In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My product uses some forms and conventions of a school magazine. For example, I have included features such as an insight into what's happening in upcoming weeks. These often feature in a school magazine. However, I have also tried to challenge these conventions; I have included different articles which may not necessarily be included in a school magazine. For example, I have included two features entitled ‘Have your say’, in which there challenges for the students to speak out against each other for what should feature in nexts weeks magazine. I did this because I want my magazine to be informative, interesting, and above all popular- as well as being individual. I wanted to achiece some kind of brand identity in doing these added features.
How does your media product represent paticular social groups?
My magazine represents sixth form students that attend the Priory School. I tried to convey this in particular way on my front cover,where I have included a picture of a few students that attend the sixth form . I wanted to do this so that the audience would straightaway be able to identify with the magazine. I also tried to do this by including features which I hoped would help sixth form students, by considering what they could possibly struggle with or need information on when attending the sixth form.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine is intended to be distributed by a school, as it is for students that attend the Priory school itself. So it should be distributed by the Priory School. The magazine informs students of events, information and any other topics regarding what is going on inside the school.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I believe that the biggest way to attract my audience straight away was to put a very effective picture on the front cover of my magazine because it gets the readers guessing about what they can expect within the magazine and whether it's meant to be serious or just a joke. In order to achieve this i included a photograph of a select few of the sixth form students which could help to achieve a serious effect to my magazine. I wanted to give the audience something to identify with- other sizth form students in particular. I also informed the audience on the front cover of what type of magazine ‘The Priory’ is. I did this by putting three pictures on the bottom of the page, as I hoped that this would make it clear to the reader about what sorts of things would feature in the magazine. I hoped that my intended audience would recognise some of the faces featured on the front cover and would possibly be more inclined to read it.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
By creating this magazine and being able to apply my own ideas, I have learnt a lot about how to use the PagePlus and PhotoPlus programs and what sorts of technology is needed to create a magazine. I have learned how to edit photographs and put certain effects on them to make them stand out more than the background and the words. In addition to this I have learnt how to create different coloured backgrounds and how to make different typographic effects. This can be seen on my contents page, where I have faded the word ‘What's new’ and "Features". This preliminary task has enabled me to experiment with the software available to me, which inturn will help me to produce the main task; a music magazine.
Moreover, I have learnt that space, colours, pictures, writing all fit together to give an overall effect- although this isn't related to the technology. I have learnt a great deal on what is important for a magazine cover, and why things are used in order to attract their targeted audience.
Riah's Media Blog
Friday, 29 October 2010
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Target Audience- Rolling Stones Magazine
As part of our main task for our AS Media, we are going to be creating a music magazine. As part of our research, we looked at different music magazines and studied their target audience.
The magazine that I used was The Rolling Stones magazine, and I used the October issue. I had to answer two questions based on a specific article - I chose an article on " Jeremy Kravitz - Just like starting over" - the answers of which are below.
1. How does the double page spread you have looked at use a layout (text and image) to suit it's target audience and style?
This particular double-paged spread breaks convention as it doesn't have most of the features of a double paged spread. Such as; the By line, white space, a gutter etc.
The background of the picture is the artist, so the main focus is on the artist. As a reader you look directly at the artist first because in the readers eyeline.The colour of the background is not gender specific, yet it is bold and playful, making connotations about the kind of artist that Jeremy is. The title of the article is 'Just like Starting over', a suggestion that the artist and article is more serious. The fact that there is half of the page taken up by image makes the article look smaller, and therefore this would suit the target audience- rock fans - who may not have the concentration, interest or time to read a really long article.
2. What type of mode of address is used by this magazine to appeal to its target audience? Pick out words and phrases as examples.
By looking at the double paged spread in this magazine, you can immediately come to the conclusion that the target audience is rock fans. Rock fans like to party and jeremy talks about " partying the night away" all the time. There is reference to "rocking out" once again showing the intended audience's preferences. This, combined with reference appeal to people who listen to rock music.
The magazine that I used was The Rolling Stones magazine, and I used the October issue. I had to answer two questions based on a specific article - I chose an article on " Jeremy Kravitz - Just like starting over" - the answers of which are below.
1. How does the double page spread you have looked at use a layout (text and image) to suit it's target audience and style?
This particular double-paged spread breaks convention as it doesn't have most of the features of a double paged spread. Such as; the By line, white space, a gutter etc.
The background of the picture is the artist, so the main focus is on the artist. As a reader you look directly at the artist first because in the readers eyeline.The colour of the background is not gender specific, yet it is bold and playful, making connotations about the kind of artist that Jeremy is. The title of the article is 'Just like Starting over', a suggestion that the artist and article is more serious. The fact that there is half of the page taken up by image makes the article look smaller, and therefore this would suit the target audience- rock fans - who may not have the concentration, interest or time to read a really long article.
