Question 1:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My product uses the forms and conventions of an everyday published music magazine because it included specific features that a music magazine needs to be successful. For example, on my front cover i included features such as a barcode, above including the detail of the issue number and the retail price of the product, i felt this was important because it helped to make my magazine look as realistic and professional as possible. To add to this i also included teasers on the cover because i noticed that the majority of magazines i saw, included these and i could see it helped to entice the reader into buying my product, leaving them wanting to find out more and potentially reading the whole product. For my front cover image i decided to take a live photo of the lead singer performing, although this does not follow typical forms and conventions of an everyday musiic magazine, i felt that it made my product quite unique and also added to the level of professionalism. I looked at the use of colours on a variety of different magazines sold in the shops and i noticed that the more popular magazines are the magazines that include lots of vibrant and diverse colours and unusual bold and diverse font, this meant that i was inclined to take on board this specific feature in my magazine, choosing fonts that i hadn't seen being used on products before and using colours that you wouldn't immediately think would compliment one another.
Question 2:
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product helps to represent particular social groups in a few different ways. For example the band that i chose for my main cover story is a band that i feel late teens and early adults could relate to as they can relate to the young ages of the musicians. The images are quite vivid in the way that they are able to express the genre of the band, for example the two main singers both use guitars (both electric and acoustic) and the final band member plays the drums. The combination of these instruments help to convey the Pop genre i chose for my product and also helps to appeal to my target audience.
Question 3:
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My aim is to have my media product distributed by a mainstream media institution and sold in newsagents across Europe. This is because i feel that the standard of professionalism is high and asm i aim to sell my product at a reasonably high price i feel it should be distributed by an as equall professional institution. The kind of band that i have chosen has meant that i will sell my product in mainstream shops, for example, a magazine with Girls Aloud featured on the cover is much more likely to be sold in a popular highstreet store such as WH Smith as oppose to an unknown band being featured on the cover.
Question 4:
Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience for my media product is late teens, early adults. This is because i felt that the particular band i chose would appeal to this age group as they are a young popular band in the UK charts. I also felt that the interview with my chosen band was quite inspiring for young people choosing a career path in life.
Question 5:
How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience by using strong and eye catching colours and typography to make my magazine look as impressive and professional as possible. I also tried to make my interview with the band i chose as detailed as possible so my audience actually had the opportunity to learn about the band and gain information that maybe they didnt know before. In my contents page for my magazine i tried to have a variety of diverse fetaures for my audience to read to make my product more interesting and enjoyable as oppose to including typical everyday features you find in magazines in our stores today.
Question 6:
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst making my magazine my skill with using photoshop increased drastically. I learnt to a variety of different things that i wasnt capableof doing before the product and my knowledge of the programme will definitely benefit me in the future if i ever come across the programme again.
Question 7:
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
My music magazine is very different from my school magazine because i felt that i put alot more time and effort into my music product. I feel that i've learnt alot more about photoshop which meant that my final product was much more professional than my preliminary task. I've learnt the difference between a successful product and a product that is relatively unsuccesful which meant i was able to mak sure i didnt include features of a poor magazine but was able to include features of a high quality product.
