Note to the moderator

This is my AS media blog

My blog has met the AS brief that was set at the beginning of the course. I have developed skills over the period of the course, for example using different technology, researching skills and photography skills.


I have 52 research posts , 19 planning posts and the rest are drafts, final pages and my answers to the evaluation questions. In total, I have 61 posts.

Question 1

Q1/ In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



Forms 
The forms I have used are Facebook and Twitter. I have chosen these social media sites, because they will appeal to a younger target audience. I have also included a weblink, showing the magazine can be read online as well as a paper copy.



Conventions used 
I have kept the convention of the masthead covering a fifth of the page. I have chosen to stick with this, because the font I chose made it bold enough. I didn't want to take the attention away from the image and the stories. I have also kept the banners, colours, freebies, puffs, pugs and features. Keeping these keep the conventions and look of a rock magazine. The imagery, again, has been followed to keep the theme.



Conventions developed 
I have developed the banners, I have made them waved instead of straight. This adds a house style, making the front cover more interesting. The CD title has been put on top of a waved banner, highlighting it more and making it attractive to the target audience.



Conventions challenged 
I have chosen to develop the style of the model to fit my target audience and their age. Instead of doing all leather, I have made the models wear something that can been seen on the high-street and something that themselves would wear. The colour of the masthead has been changed, I have chosen to develop the colour of the masthead to white, instead of following the convention of it being red, blue or green.


What I could of done differently
To make my magazine more attractive to a wider target audience, I could include more freebies. This is more attractive to the younger end of my target audience and it will enable my magazine to be more marketable for the chosen institution.

Question 2

Q2/ How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation 

Front cover 
For the front cover I have used female models to attract a young(teens-young adults) female audience. I then added the contrast of using blue to then attract a male audience, this makes my magazine attractive to both the male and female audience. Along with the colour blue, I used black and white which is one of the rock conventions. The costumes used on the models are simple and can be found on the high-street, giving both the magazine and models a more 'down to Earth' look. Laura Mulvey talks about the male gaze, music magazines with female models are always given provocative poses to do, I decided that this is more for the female audience and gave a more moody and edgy look. This stills adds attraction, but in the right way.

Contents
The contents carries on the colours scheme of blue, black and white, keeping the interest in the male audience and female audience with the imagery. I have taken the quote from Richard Dyer that, "A star is an image, not a real person", I have taken this into consideration. I chose not to use the heavily made-up, fake looking models used in other rock/music magazines and instead gave them a more natural look, that could be found on the high-street, breaking this theory. The images used on this page and the front cover and DPS are all done to attract my target audience, I have made sure that they haven't followed my opinion on stereotypes, instead I have tried to give them an idea of a rock stereotype, with the use of both outfits, images and text.

DPS
For my DPS I have used, again, blue, black and white, this has been my colour scheme through-out to keep the male audience interested. The models are, again, dressed to look natural and not made-up or fake.

Theorists 

• Richard Dyer- "A star is an image, not a real person". 
• Laura Mulvey talks about the male gaze. 
• Perkins- "stereotypes are not simple". 

Question 3

Q3/ What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?


Media institutions
Bauer is the main media institutions that owns well known companies, such as Kerrang, the Box, Q, etc. These are the companies that would be interested in distributing my media product. Bauer is a good choice, because they own viking, a near by radio station, they are dominated by male magazines, so having a magazine that includes something for women would be different. Bauer is a young company aimed at teens and young adults. It's big on social media sites, this can bring in more publicity for a new magazine company. The only problem is Bauer own Kerrang and Q which are both more rock/pop magazines. There might not be any room for a new rock magazine, however my magazines covers all aspects of rock so it might have a chance against whats out there.

IPC is another media institution that I could sell my magazine to. They do rock magazines as well, however they have "Uncut", which is aimed more at the older audience. The others are more indie rock. My magazine tries to cover all aspects of rock, such as indie, rock, grunge, etc. With this, it means it widens the audience and will be bought by more people than just an indie magazine.

I am going to consider that the sub-genres of rock need to be included in my magazine to get the attention and chosen by big media institutions. The target audience is important as well, because if they are making a rock magazine for an older audience than I have a chance to sell my magazine, which is for a younger audience.

Question 4 and 5

Q4/ Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q5/ How did you attract/ address your audience? 

My audience

My audience is ranged between the ages of 16-25 and both male and female. This is a wide audience range and attracts more people to buy it. There is no specific religion or ethnicity that it is aimed at, however I don't want to offend anyone who is religious. This magazine will be sold at places convenient to the customer, such as WHSmiths and Supermarkets(e.g. Tesco, Asda, etc.) These are found all across the country, so still gives a wide audience. The price of my magazine needs to be reasonable and not too expensive to purchase. If the audience enjoys the magazine they will purchase the magazine every time it is printed, so the price will need to be cheap enough for the audience, but the right price for printing and making it. 

Attracting/ addressing my audience

To attract my audience, I made features suited to them, this is done by my research the internet and surveys from my target audience. The lighting is artificial, which gives a clearer picture and attracts the audience more. Using better images means that the magazine will get more attention from the audience. The colours used in my magazine have been chosen to attract the male audience, this is because the models used have been chosen for the female audience. The colours I chose was black, white and blue.

These will appeal to my target audience, because social media is a huge part of teens/ young adults life now. By using these, it attracts them straight away after recognising the symbol. The same is with the web and twitter link, this means they are able to read/ check out the website to find out more. The use of web links and social media links means they are more likely to read or notice the magazine more.

  

Question 6

Q6/ What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Mind map of all the technology I have used to create my music magazine

This is a mind map to show what technology I used during the course of making my music magazine. During the making of the magazine and in the research I have used different technology that was easy to use and some challenged me. I found Celtx was easy to learn and I used this to do research on what my models should wear and their make up. After using this programme, I feel that it would be useful to use for the photo shoot pictures I took, making it look more neatly laid out. Prezi was another programme that was easy to learn and has come in handy when I needed to make a quick presentation.
The most difficult piece of technology I used was adobe elements, I used this to create my music magazine. This programme has different elements to it and I learnt something new every time I used it.

Question 7

Q7/ Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Final front cover

Final contents page

Final DPS

Draft of contents

Draft of DPS

Taking a range of images for my pages

During a photo shoot, I was lucky enough to be able to take a good shot of a 17 year old who has a great rock look. All I needed to do was actually ask her to fluff her hair up further and add more lipstick. I think she meets my TA perfectly and suits the genre.

I then held another photo shoot, I again found some more models that I thought would suit the genre and the TA. This time I took a photo of three models, creating a group. 

Masthead ideas

These are my masthead name ideas:

Stereo sound
Top rock
Only rock
Rock now
Rocking out loud
Simply rock

Masthead name

The one I have chosen to be my masthead is Rock Now. This was the most popular among my target audience.

Picture for my DPS

This is the photoshopped picture I have chosen for my DPS.

Photo shoot 2