2. What type of mode of address is used by this magazine to appeal to its target audience? Pick out words and phrases as examples.
By looking at the double paged spread in this magazine, you can immediately come to the conclusion that the target audience is rock fans. Rock fans like to party and jeremy talks about " partying the night away" all the time. There is reference to "rocking out" once again showing the intended audience's preferences. This, combined with reference appeal to people who listen to rock music.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Preliminary Task Front Cover
The image below shows the front cover page of my preliminary task; a school magazine with target audience of Sixth Form Students at the Priory School in Hitchin.
I decided that i wanted the name of my magazine to be original so i called my magazine 'The Priory'. This therefore is appropriate for my magazine, as it is intended for students attending the Priory School. I also thought that the name of the magazine would appeal to my intended audience, as often in schools students at a higher age are more likely to read what the school produces than that of the younger years.
I have used a simple colour scheme, that was relevant to the school - Black, Red, white and Grey are the school colours and therefore i thought that it would be beneficial to have those colours for my house colours. I thought that these colours complemented each other, and neither are particularly gender specific. This reflects the fact that my magazine is not aimed at any particular gender, and the use of these inexplicit colours will hopefully mean that neither boys nor girls will be uninterested due to the colours used. I decided to use
I also included a snippet of what to expect in the rest of the magazine on my front page. I picked three of the most contrasting and interesting features from my magazine, and advertised them on the front page. I did this because I wanted to once again inform the reader of what they could see in the rest of the magazine. I positioned this writing underneath the smaller photo's as they had relevence to the pictures themselves. I decided to put this in white which is what the Masthead is in. I did this because it contrasted with the dark colour of the gate, and as a result it stands out from the photograph and will hopefully attract the reader's attention even though it is in small print.
I decided that i wanted the name of my magazine to be original so i called my magazine 'The Priory'. This therefore is appropriate for my magazine, as it is intended for students attending the Priory School. I also thought that the name of the magazine would appeal to my intended audience, as often in schools students at a higher age are more likely to read what the school produces than that of the younger years.
I have used a simple colour scheme, that was relevant to the school - Black, Red, white and Grey are the school colours and therefore i thought that it would be beneficial to have those colours for my house colours. I thought that these colours complemented each other, and neither are particularly gender specific. This reflects the fact that my magazine is not aimed at any particular gender, and the use of these inexplicit colours will hopefully mean that neither boys nor girls will be uninterested due to the colours used. I decided to use
Red because it is one of the colours featured on the school crest, and some of the school jumpers. I therefore thought that this would give my magazine some sort of brand identity, as people would recognise that it was aimed at students from the Priory School. I also tried to do this by putting the school crest on the front cover but also naming my magazine " The Priory".
The crests and school name all help to give some information about the intention of the magazine. I thought that it was important to include this information on the front cover not only because the magazine itself is new, but also so that any potential readers will know what they are about to read. I hope that, by including this information, more people will want to read the magazine, as they will know what it is about before they pick it up- it would be a problem to my target audience if they misinterpreted the magazine's overall intention.
I tried to make the front cover draw the reader in by including a range of different pictures. The pictures that I included are all of school students, and I also tried to be informative with the shots that I used because I wanted readers to know what they were potentially going to read. As I needed to include a medium close-up of a student, I used the main focus of the page as the photo of students that attend the Priory sixth form; I thought sixth form students would be able to identify with this image as the students modelling in the picture can be seen in and around school. I put this picture in the middle of the page so that it was in the readers' eye line, and took hold of their attention. I also included three pictures underneath the main photograph, all set in a working school environment. I put them underneath the main photo as I thought they were less important and eye-catching as the main picture but gave enough insight for the reader to apprehend what would feature within the magazine.The crests and school name all help to give some information about the intention of the magazine. I thought that it was important to include this information on the front cover not only because the magazine itself is new, but also so that any potential readers will know what they are about to read. I hope that, by including this information, more people will want to read the magazine, as they will know what it is about before they pick it up- it would be a problem to my target audience if they misinterpreted the magazine's overall intention.
I also included a snippet of what to expect in the rest of the magazine on my front page. I picked three of the most contrasting and interesting features from my magazine, and advertised them on the front page. I did this because I wanted to once again inform the reader of what they could see in the rest of the magazine. I positioned this writing underneath the smaller photo's as they had relevence to the pictures themselves. I decided to put this in white which is what the Masthead is in. I did this because it contrasted with the dark colour of the gate, and as a result it stands out from the photograph and will hopefully attract the reader's attention even though it is in small print.
