media coursework: May 2010

1) What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product is a music magazine of the hip-hop/rap genre. Both of these concepts determined the actual appearance of my magazine. For example, the rap industry is very stereotypical and there is always the theme of, hoodies, bling and "low riding" trousers, and when people see this they think of youth, trouble and the rap artists which is a connotation. This is why I have used for my front cover a male with his hood up, trousers "low riding" and big head phones on, so my audience could see evident comparisons between other professional rap magazines and my magazine. Throughout my magazine my colour-scheme consisted of four main colours; white, black, yellow and red. I chose to use these particular colours as I wanted to intertwine two dark colours with a light colour to create a sense of diversity and to make the main points stand out, so people would be interested in it.
All of the fonts are typical of a hip-hop magazine as they are in bold and stand out on the page which attracts the reader to the specified article, so I have followed this convention of using real media products.
Most magazine use Serif font, however apart from my masthead everything else is in Sans Serif fonts.
I decided to use a long body shot on my front cover because it draws attention to the artist’s outfit and body. My other pages e.g. contents page and double page spread feature article are all coherent of the house style colour scheme. All of the images in my double page spread are medium close-ups, which is a common convention of hip-hop magazines, and for my contents page there are a mixture of close ups and medium shots.
Another principle of Hip-Hop magazines is the use of teenage speech. For instance, I used words such as; “wanna", "Haha" and "gunna" This just makes the interview more realistic to the audience.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media magazine represents particular social groups mainly through the text, and as I used teenage “text talk” in my double page spread which is frequently used by a vast number of young people and have referred to artists like; Eminem and 5o Cent. I think the “text talk” is a semiotic and very stereotypical as people seem to think all teenagers nowadays talk like that but actually it is very few. These artists are rap/hip-hop artists who are all well known with young people, especially those from under-privileged backgrounds. Furthermore, the whole idea/concept of rap/hip-hop music is ‘Giving something back to the community, as they themselves have had tough upbringings and this is like them explaining it to other kids and telling them it’s going to be ok. These rap artists are also known as troublesome people with baggy trousers, and are usually seen as black artists which are very stereotypical as that means white artists can’t be rap artists, which is not true. At the top of the contents page you can see a brick wall idea which is a symbolic sign of urban-life which is always associated with hip-hop and rap.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The distribution of my magazine is totally based on the genre and as my magazine is a rap magazine there is not really a broad market that will be content in distributing my magazine. I believe this as rap itself is constantly under scrutiny and is being labelled as bad music and having a bad influence on the younger generation. However, my magazine promotes a sense of fun, as it is not all dark and gloomy and has bright colours which show the audience what is in the magazine. It also has a passion towards their favourite rappers, therefore, I feel that institutions like urban music channels e.g. MTV Base and Channel U, music stores e.g. Zavvi, HMV, newsagents and urban clothes stores will be contented to distribute my magazine. I understand that at first not many people would want to buy the magazine because the front cover is quite dark and gloomy, and if you were looking for a laugh you wouldn’t really buy this magazine, but I feel that black represents the seriousness of the rap industry and is the correct colour for the magazine genre.

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience of my magazine are mainly males and also females aged 12-25. Even though this age limit is very young for a rap magazine with some strong issues in it, I believe that parents would allow their children to buy it because it teachers them about crime and about everyday life and how serious it is, because even the most famous of rappers, 50 cent, got shot. Although my magazine features just male artists I feel that it doesn't have to be aimed just at the male demographic because females can like rap/hip-hop music as well and it is very stereotypical to say they don't. Due to all my images being of males I have had to make the colour scheme appeal more to the female side as well, so I have used red and yellow which stands out against the black background so it is more noticeable. The age of my target audience starts quite young because it doesn't really have the real-life topics like sex, drugs, gun/knife crime… and the little bit that it does have in, I think it is useful for the younger audience to hear about so they don't do the same.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted and addressed my audience through the dark background but the bright colours on the lure and the artists which are featured in the magazine. I have also made the price of the magazine pretty cheap at £2.50 which means that more people would have the chance of buying it, because even the younger ones who it can be aimed at to, who have no money would still be able to afford it, and the use of my vivid images. All of my Mastheads were in bold fonts, which immediately attracted the readers’ attention because they stand out bigger and better and are clearer to read. Also, my structure was clear and the text was comprehendible as I spaced my text out on the page and used a red font for which artists are in the magazine which stands out against the black background.
A Sans Serif font was used for all of the mastheads and sub headings whereas Serif fonts were used for the main text to create logic for the audience. I also think that my contents page was clear when navigating the audience throughout the magazine. Even though my pictures are not bright and cheerful, I still think that they are pleasing to the eye and catch the eye because I have edited each photo I took on Adobe Photoshop to give it a certain effect. I also attracted my audience with a lure of winning tickets to see Dizzee Rascal perform, and by putting it in a bright yellow colour more people are going to see it and are more likely to buy the magazine, also people may not be interested in the magazine itself but they just want to have a chance of seeing Dizzee Rascal so they will purchase it solely for that reason.
When I was creating this project I took into consideration the gratification theory and how my audience was going to take in my media piece as a way of satisfaction.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I used Microsoft Publisher to create the layout, structure and input the text into the magazine. I also used Adobe Photoshop for image manipulation and editing the image.
I used an interactive blog to register my progress and explain how far I was getting on with the creation on my magazine. Additionally, the blog allowed me manage my time as it allowed me to see what needed to be completed and any rooms for improvement. To be honest, I think I improved a great deal from the Preliminary task, especially with the use of technology. During the Preliminary task, I really did not know how to edit my photos on Adobe Photoshop although working on Publisher was quite easy because I have used it before. However, after much practice and self-teaching, I began to work out how to use Adobe Photoshop and all of my images on my music front cover, contents page and double page spread were edited using Photoshop. I have also learnt about the different camera angles and camera shots, you can see this as in my front cover I have used a medium shot which is looking up at the artist this gives the impression that he is more powerful.

7) Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it, to the full product?

From the preliminary task I have learnt how to use professional technologies like Adobe Photoshop to create professional media products. As for my preliminary task I didn’t edit any of my photos but when it came to my music magazine it look to plain and boring and I found that editing them looked better. I have also learnt that the audience is the main propeller when designing/creating a magazine- everything depends on the audience and the genre of the magazine.
For the preliminary task, I did not carry out as much research as I did for the main task; I just looked at a few magazines to look at the layout of the magazine and I found that most used big mastheads and lures to try and attract a bigger audience. However, for the main task of designing a music magazine I ended up planning out the layout, structure and images of my final magazine because I wanted to achieve a higher grade than I did in the preliminary task. I sketched layouts and titles for the front page so when I was ready to create them on Publisher I at least had a plan and the knowledge of how my final page was going to look. My further research consisted of me analysing other magazines, such as ‘Q’, ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Wire’ and taking notice of their use of fonts, house-style, colour scheme, image sizes. The magazines which I looked at were not that helpful in the sense that only Wire was a similar kind of magazine. I also noticed a clear disparity between my preliminary magazine and my Music magazine- none of the images used in my Preliminary magazine were edited in any way. Whereas all the images in my Music magazine were edited. Although I felt I had made quite a large improvement from the preliminary task.