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

My front cover of my music magazine illustrates the genre of the magazine, as it clearly indicates what is it about as you can see on the front it says that you can get a free album track which indicates that it is a music magazine

The heading of the magazine ‘BOOMZ’ also has a role in the challenge of the magazine looking real, as when the audience think of BOOM they imagine a sound or a base which links to music or instruments.

As i have named the artist ‘RoRo’ it relates to a nick name for the artist which is easy for the public to remember and gives out an indicated of my target audience and the genre of the magazine. Also looking at real magazines the artists name stands out the most which is why i have done the name in a different colour to my magazine theme.

Also having the barcode on the front page as a real magazine does, helps to make it look like a real magazine.

2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

My magazine clearly represents urban music. My front cover clearly indicates this through the photo which she is wearing modern clothing, has he hair half shaved and also has tattoo’s on her arms which shows her modern style and urban sense. In addition her pose of the picture is very casual but looks the point as she is attractive which also links to the music as it is simple but the truth.

Having the background with brick walls connotes that the magazine is very street and relates to people who are interested in hip-hop rap or r&b.

My double page spread also gives a interview of the artist and she reply’s in not so formal English which also connotes the way they speak and who the magazine relates to.

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

IPC is one of the largest magazine publishers in England, it targets everyone, including males and females and a variety of age groups. IPC has over 20 million customers and is a company with the largest membership. It is a very successful company and sells a lot of magazines, E.g. NME.

I prefer IPC to publish my magazine as it appeals to everyone and has a large variety of people which it targets considering there high number of membership. In addition by using IPC to publish my magazine it would be easier to distribute for the reason that they have a large number of viewers.

EMAP is a large magazine publisher, though it mainly focuses on publishing magazines for business to other business companies which has a disadvantage to my music magazine. This company is also large however IPC is a more successful publishing company and would help my magazine more.

IPC EMAP

4: who would be the audience for your media product?

the audience i would target my media product to would be people who listen to urban music, urban music is a very popular genre of music to teenagers, so my media product would be aimed at teenagers / young adults who listen to urban / hip-hop music, i think my magazine could be targeted at both males and females but predominately females and this is outlined by the main image, font and texts I've included in my magazine however i have used things to attract male consumers e.g. the theme that is used is aqua blue, white and black which are mainly colours worn and liked by predominately males rather than females. Males who would be interested in purchasing my magazine would most likely have short hair, cornrows , wear baggy jeans and always have their swagger on point (matching colours). Females would most likely have wear shorts, tight tops and skirts, and revealing cloths. The people interested in my magazine would most likely enjoy going to raves/parties, listening to loud meaningful music, and other up to date things. The music channels they would most likely watch would be MTV, mainly i believe they would listen to MTV so I looked up magazines such as Vibe, XXL or NME and tried to base my magazine like there's, i did not copy the layout but wanted my magazine to attract a similar audience and create a similar magazine dedicated to a similar genre of music. My target audience would most likely listen to people such as, Drake, Rihanna, Beyonce, Jayz, Snoop Dog, R Kelly, Ciara, Rita Ora, Llyod Banks, Dr Dre, 2Pac, J.Cole, Lil Wayne and many more.

5: how did you attract / address your audience?

The cover page of my magazine has a large image of a young girl to attract the age range of my audience which is teenagers rather than elder people, it attracts young people because they can relate to her. The magazine title is in large font so it is clear what the name of the magazine is ‘Boomz’ and the website is written in underneath the title so it is easily found by the reader. I’ve used many different font sizes and styles on the front cover so that the magazine looks exiting rather than dull and illustrate attention to my audience. As I’ve written on the cover really short but catchy story’s so that when reading the front cover you get a quick idea of what the magazine consists of inside rather that going into detail about it.

The magazine is mainly hip hop and urban focused therefore the contents page is designed to attract the younger generation rather than the older as it’s focused on hip hop. The colour black for the font is destined to that it stands out against the white background therefore draws the reads attention to the title as it stands out and is easily read as its in a large font. The contents page doesn’t feature much writing and is designed to be quite basic to keep the reader’s attention. The contents page only has four articles therefore the readers have to read more into the magazine to find out more therefore doesn’t spoil the rest of the magazine for the audience, The background is quite simplistic as its just three plain colours white, black and blue which fits in with the text themes as all the text is either white or black therefore it contrasts with the colour. The main image is large to attract my audience’s attention and have them feel more involved with the magazine.

My magazine could also be a product which can teach and influence young adults in the media industry e.g as they have updates to an artist that they look up too, so that help the young adults to follow someone who is achieving and is very successful, also for young women there is a lot on fashion as you could see that front page image indicates a young stylish woman, which is dressed very modern any young women could be influenced on the fashion media.

My magazine could be used by many different education centres such as high school, music and dance school, also youth clubs, academy school, which the teachers or trainers could use by showing the classes on new musical updates how even artists have there hard times in life but manage to keep going as they have a career or something to achieve in the future, and this help young adults who are having a hard time to learn and see that even very successful people have there bad time but manage to keep going and this could be used in youth clubs.

6: what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Sound cloudThis was an online program that allowed me to embed my recordings for my vox pops. I learnt how to use this programme and copy the code to put it onto my blog. This helped me to transfer my work onto my blogger without loosing it or going through a long process.

Blogger

Using blogger was very useful for the task I was set. It allowed me to upload my work and keep them safe in all one account and if I wanted to change my work or edit or delete I had the chance to. It was useful because everything is on pne page and I could see my work and also allowed other people to see my work and comment.

Slide share

This was useful to upload a PowerPoint presentations onto my blogger, you select which presentation you would like to upload and then get a HTML number which you can paste on blogger and you presentation comes up. At first it was confusing to use but after I done it several times it became really helpful

Photoshop

Photoshop was the main program I used to create my magazine because it allows me to edit the photos I have taken in a way that no other programme does. It was extremely useful in the development of my music magazine because I was able to make everything perfect to how I wanted it laid out. For example my double page spread, I wanted writing to go around my image but on the outline of my main image, the tool that Photoshop had allowed me to do this which gave the magazine a very clear effect.

Digital camera

I used this for taking pictures for my magazine and take quality photos. Using a digital camera helped me because I could take clear pictures and they could be stores onto the camera until I saw them largely on a computer screen and edited them. I learnt the features that this camera has and how to get different effects for my photo’s.

Vox Pox

Using vox pox helped me record the questions I wanted to ask my audience, it was very useful because it was done quickly and I got through a number of people which helped me to improve my magazine with the responses they said

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 beginning of creating my school magazine my knowledge of Photoshop has increased considerably. For example I now know how to make elements of my magazine stand out more by using stroke around my text. In addition to this, my selection of pictures has increased and the tools on Photoshop such as cutting the picture out. My school magazine task was to understand how to use Photoshop and what to do whereas as my knowledge increased so did the quality of my magazine which now makes my music magazine look more professional and realistic.

For the production of my magazine i used the computer program Photoshop. I had never used this program before so had to learn all the basics before i could start production. I found using Photoshop very useful because it has a lot of functions that allows you to manipulate and edit photos to a high standard. It also allowed me to add features, for example i embossed my title, whereas other programs do not have these additional features. Using photo shop gives my product a more professional look because i was able to use these features to make it look like any other professionally made magazine.