Monday, 25 October 2010
Preliminary Task Contents Page
For part of my Preliminary Task I produced a electronic mock-up of what I wanted my contents page to look like for my school magazine. When deciding how to include the contents of my magazine, I knew I wanted to do something original. I also wanted to continue with the theme of a school. Considering these ideas I chose to create a school banner as part of my Brand Identity, if I were to produce more contents pages "the Priory School" banner would be persistent throughout. I labelled my page as a contents page by putting the word 'Contents' across the left hand side of the page. I did this because I already had the banner of the magazine going along the top of the page, and so I did not think it would look particularly effective if I was to have too much of the text in one place.Saying this, I wanted to keep the contents page fairly simple, especially seeing as I had the school banner detail as the main focus at the top of the page. Therefore, I did not want to include too many photos, but just enough so that the readers would know what to expect within the magazine.I had two photo's which I decided would look good in particular, a fashion show picture, and a picture where students were working. This created a more relaxed and familiar effect to the readers, and also this created an interesting and playful effect, yet was not too much detail that would distract from the main focus of the page - the contents. The house colours relate specifically to the uniform that the students are obligated to wear in the Priory School. I chose to use Black as the background because any colour can go on top of it, which makes that specific colour, for example on this contents page the Red, stand out because of the matt Black background. The White is also easily recognisable and readable against the black background, and goes with the uniform at the Priory School.
Another decision I chose to make, was the shapes with the numbers in them, this not only appealed to my targeted audience, but also made the contents page more visually interesting. In addition to this, the images in the top right and bottom left hand corner relate to the features within the magazine which gives the reader an insight into what they would expect to see in the magazine. I chose to do the "The usual" and the " So what's new?" in a different colour to the rest of the writing because the Grey colour also links to the school uniform. The writing has an effect on it, to again not only appeal to my targeted audience but to look more visually interesting.I also chose to stick to the rule from Paul Felton's book on Typeography that "Thou shalt not apply more than three typefaces in a document". The decision to use a Serif font on the contents page meant that my magazine was more approachable to the students because it looked less formal. Students are more than likely to dismiss something that looks above their age. The font is fun and frisky, which gives the impression to the audience that the magazine is going to be fun to read, and more importantly beneficial and educational. When deciding what would feature in my magazine i had to think very hard about what i would like to see within a school magazine and what interests suit everyone; i myself am a big fan of the fashion shows and the talents shows, and i was positively sure i wasn't alone on that. However, the arts isn't for everyone- certain boys appreciate more sporting activities so the decision for this to feature was not hard.
In addition to this, i included a " have your say" which basically enables the students to invoice ideas for the magazine and what they would like to see.
Another decision I chose to make, was the shapes with the numbers in them, this not only appealed to my targeted audience, but also made the contents page more visually interesting. In addition to this, the images in the top right and bottom left hand corner relate to the features within the magazine which gives the reader an insight into what they would expect to see in the magazine. I chose to do the "The usual" and the " So what's new?" in a different colour to the rest of the writing because the Grey colour also links to the school uniform. The writing has an effect on it, to again not only appeal to my targeted audience but to look more visually interesting.I also chose to stick to the rule from Paul Felton's book on Typeography that "Thou shalt not apply more than three typefaces in a document". The decision to use a Serif font on the contents page meant that my magazine was more approachable to the students because it looked less formal. Students are more than likely to dismiss something that looks above their age. The font is fun and frisky, which gives the impression to the audience that the magazine is going to be fun to read, and more importantly beneficial and educational. When deciding what would feature in my magazine i had to think very hard about what i would like to see within a school magazine and what interests suit everyone; i myself am a big fan of the fashion shows and the talents shows, and i was positively sure i wasn't alone on that. However, the arts isn't for everyone- certain boys appreciate more sporting activities so the decision for this to feature was not hard.
In addition to this, i included a " have your say" which basically enables the students to invoice ideas for the magazine and what they would like to see.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Typeography
For our Preliminary task to design a front cover and an electronic mock up of a contents for a school magazine. We needed to think about what sort of lettering we were going to have. In addition to this we needed to create a masthead for the front cover of our magazines. I experimented with different fonts, drawing three contrasting styles in order to try and find one which I thought would best fit the theme and ideology of my magazine. The reason for this was that if i had just design one masthead with one font, it would not have given me much choice and i could've jepordized my magazine's success.
