Shown below is a comparison showing the developments I have made from my preliminary school magazine task to my music magazine task.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Evaluation: Music magazine questionnaire feedback and analysis
Below is a copy of the music magazine questionnaire that I produced and distributed:
I distributed 15 copies of this questionnaire to people within my target audience, 8 to females and 7 to males. Shown below is an example of a person's response and the feedback they gave.
I then analysed the data from all of the feedback from the questionnaires and came up with the following findings.
As shown above, out of the 15 questionnaires distributed 13 said the magazine does appeal to them and 2 said it doesn't. The 2 that said the magazine doesn't appeal to them were both male and their reasoning for this was that they prefer the iconic male prominence within rock music magazines and so would have preferred a male artist to feature as the main article. Such as in the Kerrang magazine example shown below.
All the artists that feature on this front cover are male bar the lure for the poster of 'The Pretty Reckless' inside the magazine.
Other comments about my music magazine
"looks very professional"
"striking and effective colours!"
"I love it, but perhaps include a free CD give away?"
"At last, more than a token female on the front."
"Needs more pages, I want to read on..."
Evaluation: what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
One of the main ways in which I attracted my audience was the use of iconic codes and conventions that they would be comfortable and familiar with. Shown below is a deconstruction of the magazine codes and conventions I used.
However, to improve my magazine and ensure that my audience do recognise it as a professional product, I could include more codes and conventions such as: captions, cover lines, editorials and straplines.
However, to improve my magazine and ensure that my audience do recognise it as a professional product, I could include more codes and conventions such as: captions, cover lines, editorials and straplines.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?
When creating my music magazine product I tried to ensure that it would be a mass market product and so expanding the size of my audience to be as broad as possible in order to increase my magazine sales figures and boost its circulation.
Therefore, my main target audience is teenagers and young adults of both genders that have an interest in rock music.
Again, in response to the questionnaire feedback I felt passionately about the under representation of female artists within the rock music industry, so have decided to heavily feature female artists and bands within my fictional music magazine, giving them prominence such as appearing on the front cover and being the main featured article. This will hopefully, engage the female audience I am trying to attract without alienating the male audience.
Therefore, my main target audience is teenagers and young adults of both genders that have an interest in rock music.
Below are some images of people that would fit within my target audience:
Again, in response to the questionnaire feedback I felt passionately about the under representation of female artists within the rock music industry, so have decided to heavily feature female artists and bands within my fictional music magazine, giving them prominence such as appearing on the front cover and being the main featured article. This will hopefully, engage the female audience I am trying to attract without alienating the male audience.
Evaluation: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
In order to decide which media institution I wanted to distribute my music magazine I first had to conduct some research into some institutions. The institutions I researched into are: Emap, IPC Media, Bauer and WWMD (World Wide Magazine Distribution).
Emap - http://www.emap.com/
After researching into Emap and finding out what types of magazines that it distributes, I came to the conclusion that Emap wouldn't be the best institution to distribute my magazine. This is because the magazines that they distribute and advertise tend to be quite academic such as the 'Health Service Journal (HSJ)' and 'Architects' Journal'. This is very different to the music magazine I have created and although it wouldn't have many rock magazine competitors I believe my target audience wouldn't visit this media institution's website because of what it represents.
Bauer - http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Another media institution that I deemed not suitable to distribute my rock music magazine was Bauer. This is because Bauer mainly distributes television magazines such as 'tv choice' and female magazines such as 'Take a break' and 'Bella', not music magazines and so my magazine wouldn't fit in with the other genres.
IPC Media - http://www.ipcmedia.com/
Even though I decided that IPC Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine I realised that by distributing the vast range of genres that it does, it wouldn't make my magazine stand out to people. Therefore, I carried out further research into media institution and came across an independent one called WWMD (Worldwide Magazine Distribution). This institution distributes magazines worldwide not just within the UK which includes similar magazines to mine such as 'Q', 'NME' and 'ART ROCKER'. Although, this is the most suitable media institution, it is only an independent one and isn't that well-known within the magazine distribution industry and so I doubt it will help increase my readership even though it could offer me overseas sales.
Emap - http://www.emap.com/
After researching into Emap and finding out what types of magazines that it distributes, I came to the conclusion that Emap wouldn't be the best institution to distribute my magazine. This is because the magazines that they distribute and advertise tend to be quite academic such as the 'Health Service Journal (HSJ)' and 'Architects' Journal'. This is very different to the music magazine I have created and although it wouldn't have many rock magazine competitors I believe my target audience wouldn't visit this media institution's website because of what it represents.
Bauer - http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Another media institution that I deemed not suitable to distribute my rock music magazine was Bauer. This is because Bauer mainly distributes television magazines such as 'tv choice' and female magazines such as 'Take a break' and 'Bella', not music magazines and so my magazine wouldn't fit in with the other genres.
