My Media Studies Evaluation

By Brad Hampson

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

MastheadLike many professional music magazines, they all consist of a banner of some

sort at the top of the page. This would be used to promote the magazine’s reputation, which could potentially help entice the reader to buy their magazine. For example, a magazine company may offer free incentives, others may want to show off how popular their business is.

In my music magazine, I made sure that had a masthead, because it helps promote the magazine. I made sure that my mast head had some text which showed off how successful my magazine was, by saying that it is the best music magazine for hip hop in the United Kingdom since 2004! I also made sure that the text was in the two main colours I chose as my colour scheme. These were blue and white. It really stands out, which is good as it looks eye catching.

To make the mast head look more professional, I made sure that all of the text was the same size, same spacing, same width, and that the colours were identical to the rest of the text on the front page. This is important, as you would not want different shades of one type of colour.

IncentivesMost magazine companies will always make sure that every copy they sell of their

product will have some sort of incentive on the front cover. These incentives are there used to entice the reader to look inside, which eventually makes them want to purchase a magazine.

In my magazine, I made sure that the incentive was something which would be worth the audience to look for. For example, I decided to include a free money voucher for I-Tunes. This was in a blue star, near the top right hand side of the front cover. The incentive star looks really eye catching, as the shape is in a bright blue colour, with a white stroke behind it. I included that the voucher was free. This ‘FREE’ piece of text was in a black, bold colour. It was in bigger writing that most of the text on the page, to promote the fact that there is an incentive within my magazine.

This is my incentive in the circle below. As you can see, the black

text is much bigger that the rest of the text in this circle, to promote

the free gift.

BarcodesEvery music magazine will have a barcode, with the price of the magazine, as well as

the date. They are normally located somewhere along the bottom of the page, mostly to the right hand side. For my barcode, I made sure that I included the price, and the date.

The price would be in smaller writing than the date, but no so small that the audience can’t read it. The text was in black, as the barcode background is white. I also added the website address somewhere on the barcode, to let people know where they can find my magazine company on the internet.

I think that I have made my barcode look realistic by making sure that the barcode is a decent size, not too big, not too small), the text isn't slanted, by having the serial number on the bottom of the barcode, and by making sure that the barcode included the date, price, and a website address.

TitleIn the majority of music magazine now-a-days, the title will be the most

important piece of text on that front cover. The title needs to be the biggest text on the page, mostly because the magazine companies will want to let the audience know what their magazine is called. For example, Kerrang Magazine will have an enormous title on their front cover. They will most likely keep the same type of font, the same sized text as well as the same place. i.e., they will not have the title at the bottom of the page, as no one will be able to see it. They are normally at the top of the page, with a masthead at the top of the title.

For my magazine, I made sure that the title was the biggest piece of text on the page, making it bold, eye catching, but not too extravagant. For example, my title is bold, with a black stroke and big writing, but the font is rather plain. I have made my title look professional by underlining the text, making it stand out by adding a stoke effect, and making sure that the gaps between each letter and the size of the text is all the same size.

Cover Star ImageFor my music magazine called ‘BOUNCE!’, I have placed the cover star,

known in my magazine as Jake Rhymes, in the centre of the page. I have stretched this image out, to fill the entire page. I have done this because he is the main focus of my music magazine.

In many professional music magazines, they companies will make sure that their image of their cover star will not be completely covered by text. They will want the audience / reader to be able to see who the star is.

In my music magazine, I made sure that I took a photo of the cover star, Jake Rhymes, where he was looking directly at the camera. I got him to take a little pose at them camera. This pose I chose for him makes him look, to some extent, confident and powerful. I also made sure that the camera I took the photo on was a very good high quality camera, because I didn't want to take a photo where there would lots of megapixels showing up. And if there were, then I would edit the image in Adobe Photoshop to make sure that the image looked perfect for my music magazine.

It is always important to have a cover star who everybody knows, because the audience will immediately see an idol and purchase a copy of their magazine. In my magazine however, I have my cover star who isn't very well known. I did this because I wanted to promote somebody new in the music industry, as everybody knows the latest gossip about the popular faces in music…

Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

Gender, Ethnicity etc.Looking at my magazine, it doesn't look like a feminine magazine, meaning

that the magazine was created for males. Foe example, all of the artists which were featured in my magazine were all males. Also, there are artists, whom are included, in my magazine who are different races. For example, there are several African American’s featured in my magazine, and Caucasian artists. This suggests that this magazine includes hip hop artists from all over the world. There isn't just one race of people featured, meaning that this magazine is a multi cultural magazine.

