AS Media Coursework : 2014

How does the media product represent a particular social group?

With my magazine I have chosen to target the audience of girls within the age range, 14-18. I have included conventions on my front cover with storyline's featuring artists that could attract my audience. For example, Union J, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce and Brit Award gossip! Also by including a competition to meet and greet one of them would really intrigue my target audience which will make them buy the magazine, especially with my magazine mainly being aimed at girls they would definitely want to enter a competition to meet a successful boyband.

I have gave my magazine a colourful colour scheme. I wanted bright colours that would catch the eye of my audience. I thought with my audience being girls that it was vital that I included pink somewhere but I didn't want to be stereotypical so I only used it a little bit. I have used a light blue which matches my grey background and white title well. I have also used a yellow text in some places to instantly attract my audience to the main important words used. I dressed my model in a dress, although it is not a fashion magazine it was important that she was wearing something that followed the latest fashion otherwise my audience wouldn't really be attracted to it, but I didn't want it to clash with my colour scheme. I thought this cute maroon/pink and turquoise/green tartan dress was perfect, with tartan taking the fashion scene by storm and the colours matching my colour scheme it ticked all the boxes. I have kept the same colour scheme throughout my magazine as you can see
below. I believe this colour scheme works really well.

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

The title of the magazine

When creating the title of my magazine I wanted it to be simple but catchy to appeal to my target audience. I liked the thought of creating an abbreviation as my title so it would be memorable, so I came up with the name 'MigMag'. 'MIG' being the abbreviation standing for 'Music Industry Gossip' and then 'Mag' for magazine, as most teenagers refer to magazines as 'mag'. I chose Billboard magazine as my style model as I believe it is much more appealing to the target audience I was aiming for. I thought my target audience would appeal to this style more as it is a much more mature style rather than a "Top Of The Pops" styled title, which can come across a bit more younger and bubbly. This is my masthead and Billboard magazines masthead. As you can see they are very simplistic but very effective, clear and noticeable at the same time. I wanted my text to be simple and not too 'in your face' to reflect the genre of the magazine and relate to my target audience. When deciding on

which colour to use for my text it was difficult. I wanted it to stand out but I didn't want it to be too over the top at the same time. So when looking at my style model I realised that even the simplest colour can stand out. I tried white and wasn't too sure to begin with but then I added a 'drop shadow' effect to my text which made it look much more professional, eye catching but at the same time simplistic, which was my aim. I liked the idea of having the artist cover a bit of my masthead but to achieve this I had to make sure my title was readable with being covered, which I believe it is. I think that it is much more effective and professional to do this as it emphasises popularity of the magazine and that the full title doesn't need to be seen for people to know what it's called. Although with my magazine being new out there was always a doubt in my mind whether I should cover a bit of it incase my audience couldn't read it, so I took full advantage of the fact the name of my magazine is abbreviated and put the actual full name in a smaller text above on the strapline. This also then makes my audience aware of what the abbreviation stands for.

Mise En Scene of the images

Images are an important part of my magazine as it is instantly the first thing my audience will see. This will draw interest to my audience and will influence their decision on whether to buy it or not. The front cover image is the most important image of the magazine so it was vital that it was modelled exactly how I wanted it. I also wanted it to suit the cover story and with the cover story being "I still get nervous" I thought it would be good that my artist was looking away to emphasise her feelings of being nervous. At first I was quite unsure about having her look away because it is important to have that connection with the audience and having them looking directly forward, but I tried and I just didn't get the same effect I did with this image to match my cover story. So I researched my style model Billboard magazine and looked at all the different front covers and I found this one (below) and I instantly got drawn to it and found it intriguing. So that gave me more of a positive outlook on having my artist model looking away. My main target audience is teenage girls so I instructed my model to wear a girly dress, something that's in fashion and that would catch the eye of my audience. With tartan being a very popular fashion trend at this current time I thought it would be perfect for her to wear this certain dress which also matched my colour scheme. Although this is not a fashion magazine I thought it was important to make her dress within the current fashion trend as that's what girly teens are interested in and what they are automatically drawn to. I really like the brightness of my image, when I originally took the photograph it came out slightly duller than the image is now but I really liked the photograph because it suited my cover story perfectly so instead of retaking a similar image I added an effect which then brightened it up.

