Media Evaluation

Media Evaluation • Seb Forrest

In this presentation… • Look at how my media product uses, develops, or challenges forms and conventions of real media products • Analyse if my media product represents particular social groups • Think about what kind of media institutions might distribute my media product • Discuss who would be the audience for my product • How I managed to attract/address my audience? • Discuss what I have learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product • Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel that I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

My Front Cover

My Contents Page

My Article

How does my media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? • As this is a music magazine, it must follow some forms and conventions in terms of layout, context, colours etc. • A lot music magazines (such as NME) use three main colours on any page at a time; this makes it look clean, professional and modern. I tried to stick with this throughout my pieces. • The language which I used also stuck within the usual media vocabulary of being modern, sometimes slangish vocabulary with a rather laid back approach. As my magazine was aimed at students, this was definitely the right type of language to use. • I didn’t really challenge or develop the forms and conventions which you usually find. I felt that if I did that, my magazine would not be professional at all. The forms and conventions are there because they aid the products to sell, and I thought that changing this would be pushing the boundaries too far. • The one positive aspect of challenging the tried and tested forms and conventions is that my magazine would gain some individuality, which I think should have been portrayed in stories and articles. This NME cover illustrates my point of music magazines consisting of three main colours. In this case, it is red, white and black.

Does my media product represent particular social groups? • My magazine was designed to be an indie magazine directed at teenagers, so I hope that it represents that particular social group. • The way that the majority of music magazines represent certain social groups is in their articles, pricing and reputation. For every genre of music on the current market, there is a magazine for it. • My front cover model is in fact an indie teenager himself, surely this fully represents that social group. • The pricing of my magazine is there to not eliminate any social groups. Everyone should be able to afford my magazine from students to OAP’s. If my magazine is open to this size of market, then it should be able to in some sense represent everyone. On my front cover there is a prime example of the sort of person I would like my magazine to attract- an indie teenager.

What kind of media institutions would distribute my media product? • In the UK today, there are a literally hundreds of companies which distribute or deal with media products. Most of these would take any product on for a fee. • I would want my music magazine to be distributed by a creditable, well known company such as dittomusic, musicmags or the distributors of NME IPC. • In using one of these top companies, my magazine would have essentially a head start on the other products on the market and be able to get out to the public quicker. • These companies all look for any new business venture, and I think that Verity would be one of these on their list. Screenshot ofIPC Media

Who is my audience and how did I attract them? • I decided to go for the ‘indie’ teen audience in my music magazine, however, I did not only think of them. I tried to create a versatile magazine which could be interpreted in different ways by different people. • Teenagers buy more music magazines than any other age group in the UK. Almost every music magazine in your local shop will in some way try to appeal to teenagers. • The way that they, and I, attract the teen audience is with a simple colour scheme (as we saw in NME earlier), up to date articles and other features such as up and coming gigs etc. • However, I wanted my magazine to attract other audiences as well as teens. In the contents page, you can see some of the features in the magazine. There is a variety of genres covered in my magazine, hopefully appealing to all music tastes. You have artists from the dubstep, grime and pop genres in the magazine.

What have I learnt about the different technologies used in music magazines from the process of constructing this product? • In the creation of my music magazine, I have learnt a great deal from the technology that I have used. During the production of my magazine, I used the following technologies- Digital camera, scanner, Photoshop, InDesign, PowerPoint, Internet explorer and last but not least a computer. • These technologies all vastly aided my work, making the whole magazine look far more professional. However, the technology that helped me the most, came in the form of a website, www.wordpress.com. • It was on wordpress where all of my work has been documented in a step by step, coherent form where I could easily track my progress throughout the task. • I did struggle with Photoshop at first, however with practice I felt that I became not so bad at it, producing decent pieces of work. Find my work at http://www.wordpress.com/sheldonschoolsebforrest

Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel that I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? • In September we created a student magazine as our preliminary piece. It’s fair to say that mine was far from the best. As I said in the previous slide, I struggled with Photoshop initially, this was evident in my student magazine. • Since then I feel that my Photoshop skills have improved drastically, I can now create a semi-professional looking piece of work, which I am very proud of. • My photo choice also appears to have improved severely. In my student magazine I chose a blurred close up shot, which isn’t exactly ideal for a magazine cover. However, my music magazine cover image is far more suitable. It is a medium to long shot which has my model fully in shot. It is a far more professional image. • My time management has also improved, my blog is more frequently updated compared to the start of the year. This makes my life so much easier

Thanks for listeningAny questions?

Media Evaluation