Evaluation

In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My front cover meets a lot of the conventions of a typical music magazine. It includes a price, date, masthead, barcode, subtitles and a medium close up image. It does however break a major convention because I decided to make my main image black and white which is not something that is often seen on magazine front covers. I decided to do this because I felt it made the masthead and subtitles stand out more, plus the darker colours suited the genre of my magazine which was rock and indie. Looking back, I think I should have included more information about what would be in my magazine on the front cover to take up more space and show extra features that could potentially attract more readers.
My contents page meets a few of the conventions of typical music magazines, it includes images and has a sidebar showing all the features within the magazine. It is however quite spaced out and easy to read unlike most magazine contents pages. I didn't include any information on the contents page about publishers, editors etc to make the contents page easier to read and to the point. I was planning to use a solid colour for the background of my contents but I felt that because of the colours using a picture would work better. I decided to decrease the opacity of the picture so that the information on the page was still dominant and also had a similar effect to the front cover.
My double page spread includes images and has a celebrity interview which is layed out in columns so it generally meets the conventions of most magazines. I decided to use a black background to keep in with the theme of the magazine of using darker backgrounds. Therefore I used brighter colours on the fonts so that they stood out and were easy to read. I selected images that had a dark contrast because I felt this worked well with the black background and again kept in with the theme of rock.

How does my media product represent particular social groups?
I tried to meet the uses and gratifications to meet the desires of rock and indie fans. The front cover of my magazine gives the impression that I am targeting rock and indie teenage music fans. The use of darker colours in my magazine matches the representation of rock and may also represent gothic music although goths are not the social group I was targeting. The information on my contents page shows that I am targeting rock and indie fans through the artists I was hoping to include in the magazine. Artists such as Kings of Leon and Enter Shikari catering for rock fans as well as Jamie T and Laura White for indie fans.
I also made up a group called Tropical Penguins which I made the focus of my magazine and I was trying to represent them as similar to the Arctic Monkeys. My made-up lead singer and guitarist of 'Tropical Penguins', Dan Alves, is also holding a guitar in the pictures which is an icon of rock and helps to show he is involved in a band. Also because he is a young person and he is the dominant feature on the front cover potential buyers of the magazine (teenagers) can identify with him. I have also linked a couple of the features in my magazine to gigs and festivals which are common cultural practices amongst young rock and indie fans.

What type of media institution might distribute my magazine and why?
My magazine would ideally be distributed by a leading consumer distribution company like Frontline for example. My magazine is designed to be a national magazine so it would benefit from being distributed by and established distributor. Top distributors like Frontline distribute a wide range of media and the reputation of the distributor would help my magazine to become popular and compete with leading music magazines like Kerrang and NME. Marketing is very important in media exspecially if your product is going to have a high market share and be profitable, so using a top market distribution company would be beneficial. Also it would be sensible to use a distributor that distributes other magazines that target a similar audience, whether it be age, social groups, social class or interests. Frontline would be a fantastic distributor for my magazine because it distributes other magazines that target similar audiences. It also distributes for top publishers like Bauer which publishes magazines like Kerrang.

Who would be the audience for my media product?
My target audience for this magazine are people aged between sixteen and twenty-five, who have an interest in rock and/or indie music. This is similar to the audience other mainstream magazines like Kerrang and NME targeted when they were first published. However, as they have developed they have changed to meet the interests of more readers because they are competing for the highest market share. Furthermore this magazine would be new, it would need to find a gap in the market before developing and becoming competitive with top market magazines hence why I decided on a target audience of sixteen to twenty-five year olds.

How did I attract/address my audience?
I've tried to meet the interests of young rock fans by making the focus of my magazine a young band and by designing my magazine to promote events such as gigs held at places like the O2 and Wembley Arena. Gigs are common cultural practices amongst young rock and indie fans so I used this to help market my product. I also decided to include a competition where readers could win a guitar and amp which are products rock fans would be interested in winning. I decided my competition would be advertised in the magazine but could only be entered through a website so participants would have to go online. If my magazine and website were real I would use the website to market magazine my company further. After researching music magazines amongst people of the age group I was targeting I found that the majority people felt a fair price for a monthly music magazine was £3 but a large amount were happy to pay £4 so I used psychological pricing of £3.99. Results from my research showed that most of my audience thought Kerrang was the best existing music magazine so I decided to base my magazine around ideas I got from Kerrang. I decided to make my main feature an interview article because it was a popular feature in my research. I also used informal language in my magazine to suit the audience and comply with the codes conventions of a music magazine.

What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a lot about how to use Photoshop and Indesign through constructing my product. I have realised how important these programmes are in order to edit work so that it suits it's target audience. Photoshop helped me to edit my photos so they suited the design of the magazine. Indesign was really useful to get the layout of the magazine right and to make sure my product looked organised and fairly professional. Through constructing my own peice of work it has made me realise how so many media products including magazines are manipulated to meet the needs of the reader and to get a message across.