AS Media Studies- Claire Smith

In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My front cover has all the conventions you would expect to see on a regular front cover. It has a masthead (Noise), it has a strapline which tells the audience the issue number and the price of the magazine, it has a barcode, it has plugs which advertise other bands and artists that will be featured in the magazine, a main edited image and a main headline.
Before I began making my music magazine, I looked at other music magazines such as NME and Kerrang. I looked at the way both magazines had chosen to set their front covers, and I decided to use NME as a template for my front cover as the front cover NME produced didn't have lots of photo's and writing all over the cover. Whereas the front cover Kerrang produced had lots of photo's and writing all over the cover.
My contents page has all the conventions you would expect to see on a regular contents page, it has page numbers for each of the articles featured in my magazine. Also I have put descriptions of what each of the articles will be about. At the top of the page, I have the words 'Contents Page' in the same font as the one I used for my masthead. I also have smaller edited images at the bottom of the page. Down the side of my contents page I have 'regulars' which are all the regular features which will be in future magazines.
My double page spread also has all the conventions you would expect to see on a regular double page spread. I have a edited main image, I also have three smaller edited images which have all being rotated. Next to the edited image I have written a article on the artist. At the top of the double page spread I have a headline telling the audience who the artist is, underneath this I have a strapline which gives more information on the artist.

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
My music magazine represents both male and female social groups. On my front cover, I have a female musician, but I haven't used a feminine color scheme. I have used blue, black and white which I would say represents the male social group more.
I haven't just used the female social group throughout my music magazine, I have also used the male social group too, on my contents page I have used two edited images of the male musician. I think the edited images I have used represents male musicians. In the edited images the male musician is stood with a guitar in hand. I have used black and white edited images throughout my magazine to show that my music magazine features serious artists. I also think that my black and white images help to show that Noise magazine represents the indie music genre, as the images show that the musicians featured in this magazine are serious about making music.
The female musician on the front cover of my magazine represents the female musician social group, I think this is because of the way she is dressed.
Also I think the male musician on the contents page of my media product represents the male musician social group, again because of the way he is dressed.

What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Bauer Media may distribute my media product, as they don't publish a magazine which focuses on the indie/rock music genre. Bauer Media produce Kerrang magazine which is a magazine that focuses mainly on the rock/screamo music genre. Bauer Media would be a good media institution to produce my media product as because they already produce a music magazine, they will now what they are doing when producing my media product.
IPC produce NME magazine, the magazine which I based my media product on. If Bauer Media were to produce my media product, both NME and Noise magazine would be in competition with each other as they both cover the same music genre.

Who will be the audience for your Media product?
The audience of my media product would be both the male and female audience who are in their late teens, early twenties. But also people older then late teens, early twenties may also want to read my media product as they too may be interested in the indie/rock music genre.
The audience must already be interested in the indie/rock music genre, because if not then they wouldn't be buying my media product. The audience may also be interested in the bands and artists featured in my media product and that could be the reason why they are choosing to read my media product.

How did you attract/address your audience?
To address my audience I have featured both male and female musicians to attract both the male and female audience. I have done this because if I just featured female musicians, I would probably just attract a female audience, likewise if I just featured male musicians, I would probably just attract a male audience.
I haven't used a color scheme which represents either the male or female social group, I have done this to attract both the male and female audience.
I have also featured artists which are already well-known, so that when my target audience are reading my media product they will know who they are reading a article about.
I used informal language in my media product, I did this because I didn't want my media product to be too serious, I wanted to use the language my target audience would use.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Before I started constructing my media product, I looked at other music magazines. I looked at NME magazine and Kerrang magazine. I looked at the way both these magazines were set out. First I looked at the way both magazines had set out their front covers, I looked at the masthead, headline and images both magazines had used. I decided to set my front cover out like NME had set out their front cover, as the front cover NME had produced was simple and didn't have a lot of writing or images on the cover. I thought that this worked well.
Next I looked at the way both NME and Kerrang magazine had set out their contents page, I looked at the images they used, I looked at the regulars and features columns. I decided in my media product I would have regulars. I didn't base my contents page on either NME's contents page or Kerrang's contents page, as I didn't like either of the magazine's contents page's.
Then I looked at both magazines double page spreads, I looked at the images the magazines used and the way they set out their articles. Again, I didn't base my double page spread on either NME's double page spreads or Kerrang's double page spreads.
I decided to edit my images on PhotoShop, I changed the background of the images. On some of the my images, I lightened the backgrounds as it was too dark to begin with. On three of my images, I changed the image from a colour background to a black and white background, I did this because I didn't want all of the images to look the same. None of my main images are in black and white, only the montage images. On the image which I used for my double page spread, I straited the colour from the background of the image leaving only the colour on the musicians clothing visable.
Also on a few of my images, I blurred the background of the image, although you can't really tell on the image.
For all my images, I used the skin cloning tool and the red eye remover tool. I did this because from looking at the music magazines I carried my research out on, none of the images in them magazines had bad skin or red eyes. All the images looked airbrushed and edited.
I used Publisher to put my media product together.
By using PhotoShop I learnt how to edit a image to make the image look it's best. I learnt how to crop, straited, change a background image from colour to black and white, lighten and darken images and blur images. I never knew how to edit a image before, my first draft of my media product wasn't really edited. But I learnt how to edit images and I feel like my final copy of my media product shows this.
By researching music magazines I learnt how publishing companies set their magazines out and the ways in which they try to attract their audiences.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
By doing this media product I have learnt about language, institution, ideology, audience and representation of magazines. Not just music magazines, but the college magazines that I researched for our preliminary task. I have learnt about institutions which produce music magazines and how different genres of music are produced by different institutions. Also, when I was researching music magazines, I learnt the ideology behind certain music magazines. I found out how many people read the music magazines, how long the magazines have been going and how many percentage of males and females read the magazines.
I have also learnt to use PhotoShop more effectively, I have learnt how to edit images to make them look their best. In the preliminary task, I only really had a basic knowledge of PhotoShop, I already knew how to heal peoples skin and get rid of red eye in images, but by doing the music magazine task, I gained a wider knowledge of how to use PhotoShop.
I have also learnt how magazines attract and address their audience, I have learnt how magazines use artists and bands to attract their audience by featuring people who are already in the media for what ever reason.
Also, I have used to Publisher more effetely, I already knew how to construct a magazine using Publisher, but on both my contents page and double page spread I wanted to have smaller images rotated at the bottom of the pages.It was simple to do, but I now know how to do it.