IPC Media - http://www.ipcmedia.com/
Out of these three well-known media institutions I realised that IPC Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine. This is because it sells a wide range of magazine genres ranging from sports magazines such as 'Golf Monthly' to music magazines like 'NME'. Therefore IPC Media would be ideal in distributing my magazine as it would run alongside and rival popular rock music magazines like NME and 'Uncut'.
Even though I decided that IPC Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine I realised that by distributing the vast range of genres that it does, it wouldn't make my magazine stand out to people. Therefore, I carried out further research into media institution and came across an independent one called WWMD (Worldwide Magazine Distribution). This institution distributes magazines worldwide not just within the UK which includes similar magazines to mine such as 'Q', 'NME' and 'ART ROCKER'. Although, this is the most suitable media institution, it is only an independent one and isn't that well-known within the magazine distribution industry and so I doubt it will help increase my readership even though it could offer me overseas sales.
Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?
How did I address my audience?
In my school magazine I used age appropriate language to inform and entertain my young audience. I carried this technique through to my music magazine but adapted it to be 'interest' appropriate language.
The type of mode of address I used was a direct and informal tone in order to make the audience feel comfortable with the magazine and want to read on. Also, to entice my target audience I used concise language so that they could get the jist of the information without having to read lots of text.
How did I attract my audience?
School magazine - To attract the target audience in my preliminary task I used models their age from a year 3 class; colours they are familiar with via their school logo such as the primary colours red and yellow and basic yet fun and enticing text.
Now that I had gained a more developed and advanced knowledge about how to attract a magazine audience I applied this to my music magazine coursework piece.
Music magazine - I used a female band as the main feature in order to attract both a male and female audience in response to one of the requests on my questionnaire (see Research and Planning: Magazine Questionnaire). Then on the contents page I included images of both genders to advertise featuring articles about various bands. Also, the colour scheme and house style of black and white, with red and yellow as my feature colours, enticed my 'rock' genre audience.
In my school magazine I used age appropriate language to inform and entertain my young audience. I carried this technique through to my music magazine but adapted it to be 'interest' appropriate language.
The type of mode of address I used was a direct and informal tone in order to make the audience feel comfortable with the magazine and want to read on. Also, to entice my target audience I used concise language so that they could get the jist of the information without having to read lots of text.
How did I attract my audience?
School magazine - To attract the target audience in my preliminary task I used models their age from a year 3 class; colours they are familiar with via their school logo such as the primary colours red and yellow and basic yet fun and enticing text.
Now that I had gained a more developed and advanced knowledge about how to attract a magazine audience I applied this to my music magazine coursework piece.
Music magazine - I used a female band as the main feature in order to attract both a male and female audience in response to one of the requests on my questionnaire (see Research and Planning: Magazine Questionnaire). Then on the contents page I included images of both genders to advertise featuring articles about various bands. Also, the colour scheme and house style of black and white, with red and yellow as my feature colours, enticed my 'rock' genre audience.
Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the process of this magazine production coursework I have learnt a lot about the process of magazine construction.
In the production of the preliminary task I mainly used paint and a photo editing software called picasa 3 to edit and crop the images (see school magazine deconstruction). I realised that this was a time consuming process and to make my music magazine coursework more professional and effective I would need to use a different software.
I started testing two softwares to see which one would best suit the needs of my photographic manipulation. They were http://www.picnik.com/ and Photoshop Elements 5.0 exe.
Below is an example of the editing using http://www.picnik.com/ :
After comparing the quality of the editing above with the quality of Photoshop Elements 5.0 exe, I decided photoshop was the best software to use. This is because when experimenting with the two facilities it became apparent that photoshop enabled more accurate and so professional cropping and more subtle but effective image editing. In the image shown above it is clear the image has been edited but doesn't look very effective in creating a professional finish.
Shown below is the comparison of quality of my images being cropped on paint and on Photoshop Element 5.0 exe:
Original photograph
Paint Image
Photoshop Element 5.0 exe image
To take all my images for my music magazine coursework production I used a Fujifilm finepix s1600 camera, like the one shown below.
Evaluation: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When comparing my preliminary task of creating a school magazine with my final music magazine production, I can see areas where my skills have progressed.
I think that my strengths in the production of the preliminary task are as follows. I created a clear house style, used models the same age as the audience and included iconic magazine features such as a barcode and issue number. I also manipulated my images to appear as a hopscotch, which is something the audience can recognise and associate themselves with and I used simple and mainly primary colours.
However, although I am pleased with this production, now that I have learnt more about magazine features and aspects, I do acknowledge that there are some weaknesses in this original production, the main weakness being the amount of unfilled space. On the front page especially, there are white areas where I could have included a caption about a featuring article instead of leaving it blank. By doing this it would look more professional and be more iconic of a magazine. Therefore, in the production of my music magazine coursework I ensured that I used as much space as possible unless left blank for a specific effect.
Friday, 21 January 2011
Production Completed: Final Music Magazine coursework piece
Below is the final music magazine coursework piece that I submitted.
Please see the Publisher document to read the magazine article shown below
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