my masthead was red and white. However, I decided against the red and white colour scheme in favour of the blue and green because I felt that this suited my religious genre better and carried on the inside joke of the title.


Coverlines

The main coverline is the biggest coverline on the front cover, which is the same for all of the magazines that I have studied. This makes the reader sure which coverline is related to the cover star and is therefore the most important coverline.However, I have followed the conventions of the secular magazines more, as the coverlines on Q and NME are simply larger, and do not differ in colour and font from the other coverlines. However, in Worship Musician (above), the name of the artist is a different colour from the other coverlines; and in Christian Musician (left), the main coverline is in a different font from the other coverlines.


Coverlines

The coverlines in my magazine are in a list. This is following the conventions of Q and NME, which are also in lists. However, the convention of religious magazines seems to bethat the coverlines are in a more ‘random’ layout, which I think would not appeal to my target audience as much. Indeed, my Preliminary Task had a layout like this, but when I moved on to my Main Task, I decided against using a similar layout because I didn’t think that it would suit my genre or my audience.


Barcode

My magazine follows the conventions of all the magazines that I have studied, in that the barcode is small and tucked away. However, my barcode is tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner, which is going against NME. However, all of the other magazines that I have studied have the barcode in this corner.


FRONT COVERConventions Challenged


Image

I have gone against the convention of both secular and religious magazines by having my main image taken on location; Q, NME and Christian Musician all have main images that are taken in the studio. However, Worship Musician has a main image on the front cover that was taken on location, therefore a location main image is not completely against convention. I also think that the location main image fits with my genre better.


Image

My model is not standing in a particularly ‘dynamic’ pose, while in the other magazines they all have poses that suggest some form of power or musical prowess. However, I have chosen not to follow this convention as I wanted one of the main themes in my magazine to be simplicity, and not having a ‘dynamic’ pose shows this. Also, the main coverline is “I didn’t know about my voice at first”, therefore my model looking slightly shy follows on from the message that is given in this pull-quote.


CONTENTS PAGEConventions Followed


Contents

I have followed the convention of having a separate section of the contents page reserved for the cover story. I did this so that it was clear where the cover story was, and so that the reader could go straight to the cover story without having to look through the features column for it.


Contents

I have also followed the convention of separating the different types of article (features, regulars, etc.) in my magazine. This is so that the reader can quickly go to the type of article they want, whether it’s a regular that they want to continue following, or a feature article that they have a particular interest in.


Editor’s Letter

I have followed the conventions of both Christian Musician and Worship Musician by having an Editor’s Letter on the contents page; Q and NME do not have Editors Letters on the contents page. However, the Editor’s Letters in the Christian magazines are quite long, and the writing is quite small, as they are aimed at an older audience than my magazine. When I did my Preliminary Task, I was warned against having a long Editor’s Letter as the audience would get bored reading it. Therefore, when I did my Main Task, I made the Editor’s letter shorter and with a bigger font.


PicturesI have followed the conventions of Q and NME by having a lot of images on the contents page to complement various articles. This appeals to my younger audience, and makes the contents page brighter.However, the Christian magazines only had two pictures on their contents pages, which would not suit my younger audience.


PicturesThe pictures that I have used also have captions, which follows the conventions of Q. I think that this suits my audience better as they can see which articles the pictures complement.NME did not have captions on its pictures, but as the issue that I analysed was an anniversary edition and the pictures on the contents pages were of the various collector’s covers, captions were not really necessary.The Christian magazines also lacked captions on their pictures, but those magazines are aimed at an older audience, therefore I think that having captions would better suited to my younger audience.


Date and name

Another convention that I have followed is including the date and name of the magazine on the contents page. In all of the magazines that I have studied, the date and name of the magazine has been included in the corner of the magazine. However, in those magazines they were at the bottom of the page, and in my magazine they are at the top of the page.I have also chosen to follow the example of Q and have not just the name of the magazine repeated, but the masthead. This increases the branding opportunities of the magazine, and – because the masthead itself is in a block – was relatively easy to achieve, as the masthead can be discreetly placed at the top of the page without it becoming too small to be read.


Colour scheme

Another convention that I have followed on my contents page is to keep the colour scheme from the front cover flowing throughout. The colour scheme on my front cover – blue, green and white – has flowed through to my contents page. This can also be seen in Q (black, red and white) and NME (black, gold and white). It is less so in the Christian magazines, however the shades of blue used on themastheads certainly flows to the contents page in Worship Musician, and in Christian Musician the gold colour of the writing seems to flow from the cover artist’s guitar.


