Brooke Patrick

Media EvaluationQuestion 1

In my media product I did a lot of research into how to create a magazine and what ways I can make it genre specific, I did this by analysing 3 front covers, 3 contents pages and 3 double page spreads and took the common ideas and incorporated them into my own magazine, this meant I followed a number of conventions.

Question 1In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Question 1

One of the convention I followed was the positioning of the Masthead of my magazine. Nearly all magazine will have the masthead position right at the top of the page, this is due to the fact that when magazines are sold, the normally all overlap meaning the only thing seen when stacked in such a way is the very top of the page, hence the positioning. I decided to follow this convention purely because it’s logical, if the masthead was any lower, it would not be seen when stacked on a stand.

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Another convention I used was the use of limited colour range. In my research I noticed that the majority of magazines used mainly just 4 different colours and a number of magazines used red, yellow, black and white. I used this colour scheme as the colours went well with each other and by using my research, this colour scheme clearly worked well for a number of other magazines.

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I also made my magazine have audience specific conventions. In my research I discovered that a lot magazines with younger target audiences such as Kerrang! Have a large amount of pictures compared to magazines such as MOJO or Q. This will be because Kerrang! is aimed at a younger audience so the large use of images will appeal more to them and draw them in, however in MOJO and Q, the target audience is older so there is less need to fill the magazine with images to draw them in, and the front covers tend to be more simplistic.

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In my article I decided to follow the style of using the images colours and using that for the colour scheme. This convention was a running theme with a lot of the magazines I researched especially in Kerrang! In my analysis of their double page I noticed how the clothes of the lead singer matched the colour scheme of the article which was the look I aimed for with my double page spread. This style makes it more appealing to the eye. Also the use of pull quotes is another convention seen in nearly every magazine, this draws in the audience and makes them want to read on and find out the meaning behind the quote

Question 1Also the use of pull quotes is another convention seen in nearly every magazine that I researched, this draws in the audience and makes them want to read on and find out the meaning behind the quote, also gives the reader an idea of what’s involved in the article.

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Finally, the last convention I followed was the use of a drop capital in my written article. Drop capitals emphasizes the beginning paragraphs making it clear where each paragraph starts and making an impact on the audience. In my research I realised a large majority of magazines use drop capitals to make it easier for the audience to read so I decided to use this idea in my magazine.

Kerrang! MOJOBzzurkk!