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Preliminary Task Ideas
As our preliminary task for AS Media, we are going to be creating the front page spread and a mock-up of the contents page for a school magazine. My idea is to create a school magazine for sixth form students, who attend the Priory school, so my target audience is year groups 12 and 13. I am planning to call this magazine 'The Priory', as this relates completely to the school and does not avoid any confusion, and I believe it is a catchy and unforgettable. At this stage of my preliminary task I have a few ideas on what pictures i would like to feature for my magazine. I'm going to try not to use too much text in order to clutter the page and potentially ruin the overall affect of the main image. I wanted to create a minimalistic front cover that looked interesting and intriguing. In order to provide more interest for the audience, I'm going to use the colours of the uniform as the house colours for my magazine to give that sense of well-being but also to relate to the school itself. In addition to this the colours all clash against each other which will help me to attract the audience's attention. I'm going to defy the convention of putting the mast head at the top of the page and put it at the bottom as I think this is effective in catching the audience's attention moreover, the fact that i'm going to use a black background and put "the Priory" in white serif font will help to achieve the 'school' setting.
This is an idea for the front cover main image for my magazine. This picture might work very effectively as it represents some of the students that attend the Priory sixth form- which is who my target audience are.
This picture will work effectively should i chose to use it for my magazine. The idea behind this photo was that there could be a double page spread within the magazine based on stress, which may students are likely to suffer from. In addition to this, it could possibly include tips on how to become less stressed, how to manage time effectively and possibly what help the school has to offer.
Lastly, this picture was based around exam pressure. Exams are a big thing for Sixth form students, and a page featuring how to revise, how not get too stressed, seek help could possibly be in the magazine.Friday, 22 October 2010
Preliminary Task Research 2
I decided it would be highly beneficial to research a school magazine that could possibly have the same target audience as the magazine i'm going to produce for my preliminary task i could apply these ideas to my front cover and contents page.
The layout of this school magazine front cover is quite simple - yet striking. The background is black and white so that the main features of the front cover (the subheadings) stand out and catch the readers eye. Also the masthead stands out more with the use of black and white. At a first glance, it is obvious that the magazine is intended for school students, we can see this as the model is posing outside what looks to be the side of her school a problem witht this is that the model is not in school uniform which could create confusion to readers possibly misinterpreting what the magazine is actually for. Parents might be able to pick the magazine up and find out a bit about what's going on around the school that they are not already informed about, so there could be another targeted audience. The magazine is therefore aimed at the relatively mass audience of school students, presumably in the age bracket of approximately 12-18 years of age, this can be said because the model looks like a teenager, but also there is an agony aunt featured in the magazine. When teenagers get to a certain age- mainly secondary school, they tend to have more problems then say children under the age of 12.The latter feature would be more useful to older pupils as they tend to experience alot more problems and situations that they may not neccessarily feel comfortable discussin with their parents.
The colour scheme used on the front cover is also indicative of the target audience; as the colours used are vibrant and are possibly attached to both genders (like some colours represent sexes stereotypically, such as blue being a 'masculine colour' and pink representing females), this shows that the magazine can appeal to both males and females because it features blue and pink.
It can also cater for an active audience, as games and puzzles are advertised. This enables the reader to get involved in the magazine, and engage their brains, which is also indicative of a school setting.
The layout of this school magazine front cover is quite simple - yet striking. The background is black and white so that the main features of the front cover (the subheadings) stand out and catch the readers eye. Also the masthead stands out more with the use of black and white. At a first glance, it is obvious that the magazine is intended for school students, we can see this as the model is posing outside what looks to be the side of her school a problem witht this is that the model is not in school uniform which could create confusion to readers possibly misinterpreting what the magazine is actually for. Parents might be able to pick the magazine up and find out a bit about what's going on around the school that they are not already informed about, so there could be another targeted audience. The magazine is therefore aimed at the relatively mass audience of school students, presumably in the age bracket of approximately 12-18 years of age, this can be said because the model looks like a teenager, but also there is an agony aunt featured in the magazine. When teenagers get to a certain age- mainly secondary school, they tend to have more problems then say children under the age of 12.The latter feature would be more useful to older pupils as they tend to experience alot more problems and situations that they may not neccessarily feel comfortable discussin with their parents.
The colour scheme used on the front cover is also indicative of the target audience; as the colours used are vibrant and are possibly attached to both genders (like some colours represent sexes stereotypically, such as blue being a 'masculine colour' and pink representing females), this shows that the magazine can appeal to both males and females because it features blue and pink.
It can also cater for an active audience, as games and puzzles are advertised. This enables the reader to get involved in the magazine, and engage their brains, which is also indicative of a school setting.
Preliminary Task Research
The preliminary task that we have been set for our AS Level Media is to create part of a school magazine. As a research exercise we had to look at some other school magazines , and think about the ideology of the magazine. I did so for the magazine 'High Profile'; a school magazine. My annotations can be seen below.