By looking at the featured artists on the front cover, my magazine suggests that this magazine is targeted for an audience who enjoy rap/hip hop music. We can prove that my magazine is a hip hop magazine, by reading the text in the masthead, located at the top of the title.

However, by looking at the cover star image, the magazine could easily be misunderstood for a rock magazine. For example, the cover star has long hair, dark, leather clothing and an eye brow piercing. If I were the targeted audience, I would assume that this wasn’t a hip hop magazine. Having the right/ appropriate cover star, a magazine can become much noticeable. For example, if TYGA was the cover star of a magazine, people would automatically know that magazine is a hip hop / rap magazine.

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

Magazine DistributionA company / companies which are available to distribute a music magazine,

like mine, would be able to give lots of important information, such as who the targeted audience is, what kind of music related information does the magazine contain, and how important the profit of purchasing a magazine would be.

There are only two different types of distributors. These are:- Major- Independent

But what do these mean?The difference between the two types of distributors are that a major distributor will

look to approach different major retail businesses, such as HMV, Tesco etc, making sure that they are able to cover as much as the market as possible.

An independent distributor / independent distribution companies have very different market strategies to major distributing such as Frontline. Major companies focus more on profit, where as the independent distributing companies concentrate on the audience and the individuality of the magazine. They are normally small, possibly home run businesses who concentrate on distributing their magazines to small companies, small distributing shops or even online.

Major distributingLike mentioned on the previous slide, the major distributors will be looking to

approach different major retail businesses, such as HMV, Tesco etc, making sure that they are able to cover as much as the market as possible.

I like to think that my magazine is better off in the major distribution, because my magazine would be massed produced, able to sell the magazines at a lower price, invest in new artists for my covers and provide freebies and competitions.

These will all help to attract a larger audience for my magazine, selling more magazines and making more money, something that major distribution companies strive for.

The four main distributors for the magazine industry are Market force, Comag, Frontline and Seymour. I decided to research on the Frontline Distribution company, to get a little more information on how they started, and who they help distribute.

FrontlineFrontline was formed in June 1986 by the magazine publisher Emap (now

Bauer Media) in order to handle the demands of their expanding circulation department. Frontline has four main partners; Seymour, Haymarket, BBC Enterprises and H Bauer publishing. This increases market share as they have many popular connections, resulting in them more or less controlling the industry, providing many different sources of revenue and more profits for the company.

Frontline sell and distributes over 160 magazine titles, as well as 54 of the top 200 best selling titles in the UK! They sell almost 8 million copies every week, through over 55,000 shops, which can range from small shops, such as a corner shop, to big industrial companies such as big super markets and retail shops (ASDA, Tesco etc). This makes them the biggest magazine distributor in the UK.

Frontline are able to advertise for all genres, from music to self help and for many different audiences. For example, they are in charge for selling Heat, and Kerrang magazine.

Positives and negativesPositives- There would be more copies made, as there is more money injected in

distributing.- More money involved – able to make / produce more copies of the product- Larger marketing means that my product could sell in larger retail stores.- Able to have the more popular cover stars as the company has more

money.- Aimed at younger people. (more likely to buy a music magazine)

Negatives - If the product is popular, the product may sell out quicker, resulting in no

more income in terms of money.- They are normally more interested in the money than the music itself.- The artists are normally based on the same genre as previous artists in the

magazine.

Independent distributionIndependent distribution companies such as Vice, have very different ways to

market and promote their magazines than major companies like Frontline. The major companies focus more on profit instead of the audience they sell their products to. However, the independent companies prefer to focus more on the audience and the individuality of the magazine.

They tend to be smaller distributing companies, maybe even home run and concentrate on distributing their products by either selling via the internet, urban or small shops. In fact vice have their own television channel called VBS.tv - http://www.vbs.tv

Positives and negatives- Even though these companies are reducing their audience by singling out

people who aren't interested in a certain genre of music, by selling the magazine to a limited audience it singles out the people who aren't really fans of the genre of type of magazine. For example, I wouldn’t want to sell copies of my product to a music related shop selling guitars and violins, as this would not be properly marketing my product. I would want to sell my product to shops where they would sell hip hop magazines.

