Evaluation of Your Magazine

• How to do a good job of answering the questions

• Where to gain extra marks

The Basics

• The evaluation (like your planning and research) is worth 20 marks.

• You should present your evaluation as a response to the seven questions you have already been provided with via the blog.

• You are marked on the quality of your presentation of the evaluation, as well as the content of it.

Mark BandsLevel 1 0-7 marks minimal understanding of:

forms and conventions; use of new media technologies in production of text; combination and progression of preliminary and main task; significance of audience feedback; skills in choice of form; ability to communicate; use of ICT or digital technology in presentation

Level 2 8-11 marks basic understanding of:

forms and conventions; use of new media technologies in production of text; combination and progression of preliminary and main task; significance of audience feedback; skills in choice of form; ability to communicate; use of ICT or digital technology in presentation

Level 3 12-15 marks proficient understanding of:

forms and conventions; use of new media technologies in production of text; combination and progression of preliminary and main task; significance of audience feedback; skills in choice of form; ability to communicate; use of ICT or digital technology in presentation

Level 4 16-20 marks excellent understanding of:

forms and conventions; use of new media technologies in production of text; combination and progression of preliminary and main task; significance of audience feedback; skills in choice of form; ability to communicate; use of ICT or digital technology in presentation

Advice:

• Use one PowerPoint presentation per question (so you should produce 7 PowerPoints in total) and upload each separately to your blog under the title of each question.

• Use a combination of images and text.

• Use questionnaires to gather audience feedback – get them to rate various aspects of your magazine.

Do Not:

• Discuss every decision you have made.• Turn it into a personal account of the journey

you have been on!• Forget that you have to evaluate the product you

have made in relation to two things:• The question at hand• Real magazines

• Forget that you can refer to blog posts to help you prove points.

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

• Compare your magazine pages with real magazine pages.

• Scan in real magazine pages, insert into PowerPoint, annotate and then do the same with your pages.

• If you have used conventions well, say how and why.• If you have challenged conventions, say how and why.• Can your research help you answer this question?• Use audience feedback – do your target audience

think your product looks ‘real’? What do your findings show?

I am now going to compare my front cover to real magazine front cover that are a similar genre to mine to show how I have followed conventions. I have chosen to use magazines such as VIBE and Billboard this is because their genre of music is R&B which is the same as mine.

Firstly I am going to compare my cover with the cover of VIBE.

The flashers used are very similar,

they both are blended into the background with the text in a brighter colour to make it stand out.

The main image on vibe magazine is a medium long shot whereas the main image on my magazine is a medium close up. Also the main image on VIBE is covering the masthead this suggests that this is not the first issue of VIBE whereas my image does not cover the masthead this is because it is a new magazine. The main cover line on VIBE is larger than the rest of the cover lines, this is similar to PULSE as my main cover line is larger than the rest this is so that it stands out and attracts the reader. Also the magazines are similar because both have the main cover line in the left hand third and anchor the main image. On the cover of PULSE, I used three colours VIBE has their website in the bottom left for my cover lines, this was to make my I have put a footer in the bottom

third, this showshand corner this is very similar to PULSE because magazine look simple and neat. I chose to what artists are featured in the

magazine. From lookingthe website is in the bottom left hand corner by the use the colours red, yellow and black. VIBE’s at the cover of VIBE I can see that

they have done barcode. cover is similar to mine as they have used the colours something similar only they have

used a header at the yellow, blue & a small amount of red, green and white. It is similar as both covers have used top of the cover to show the artists

featured in thethe colour yellow and red also I think using less colours make it look more sophisticated. magazine.

Comparing my front cover

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• Look at how you have represented your feature artist(s): through colour, use of image, language in article, font type etc. What representations do these things generate?

• Again, screenshots or scanned in images, annotated.

• Again, audience feedback – what do your target audience think of the artist(s) you featured?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and

why?• Look back at your publishing house

research – is it more likely that EMPA, Bauer, IPC or another institution would distribute your magazine?

• Give thoughtful reasons – not just ‘coz it is good innit?’

• Show examples of other real music mags to highlight how yours would fit into the market.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• Be specific – give sex, age, class, ethnicity, etc if it will help to define who you aimed this magazine at.

• Justify those choices – why would a 13 year old white girl from a middle class background buy your magazine?

• To attract:• Use of colour, image, font, offers/giveaways,

articles on cover etc.

• To address:• Use of language, editor’s letter, use of reader

forums (your letters page?) etc.

• Annotated pages

• Audience feedback

How did you attract/address your audience?

• A really duff question – but will form part of your A2 exam, so worth doing well at this stage and referring back to in a year’s time.

• Think about various stages of research, planning and construction: websites (to enhance brand identity), photography skills, image manipulation to enhance effects, and the software used to construct your pages.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

• Again, a stupid question, because prelim task and main task are very different in a number of ways.

• Think about your level of care, your use of photography skills, the difference between constructing prelim task in publisher and main task in Photoshop/InDesign, building on mock up skills for contents page etc.

• Compare and annotate screenshots.

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

Audience Feedback

• Print out your magazine and hand it out to your target audience.

• Provide them with a questionnaire about it? Questions could relate to those you have to answer.

• Give them a mark sheet and get them to rate everything from 1-10?

• Give them a blank piece of paper and ask them to write a brief evaluation?

• You MUST include details of audience feedback in your evaluation PowerPoint – either integrated with your analysis or as a separate slide/show.

Presentations

• Still need to be creative, still need to use ICT effectively.

• This is why I suggest you use screenshots, links, annotations, etc.

• Imagine you had to present your presentation to the rest of the group – is it engaging enough or would it rely more on you?