The magazine promotes to people who are interested in expeditions that are avaliable in schools- for example The Duke of Edinburgh award. The magazine represents students taking part in activities together and learning to work in groups and build on team work. Students that are interested in outdoor activities are present within the magazine this is because the magazine is promoting that hobby. I wouldn't expect to see students that are interested in music and drama. In addition to this High Profile is a school for girls so i would not expect to see boys featured in the magazine. The main image features girls which tells us that it is a girls school, added to that, I can infer that the school is quite independent. People may say that the school is quite academic and cares alot about the welfare of their students. The magazine shows that the school offers extra curricular activities indirectly. The magazine is not neccesarily specific to an individual school, and so it can cater for a relatively mass audience. It represents these young people, as it has advice and opportunities aimed specifically at them, and was created by school pupils. The magazine may also appeal to parents of children who are still at school, because they could see exactly what the school has to offer their children, and what additional information they should be informed about.The magazine's general effect is to provide information and advice for fellow students, and to provide helpful hints to peers.Others may say that the magazine is boring and does not provide enough information as to what may feature in the magazine.It seems to focus mainly what is happening outside of school rather than what's happening inside the school.Thursday, 21 October 2010
Ideology
Ideology- The belief ideas and values which the magazine holds to be important.
When discussing Ideology we have to look at the key questions :
Research into Ideology:
The interviews with successful musicians suggest that the magazine is succesful in satisfying it's targeted audience. The magazine also gives away CD's free with it's editions which helps promote new music. The house colours appeal to both genders, which helps broaden their targeted audience, the colours clash well which means that they are easily recognisable.
When discussing Ideology we have to look at the key questions :
- Who's interests does the magazine serve? Who or what does it represent?
- Who is present and who is absent in the magazine?
- Who is present and who is absent in the magazine?
- What does the magazine tell us about the institution who made it?
- What judgements can you make about the truth, accuracy or effect of the magazine?
- What judgements might other people or groups make about the magazine?
- What values are offered, either directly or indirectly, by the magazine?
- What issues does the magazine raise?
Research into Ideology: This edition of NME specifically targets fans of Rihanna but also any other music fans.
The colours, to a fan, may represent life, colour, and the "state of music today".
In the top right hand corner of the magazine it says " Introducing the new NME 4 out of 10 special edition covers" which suggests that they are trying to target people interested in different music because Rihanna might not usually fit into the targeted audience and NME usual music choice.
The House colours have changed for this particular edition which may suggest that this could possibly be a one off thing. The brand identity is in a sans serif font which could mean that NME are appealing to a mass audience rather than a niche audience. It is also in a bright colour which clashes with the colours that the chosen celebrity is wearing. Usually the masthead for NME is covered, and yet still recognisable, however, i think because they have changed the colour for this edition they could not risk the masthead being covered up and not recognised.
This particular edition of Uncut is particularly aimed at adults who are interested in punk rock - this is because the clash is a rock band from 1976. I would expect that other rock bands from around that era, and maybe new rock bands would be featured in this magazine because it appeals to it's targeted audience- so i wouldn't expect to see artists such as Justin Bieber.
The interviews with successful musicians suggest that the magazine is succesful in satisfying it's targeted audience. The magazine also gives away CD's free with it's editions which helps promote new music. The house colours appeal to both genders, which helps broaden their targeted audience, the colours clash well which means that they are easily recognisable.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Brand Identity
Our task was to annotate a music magazine cover in order to establish the brand identity and relating factors. The task was designed to help us to be able to recognise what parts on a magazine cover show the brand identity, and what effects this has on the readers. The skills demonstrated in this task and understanding will be useful when creating our own music magazine covers for coursework. This will be required to come up with a brand identity in order to make it realistic and effective.
The magazine I decided to annotate was an edition of the Rolling Stones which was released July 2010. It featured the latest teenage heart throbs " The Jonas Brothers". I have included my annotations of this magazine.
The magazine I decided to annotate was an edition of the Rolling Stones which was released July 2010. It featured the latest teenage heart throbs " The Jonas Brothers". I have included my annotations of this magazine.
Forms and Conventions
Our task was to pick a magazine cover of our choice from the Internet, and to label it with the forms and conventions we had learned about in the lesson. These included comments on the house style, brand identity and mode of address. This exercise allowed me to further practise my ability to identify the use of these terms and to continue to recognise the effects they have on the magazine as a whole. This will be useful when I am creating parts of my own music magazine later on in the course, as I will be able to use these forms and conventions to create a realistic representation of the appropriate media article; and to make it succesful.
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