- As the internet is becoming much more popular every single year, the independent distributing companies have used this to their advantage. Due to the fact that marketing their products overseas was simply too hard not only to sell the product, but to get the money to sell copies overseas, the Internet has allowed these smaller companies to sell their products online.

- Therefore, they can easily sell copies online, as they can sell / market their product worldwide, meaning that their audiences from all over the world can access the magazine. An example of independent magazine distribution is Vice.

Vice magazineVice magazine is a company who sell their magazines for free. This means

that they can attract more people into getting a copy of their magazine. This allows the company to gain their profits through advertisements. They were founded in Montreal, Quebec, but are now currently located in New York. Their magazine covers contemporary indie and youth culture. Vice is known for its violent content, such as debauchery, sex, drugs, violence, crime, and social issues involving race and economic class.

Vice magazine is available in 19 countries. Including Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. They have two different people currently editing this magazine, they are called Jesse Pearson, United States, and Andy Capper, United Kingdom.

The name of this magazine changed in 1996, when the editors at that time bought out the publisher, Alix Laurent. This was due to the fact that the editors didn't want to work with Alix. These editors moved the business to New York city in 1999, where they could find more income in new markets, such as clothing, TV shows and films and record labels in music.

Vice magazine continuedVice distributes their magazines mainly online and through some select

independent record stores such as Tempest and Studio 4 in Birmingham. They do not tend to care about the profit side of the business, as much as they prefer getting the audiences, because then they can receive money via advertisements.

Their marketing program just like a major company would try to promote their products, but on a much smaller scale. The majority of Vice readers are male, aged between 21-30 years old. The audience would tend to get a copy of this magazine a lot, meaning that they are loyal and trustworthy customers who like to be involved with the bands and the making of the magazine as well as finding out about the band first rather than the music…

Who could sell it / who could own it? There are various different places / businesses, where I could potentially sell

my music magazine. They could be sold worldwide, if they are sold by the right companies, and are advertised correctly. For example, a music shop, such as HMV, could potentially sell copies of my music magazine.

Music stores like HMV are great places to start selling music magazines, because everybody visits their shops, meaning that if they were advertised correctly, then people would be able to purchase a copy. In order for me to sell copies of music magazines, I would have to approach multiple music related companies such as I-Tunes, for example, to help promote my magazines.

The Front line distribution company would be a great way for me in terms of selling my music magazine, because they sell all of the best music magazines to retail shops. The way I see it is if Frontline sell the most popular music magazines, then they could help advertise my product in the same way they advertise all of my competitors. However, I do not think that they sell / advertise hip hop magazines, so there is a new market for my product.

Question 4: Who would the audience be for your music magazine?

Target AudienceWhen I first began researching for my music magazine, I decided that my

final conclusion in regards to my audience was that the target audience would be from the age of 13 to the age of 22 years old. This age bracket was targeted for the people who enjoy hip hop music.

I mainly targeted my music magazine for males, as there are lots of very famous male hip hop artists to choose from. For example, there are a lot of famous, well known rappers/hip hop artists such as Tyga, Tupac, Rich boy, Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy.

Question 5: How did I attract or address my audience?

Introduction When I created my music magazine, I had to

think about how I could entice the audience to look at my magazine and purchase a copy.

In order to do this, I had to think as the audience. How could I make my magazine look appealing, what should I include in the magazine which would help advertise my product?

Use of Incentives One of the things I put on the front cover was an advertisement for

incentives. I created a small text in a blue star which included a free £15 I-Tunes voucher which they could receive the magazine. Here is the incentive which was on my magazine…

As you can see here, the black text is the biggest text within that star. The reason why this part of the text is in a different colour is to promotethe fact that it is helping advertising the incentive. The white text just below the ‘Free’ text is the next biggest text in that star. This tells the

reader / audience what the free incentive is. It is promoting the incentive.

Exclusive Information I also had to think what could I include in my magazine which other magazine can’t

offer the audience. This could be exclusive articles, images, incentives, tour dates etc. One of the things I offered my audience was an exclusive interview with the new UK hip hop sensation called Jake Rhymes. No other magazine company had the information I knew of how he began a career as a hip hop artist, and what he had been up to etc. Here is a paragraph of the article I wrote for my magazine article.

