Q2) How Does My Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups

I analysed the picture of the main artist on my magazine- focused on costume. showed how the mise-en-scene is similar to a conventional magazine cover image and talked about how I may or may not have conformed to stereotypes.

Q1) In What Ways Does My Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products

 
USES:: I based my media product off the conventions of real media products in order to make it look professional, but developing some to make it unique and original. My masthead  follows conventions as it is positioned in the top centre of the page, It is in a bold, capitalised, bright colour to make it more distinctive on the page and is placed behind the models head to make her the main attraction and to show that the magazine has its own strong brand identity. I have added a tagline of 'ALL THINGS INDIE AND MORE' as a way of promoting my product and to make it sound content enriched similar to how Q magazine's tagline is 'The UK's biggest music magazine' to represent power. My model is making direct mode of address with the audience to act as a focal point and to involve the audience making them more likely to be attracted to my magazine, through research I discovered every other conventional product used direct mode of address for their cover model. I stuck with a professional layout for my cover following the rule of thirds, having the most important articles on the left side. The articles were all positioned around the model to make her the centre of attention besides the most important exclusive interview. I included important information which is traditionally featured on a magazine such as a barcode, price, date and issue number. My magazine uses synergy by featuring the website for my company and following the same style and colour scheme throughout the cover, contents and DPS. The mise-en-scene reinforces the genre of the magazine as being Indie as traditional magazines do e.g. the model is wearing light clothing to portray innocence and a flower crown to show peace.

 

DEVELOPS: I decided to develop traditional conventions of music magazines to make my product more original and unique in order to appeal more to my target audience. The props of my magazine develop on traditional Indie pop magazines e.g. by adding a denim jacket to the otherwise innocent look to make the model look more edgy. The featured articles on the cover develop conventions e.g. 'I HATE ED SHEERAN' is a good pull quote to attract readers, but isn't very common for a magazine on singers and festivals but is a good way of attracting a wider audience. I decided to have my model wearing a short skirt to attract a secondary audience of men with the male gaze which is common for health or celebrity magazines but not so much with music magazines. I used a variety of fonts throughout my magazine which develops on magazines which only use one font, this was to make it more quirky and visually appealing; however I didn't add too many as I didn't want it to appear chaotic and unorganised. I made the main article emerge more above the others by having it in the centre of the page in the largest font out of all the articles which is common for magazines but decided to include a logo for April's name with an arrow similar to how Ke$ha has a dollar sign to appeal more to my indie audience.
 

CHALLENGES: My media product challenges conventions of real media products as I chose to target only a niche young female audience, unlike traditional magazines which attract as a mass audience of both genders and a wide age range. To attract my female target market I used a stereotypically feminine colour scheme of purple and featuring mainly women for my photographs. I included a puff on my front cover as a way of attracting my niche target market of festival lovers with 'WIN TICKETS TO CREAMFIELDS' as a way of persuading the reader to purchase the product so they are up with a chance of winning a competition. For my location of the cover photo I decided to take the picture outside which is unconventional as usually pictures are taken within a studio in order for them to look professional; however I felt as though taking the image with a grimy wall in the background would provide a nice contrast to the beautiful and elegant model and would make her stand out as the main attraction, so overall I felt as though this was a success. I challenged conventions throughout my magazine, such as on the DPS having the main image stretched onto both pages and having the text forming around the image unlike conventional magazines. which usually have the image on the left side and all the text on the right side

Double Page Spread Final Draft

 

 

 

 

Final Draft Contents

 

Edited Cover photo

Here is an example of how I edited one of my images for my magazine before using it as I wanted my pictures to be perfect and as all other magazines undergo heavy amounts of Photoshop on their images in order for the images to be used.

Final Draft Cover

Indie Magazine First Draft

I created a first draft of my product before finalising it and got some feedback off my audience on things which they liked and things that they didn't like before making such edits to the magazine so it could be the best it could be some of which was:

-bad colour scheme

-obviously edited flower crown

-need more font variety

-text is too large

-image looks placed without editing 

-etc.

These are some of the things I went away and worked on before uploading my final media product.