The image on the left is the main image of my double page spread. I wanted the double page spread image modelled differently to my front cover image. On my front cover image it shows her quite shy and looking away to show that she still gets nervous but on my double page spread I wanted her modelled happy and excited to show that within the interview she has came out of her shell. I added a quote from my interview in bigger writing on my image to attract my audience and give an insight to what the article includes. I specifically chose this quote due to the name 'Zac Efron' as he is a heart throb and this is a name my target audience would automatically be drawn to and want to read more about it. Also my decision on using this photo was influenced by this quote. The quote includes "High School Musical" which is a musical my audience will be familiar with and will realise that my model is in a High School Musical type pose. Within all my pictures I didn't want a background. I thought it would be more effective to just have the image as sometimes the background can take out the meaning of how I got my artist to model.

On my contents page I have an image of my artist walking away. I faded it out so it was easy to see the text going above (image left) I think this is really effective. I really wanted to include an image from the main shoot on my contents page and I thought this was ideal as it wasn't too much and didn't draw too much attention. It also gives an idea on her style of music. I also included some separate pictures that I took on a site specific location, for example an image of my artist and another artist in a nightclub, which gives us a nightclub lighting and links to what will be included within the article. Also another image of a picture I took of my friends with Union J which promotes the competition held within my magazine. (Images taken below)

Font and Style

It took a lot of thought to decide on which text to use. I wanted it to stand out but at the same time I wanted it to be clear and readable. When creating my magazine I changed my style model a few times until I finally decided which one to go for. My first style model was top of the pops which is a completely different type of magazine compared to Billboard Magazine. So, to begin with my text in every section was very bubbly and over the top and I decided it was too much which made me decide to change it. As my main title I used a clear, simple text called 'Century Gothic'. I chose this because I thought it suited my magazine well and although it was simple, it really stood out and wasn't too much. I didn't want to keep the same text throughout my magazine so I decided to choose another text on my front cover so I could use more of a range when continuing to create the other pages in my magazine. I thought it would be too boring if I had the same text throughout. Again, I didn't want it too be too much so when I tried the text 'Calisto MT' I thought it was perfect and it looked professional. I used both of these texts throughout my magazine but I thought it was best to just stick with two different texts and not go overboard and use more as it would look like I wasn't sticking to my house style. When choosing these texts I concentrated fully on whether it effected the genre of my magazine and I believe it doesn't.

Written Content

In my magazine contents page I wanted to write a bit more information about what my main article would include so it would be more interesting for my audience to then go and read it. It was easy to know what to write to attract my target audience as personally this is the type of magazine I would read so I know myself what i'd like to see. In this little insight paragraph I have included things from the article that my target audience would want to read more about.

When writing my article I found it easy! I knew I had to include language that my audience would relate to so I pretty much wrote what I'd understand and questions I would like to be asked. I wanted to include a interactive kind of article so near the end I added questions asked by her fans on twitter. When writing my article I included everything that a basic article includes for example; drop capital at the beginning of the article, a faded letter in the background relating to the artist and I included as much tour information, life on the road, gossip etc. I also included a quote from the article on the image of the double page spread to give my audience another insight into whats included within my article. I haven't really included as much text compared to my style model and this was deliberate. I wanted my double page spread article to be more of an interactive interview rather than just a block of information the fans would already possibly know. With using the word 'Exclusive' in the title I believed it would be better to have the article in question and answer form so it shows that it is as exclusive as it gets. By having the article in a Q&A form this allows a chance for questions from the fans to be answered which I believe is effective and will make the article less boring as sometimes this can happen when reading a magazine article.