This is the first half of the article. The first part of the article is the introduction. It tells the reader / audience what the article is about. I have decided to have two different coloured paragraphs. This is top just make the article more appealing, as an article written in one colour doesn’t look as appealing.

What my magazine has which other competitors don’t / may not have. On my ‘Bounce!’ magazine front cover, I have put on it a feature list.

This feature list consists of 4 of the most successful, popular hip hop artists today! These are the people who were featured in my magazine: Lil’ Wayne, Rick Ross, Drake and 50 Cent. I wanted to have these artists on my magazine front cover, because they help make the magazine more advertising. For example, if one magazine had unknown artists or bands on their magazine, and another next to it had lots of popular artists, most buyers would want to read the magazine with the popular artists.

Also, I have included some tour dates within my article. There are 5 dates at popular hip hop venues. These are the dates for Jake Rhymes:I think that, in my opinion, having exclusive

information such as tour dates for certain artists don’t only help advertise the magazine, but help promote the artist. If Kerrang Magazine didn’t have any tour dates, then the audience wouldn’t know any information on when the artist / band will be next performing and where etc.

Cover Stars & Stories For my article, I decided to make an article based on my front cover star,

named Jake Rhymes. I made the article about how he began his career as a hip hop artist. The article has to be roughly two hundred words, which made the article very short. This is my exclusive article I wrote for my magazine project.

In order to make my article more appealing, I decided to have a pull quote from my article. This normally located at the top of the page, this is to pull the readers in , to ensure that they read the article. Also, I decided to have the paragraphs in two different colours.

Design Styles – Front CoverWhen creating my music magazine, I used lots of different ways to create my

front cover. For example, I used editing tools to change the appearance on certain pictures. These images were all edited by using Adobe Photoshop CS5. I had to think of different ways to this task. I changed the appearance of my images by changing the hue and saturation. This allowed me to change the colour of the image, as well as the brightness. I decided to make the brightness a bit lighter, as the original photo for the front cover was fairly dark.

When creating text and shapes, I decided to use blue, white and black as my colour scheme. I decided to used this colour scheme because this was my inspiration I got from a “SOURCE” magazine I found. Everything on that front cover was black, white and blue.

I created a masthead above the title for my music magazine. This masthead consisted of blue and white text, showing off how well the magazine is. The text I used for my title was called “Harabara”. I decided to use this font, as it looked perfect for my title. Originally, I had a graffiti text used for my title, with a stroke effect behind it. In the end, I decided to stick with the Harabara text, as it looked more professional. I included other text, such as a feature list. This list consisted of 5 of the top rappers today. The text was written in “Latha”. This is a simple, but stylish text. I chose this text for the rest of the text on the page, as it looks more professional than other texts I could of chosen from.

Design Styles – Front Cover ContinuedAs you can see, this is what my magazine

front cover looks like. I have the masthead at the top, the title underneath, and then more text and images. I also thought that having a website would be really good, as it looks professional. This would allow the audience to be able to get information online about the magazine, from new bands to tour dates for their favourite artists.

In the bottom left corner, I have the magazine’s personal website address in a blue box. This was used to attract the audience in, as they have other ways to look for exclusive information featured in my magazines.

Also, I have two more website addresses for facebook and twitter. I decided to have these put on my magazine, as there are millions of people who use these sites. This helps bring in advertisement for my magazine.

Design Styles – Front Cover ContinuedFor my music magazine front cover, I

stuck to the plan of having the colours on my front cover where they are. When I was blogging my ‘Publication Plan’, I really liked the layout of the magazine front cover, as the colours on that magazine front cover are very vibrant, big ,as well as appealing. I decided to copy the shape for the website, as it looks much better than just a piece of text on a page.

I wanted to use the brush effect in the background of the magazine. I could of done this by cutting out the background using various tools such as the polygonal lasoo tool, the magic wand, and magnetic tool. However, I thought in the end that the image looked better as it looks now.

Question 6: What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Hardware...When I began producing my music magazine, I used lots of various hardware in order to

help make my magazine how it looks now, from picture quality, to importing images or text. For my images, I used the Cannon 550 EOS digital SLR camera. This is a very high resolution camera, which I used in order to take my photos I needed. The setting for my images were outside of Priestley College, next to the media studies suite.

