Lauren Tolhurst: Evaluation

Question 1
In what ways does your product use, develope or challenge forms aand conventions of real media products?

Conventional music magazines. This existing music magazine is aimed at teenage girls. The reason in which we know this is because of the main image that takes up most of the page which is of a young male singer, which instantly appeals to the younger aged girls. Also, the smaller images that are used, such as the boy bands are also key as they appeal more to the female audience rather than the male audience. The other thing that suggests it’s aimed at teenage girls is the cover lines used about how to look good, and cover lines in which relate to the male bands. The use of colour also says a lot about who the magazine is aimed at. They have used different shades of pinks, and also they use purple. These are girly colours and therefore tell us who they are aimed at.

My music magazine. My music magazine uses some conventional points of a music magazine aimed at girls, but also challenges it too. The ways in which it uses conventional aspects is through the images that I have used. I have used male singers/bands because these appeal to a female audience. As all the smaller images are of male singers/bands, the audience will be attracted to them and want to see what the story behind the images are. I have also

made sure that the main cover lines, which are related to the images, stand out more than the other cover lines. The reason I have done this is so that the audience are able to see what the story is and then if they are interested will pick it up and want to find more information about that story about their favourite singers/bands. My magazine also uses a similar layout to the existing magazine in the ways in which it is a busy layout. The reason they put a lot of information such a text and images on the front page is to make the audience feel like there is a lot within the music magazine and that is worth buying. The reason I used a similar technique is because I didn’t want a lot of negative space within my magazine cover, I wanted it to look packed and full of things to read about, which is why I have a lot of cover lines talking about the kind of stuff instead and a few images to make it interesting to look at and more busy. The ways in which my music magazine challenges conventional points in a real media product is through the main image and use of colour. On the existing magazine cover, they have used a male role model to attract the female audience to it, whereas on my magazine cover I have used a female role model as my main image. This challenges ideologies about how a girls magazine should look as I’m not using a male role model to attract my female audience, I’m using a female role model. This will still pull in my female audience, as girls look up to older girls or girls their age as someone they would like to be or be like. I have also gone against ideologies about the colours that are used to attract a female audience. On the existing magazine cover they have used pinks and purples whereas on my magazine I have used blues, greens, oranges, and yellows. This would pull in a older female audience as the pinks and purples are aimed at a much younger age group or girls but mine will appeal more the older age group of girls. This shows how my music magazine uses, but challenges traditional female music magazines at the same time, by using some of the same conventions, but at the same time making my magazine different.

Question 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

COMAG is one of the largest newsstand distributors in the UK and the largest exporter of English magazines, supplying magazines to over 80 countries around the world. COMAG is owned by The National Magazine Company and Condé Nast Publications. These two magazine companies produce well known brands such as Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Men’s Health, Glamour, Reveal and GQ. COMAG sell magazines aimed at niche audiences.

COMAG distributes teenage magazines such as PIXIE, M Magazine, Teen Vogue and Seventeen. These magazines are all aimed at teenage girls but all include similar things. M Magazine is a magazine based around all information on the music and film industry. This would appeal to the teenage girls but I feel that if they were to sell my product, they could hit another audience because some teenagers are looking for a pure mainstream magazine, that doesn’t include information on film or anything else but music. Where M Magazine includes information on both the film and music industry this will only appeal to a niche audience. This is what they are trying to achieve but I also feel that by selling my they would be aiming it at another niche audience because there are a minor group of teenage girls who would enjoy reading a mainstream magazine.

As COMAG distribute M Magazine they already know the selling techniques for my type of magazine. This would be a good reason for them also distributing my magazine. They will know the kind of audience that my mainstream music magazine will be aimed at and this would help to sell my magazine.

Although M Magazine is both a music and film industry based magazine they do not a sell a magazine fully based around mainstream music. My magazine could be exactly what the company needs. I think this because I feel they could pull in another type of audience which would be earning them more money.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I also decided to do a questionnaire based on my magazine

As from before, i stated that my ideal target audience would be female and of the age of 16. Looking at these results it shows that majority of the 16year olds said that the use of cover lines and font was very good. The layout, use of images and colour are said to be good. Although there are a few Averages within from these 16year olds, majority of them say that pretty the magazine had good/very good features. When looking at the males and slightly older females, the results show that Average is far more dominant. This doesn't matter though as these are not my ideal target audience. The taregt audience I am to target my magazine at is female and 16 years of age. Seeing the results of these people and seeing that they think it is good/very good on most features, it shows that i have made my magazine appeal to the correct target audience.

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?