Music Genre

The genre of my magazine is Pop/Acoustic. The artist I have used for my magazine is a mixture of both. I believe that my magazine makes this clear. It was important that I got my model posing and dressed to pursue this role so the genre of the magazine is clear. I also use bright colours, this adds to the genre being pop/acoustic as if it was a rock magazine the colours would probably be darker (mainly tend to be black and red). So I think the colours i've used accurately suggest the genre i've put my magazine under. When choosing what I wanted my model to wear I needed to make sure it was in fashion and that it also matched the colour scheme. When I chose the dress I thought it matched perfectly, not only did it suggest the genre of music she sings, it also was within fashion and something my audience would instantly be attracted to. It was important that I got my model posing in the right way. Being more of an acoustic singer, holding her hair and looking away instantly shows this and also gives an angelic, shy image which suits the cover story. The front cover of my magazine I believe shows the genre perfectly. All of the storyline's on my front cover are very 'gossip' like and involve well known pop singers so it instantly suggests the genre I have aimed to pursue.

Layout

The layout is an important part of any magazine. It is very easy to create a front cover that doesn't look professional and a big part of that is the layout so its important that I got it right. Before deciding the layout of my magazine I researched many magazines that are published for the genre mine is based on. There were loads of different types. At first I was going to follow top of the pops type layout but I soon realised that it was very over crowded so it was easy for it to look quite messy and unprofessional if I were to recreate that style. I found Billboard magazine and I instantly decided I wanted to use that as my style model because it wasn't over crowded but at the same time it wasn't too simple. I really liked the variety of colours Billboard used but it still didn't look too much or over crowded. I obviously didn't want my magazine to look exactly like Billboard magazine, I wanted to make it my own. So with that in mind I added in extra conventions that Billboard magazine didn't have for example: A footer including posters that are included inside, also I added a more obvious colour header to compliment the front cover whereas on Billboard magazine its just text above the title.

When creating the layout for my contents page I wanted to stick to the idea of it being simple but effective but this was hard to maintain considering all the information contained within the magazine needed to be included on the page. Like Billboard magazine (Top Left) I decided to put the images for my contents page in boxes. Usually I would of put the picture including my main artist as the bigger image but, I have my main artist featuring 3 times already on my contents page so I thought it would be good if the attention is taken off a little bit, so I made another picture larger instead. Although it's not that much bigger I thought it would be good for my audience to consider reading the other pages as well and if I draw attention to my artist too much my audience may think it's quite repetitive and boring. I have wrote "Inside Your Mag" underneath the contents title before listing the actual contents list. I did this because I liked the thought of making my audience involved and by addressing "your" I thought this would intrigue them.
At first I was worried that I didn't write enough pages, but I didn't want my magazine too big. As I said previously, this is the type of magazine I would buy as I am conveniently my own target audience. When a magazine is bulky and thick it puts me off buying it. I think my magazine has just the right amount of pages to please my target audience and leave them wanting more.
I included Twitter, Facebook and Instagram icons on my contents page. With the magazine having a profile on these sources, widens the audience majorly. The majority of the age bracket that my magazine aims to impress mostly spend their time on social media apps such as these ones. With the audience being able to follow us on social media sites allows them to be notified when our new issue is out, what will be included etc. which will then make our magazine sell faster. Also it gives us a chance to widen our audience allowing more people to discover our magazine and then onto purchasing it.

As you can see the layout of my double page spread was inspired by these two Billboard magazine double page spreads. Although my picture isn't so much a medium close up like these two, their are other things i have included within my double page spread that these have. For example, one of the pages a different colour and a big Letter to represent the first letter of the artists names. I have added other stuff also, with the two posters included in my magazine being of my artist I thought i'd put in a reminder in the top right of the page. Also when writing the title of the article I wanted to make sure it stated that it was an exclusive so I included that overlapping the title of the magazine. When I finished my double page spread I thought the side the image was on looked a bit plain so I inserted a quote from the article. I've seen this done in many magazines. The quote has nothing to do with the main cover story which is what I wanted, I wanted my audience to know that during the interview we did speak about other things as well as the main cover story to make it more interesting and informative.