CONTENTS PAGEConventions Challenged


ContentsI have gone against the conventions of having something on my contents page that tells the reader that it is the contents page. I have done this as I felt that it is kind of obvious which page is the contents page.Also, Worship Musician does not say ‘contents’ on the contents page,even though Christian Musician does, therefore it is not completely unconventional in a religious magazine to not include this title.


Pictures

Another convention that I have challenged is having a studio photo of the cover star on my contents page. Q and NME both have studio photos of their cover stars on the contents page, however the studio photo on my contents page is of an artist in the Christmas playlist. I have done this for two reasons:1. Logistical reasons; my model simply couldn’t get in to the studio2. The photo to complement the Christmas playlist article is better shot in the studio than

on location, as the photo would get more of a wintery feel with the benefit of the white colourama in the studio than it could get on location

Also, neither Christian magazine has a studio photo of its cover star on the contents page. Worship Musician has a photo from the same concert location as on its front cover, and Christian Musician does not have a photo of its cover star on the contents page at all, therefore it does not necessarily go against convention to not have a studio photo of the cover star on the contents page in a religious magazine.


DPSConventions Followed


JournalismThe columns follow the conventions of Q and NME, in that they are not justified. In the Christian magazines, they are justified, however they are aimed at an older audience then Q, NME and my magazine are, therefore having unjustified columns that promote informality would appeal to my audience more.


JournalismAnother convention that I have followed is to have an introduction to the journalism to explain who the artist is and what the interview is about, in my case, an upcoming EP.However, I have followed the conventions of Q less than the conventions of the other magazines that I studied. Q has a long introduction to its journalism before the Q&A style interview. However, as my target audience is younger, I think that having such a long introduction would make them bored.


Journalism

The questions in my journalism is to make them bold, which makes them clearer and stand out from the answers. However, this seems to be more the convention in the secular magazines, as the Christian magazines have the interviewer’s initials before the question, and then the artist’s initials before the answer. However, this is confusing as makes it seem as though there are no questions, and that it is in fact just a conversation between two artists. Therefore, having the questions in bold is less confusing and clearer.


Journalism

I have used a pull-quote on the DPS, which has been used in both Q and NME. It was not, however, used in the Christian magazines. Also, my pull-quote was used over the big image on my DPS rather than in the middle of the journalism like in Q and NME, because of practical reasons; if I were to have the pull-quote in the middle of the journalism, I would not have had room to fit all of the journalism in.


Journalism

Another convention that I followed was to add extra bits of journalism in square brackets so that the reader can distinguish between what was actually said and what was added.


Journalism

Another convention that I followed was having informal language. This is particularly seen in the Christian magazines, though can also be seen in Q and NME. This appeals to my younger audience.


Images

One convention that I followed was having the image on one side of the DPS and the journalism on the other. I followed this as it was the most conventional thing to do, and therefore would probably suit my audience more.


Images

The main image on my DPS is also a mid-shot (MS) which follows convention. This image is suitable as it shows the artist in closer detail than a long-shot and not in as much detail as a close-up. This is ideal as it allows the artist to hold certain poses, like the singing pose that my model holds on my DPS.


Colour scheme

The colour scheme is continued from the front cover to the contents page to the DPS. However, the white has gone from my colour scheme which goes against convention, but this was so that the background of my DPS did not look too harsh in white.


Date and name

Another convention that I have followed is to have the name and date of the magazine continued on the DPS. This works to make sure that the reader remembers which magazine they are reading and to increase the branding of the name.


DPSConventions Challenged


ImageOne of the conventions that I challenged was to have the big image on my DPS flowing from my front cover. This is especially followed in Worship Musician, which had the artist performing on stage on the front cover and the same concert on the DPS.However, in my magazine, the picture on my DPS flowed from the contents page. This makes the front cover image stand out, but also makes the images of my model inside the magazine more personal as they are simplified.


Image

Having smaller images on my DPS also did not follow conventions, but were added because of a piece of audience feedback that I received on my House Styles. However, Worship Musician does have an extra image on its DPS, therefore it does not really defy the conventions of Christian magazines.


CONCLUSION


Therefore, I have followed conventions of both secular and Christian magazines, as the Christian magazines that I studied are aimed at an older audience, while my magazine is aimed at a younger audience, which means that some of the conventions used in the secular magazines are more relevant to my audience than the ones used in the Christian magazines.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

question 1

Documents

conventions ofq

yourmedia product use

white colour scheme

different colour

orchallenge forms

contrasting colour

colour schemes

mastheads of q