In order to import these photos into the computer, I needed to use the Cannon’s usb cable. This cable is plugged into the computer, which allows the user to import / export specific files. In my case, this was the images from the camera. When taking the images with the Cannon, I decided to take the shots at different angles, without the use of a tripod, as I felt that I can take the photos of the cover star in any way I wanted. For example, I took a low angled shot of my cover star, and used it for my double page spread article.

SoftwareAfter only a few weeks, I have learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop CS5, in a

way where I can produce a music magazine, from changing the hue and saturation, to actually editing and producing my magazine. After producing my Priestley College magazine, I think that I have really improved on my editing skills, as my music magazine looks pretty good. However, I haven’t used just Adobe Photoshop to produce my magazine.

In order to produce my music magazine, I had to use various types of software. When researching various information on professional magazine companies, I used Google, and different media packs via a computer. These allowed me to get all the information I needed for my blog, which was posted onto blogger.com.

In order to begin creating my music magazine, I used Photoshop CS5. It allows you to edit text, images, magazines etc. It is a really good way of perfecting a magazine, as you can use lots of various tools which can allow you so create a perfect magazine. For example, I used tools such as hue and saturation, which allowed me to sort out the brightness and colour for my images. I also used the magic wand tool, to get rid of any part of an image which I wasn’t going to include in my magazine, or if the background was too big etc.

Software ContinuedAfter I finished my magazine front cover, contents page and double page

spread, it was time to write up my article. In order to do this, I had to use Quark. This allowed me to add the text for my double page spread article. After, I had finished using quark, I uploaded my work onto my blog account.

For texts, I used Dafont.com, which allowed me to pick out my text for my title. I decided to use this website, instead of the texts in Photoshop, as there are more texts to choose from.

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

Prelim Task.Before I created my college magazine, I had no idea how I was going to make

my magazine. I only assumed that I would just make the front cover and the contents page, but I didn’t know I had to find research for it. I felt that it was going to take a very long time for my to produce my first ever magazine…

From looking at the mistakes I made on my college magazine, I have learnt that I shouldn’t give the audience all the information on the front page, because then they know what content there will be in the magazine. For example, I added an enticement which allowed the audience to check whether or not they won a prize within the magazine. I gave them the page number where they could check. This was in a red text, which was bigger than the title of the magazine. I also learnt that I cannot have the title really small, as it makes it harder for the audience/reader to see. It needs to be big, bold, and eye catching.

Looking at the two images on the next couple of slides, you can tell that my music magazine I produced looks much more professional than my first attempt at a magazine.

College Magazine. Positives and negatives!

This is my first ever magazine I made based on life at college. The colour scheme for this magazine is blue, red and white. What I like about this magazine, is that the text stands out from the plain grey background. This helps the magazine come to life in terms of eye catching.

However, there are a lot of negatives for this magazine. To start with, the title is too small, there are no strokes on the text, which makes it harder to read. Also, I have put too much information on the page, as the text is covering up the main image too much. I have put a masthead at the top of the page. On the masthead, I have included a star with ‘Win a free prize!’. I have written, (more or less), the same on the left hand side of the page. This text on the right hand side is the biggest text on the page. I think that the colour scheme is too bright/vibrant too.

Music Magazine - PositivesThis is my music magazine, which is the second magazine I have produced for my Media studies. This looks much more professional than my original magazine, as there is an equal balance of text, as well as images and shapes. The reason why I prefer this to the other magazine, is due to the fact that I had more experience, more knowledge, and more determination to make a better magazine. I like how I have stuck to two different colour texts through out the page.

The texts all have strokes, which makes them stand out more than your usual text. The stroke effect makes a piece of text more appealing, for example, I have added a slight stroke to the title as a border. This border allows the reader to read what the title is when the title is on a bright background. I love how I have the cover star’s name in big white text, because it looks really eye catching. I also like how I have added a feature list, consisting of 5 top rappers known today!

Music Magazine - NegativesOne of my only concerns about this music magazine which I have produced is that I don’t think that I have made the stroke on the texts thick enough to see the stroke. For example, on the title, the stroke doesn’t stand out enough, and from a distance, it looks pretty hard to read. Also, I think that I should of made the background image slightly darker, because it looks too bright, and this means that the text won’t stand out like it’s supposed to.

Also, the other thing which I don’t like is the fact that I didn’t under line the text for the mast head. Without this piece of text underlined, in my opinion, it makes it look unimportant.

The last thing is that I have used too much white, and not enough blue, which results in the text looking less appealing.