Evaluation

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

Along with my magazine representing typical styles and register of the genre, such as the choice of wording ‘da’ instead of ‘the’ for the name of the magazine “INDAHOUSE”; it also incorporates the typical media faculties used by a real magazine, like Facebook and Twitter. All of it down to the price and the bar code are an attempted replication of a music magazine.

Masthead typically at the top of the page.

Featured artist is the main subtitle on the page.

Barcode and Price.

Trying to show off as much of the magazine on the cover.

Single model for the splash image. Taken at a medium shot.

Varying sized fonts reflect the varying volume of the inner voice.

Featured artist’s photo is at the top. Magazine’s logo is at the

top. The layout has changed since the front cover so it works with the overall layout of the page all while maintaining the style.

Contents appears as more of a selection of the best articles this issue. This lets readers find the best, first.

Short exclamatory sentences not only reflect the sharp, straight to the point style of the discourse; but also generally prevents readers from being overloaded with reading from the moment they open.

Incorporation of social networking sites and a website for the magazine. Allows for a multimedia platform also and helps spread the word.

QR code adds even more integrity to the multimedia situation.

Page numbers are typical of any contents page. But this application ties the photo to the passage on the page

Appropriately themed photo for the article (a vinyl for an article about vinyls.

Reference to people who work on the magazine pushes a sense of community. Especially if only using first names.

Not giving away too much in the passage so as to pull in the reader.

Large photograph taking up large portion of the two pages.

Quote taken from the interview.

Use of a tagline to bring the audience easily into the article.

Use of multiple fonts.

Questions start off slow with basic information at first, then bringing out more enveloping questions.

Closing text steps out of the interview style discourse to directly address the audience.

Different fonts and colours used to differentiate between questions and answers easier.

Softer white background to be easier on the eye.

Black boxes help the white text stand out better.

How does your product represent particular social groups?

There are essentially three main representations, but all of them still only represent people who listen to house music. There is Vivien Leigh, who appears on the contents page. She appears as a young, casual woman. In many ways this represents women in a non-feminine fashion in that her position is not very lady-like, she has a lot of skin showing and even a tattoo. Another social group represented is the older generation of listeners. These people enjoy the sounds of early music within the genre, and the vinyl format. To reflect this group I have the discourse

The key representation within this product is the male aged 16-22. This is reflected in the discourse in that it is fairly colloquial, this register reads clearer for someone who reads casually, which helps with the consumption of the product within my target audience.

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

To publish my magazine, I made the decision to go with the publishing company ‘Development Hell’. It is small time and seems like a suitable institution. I had looked at larger publishers such as Bauer and Harris Publishing, but neither seemed to fit well. Harris Publishing seemed to span into various different hobby magazines and all appeared to conform with a similar style to one another. Bauer would have been good seeing as it covered a huge variety of differently styled magazines, and also a large variety of music magazines and radio stations; however I chose Dev Hell on the grounds that it is smaller, this would more likely mean a smaller, cheaper product. This casual approach is key to the style of the magazine.I have put the price in both British pounds and US dollars, this suggests that, although small, there is an active foreign readership. Although ‘Dev Hell’ may not function on an international basis, I still wanted to include this to replicate something which occurs frequently on magazines all around the world.Additionally there is an online outlet run by my magazine, this is user based and moderated. It is modern, which reflects our increasing technical abilities, is cheap to run for what it does for the expansion of the readership, and most importantly it brings everything together and various articles can exist for years which allows a huge catalogue past reviews and interviews. This is heavily suggested throughout my magazine in big letters, as I believe this is key to moving forwards in a society using less and less paper, which is again cheaper. Websites also help generate move advert revenue, which means less is required from the paper edition, this means less adverts.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

A typical reader would be between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. They would either be a student, or working full time. While there is a predominantly male presence throughout the magazine, neither the genre or the magazine style point either male or female. The reader would have an active social life, going out to clubs on average one to two times a week and listening more or less only to electronic dance music. Additionally they are always looking for new music to listen to and loves music which sounds unique.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The initial premise behind the attraction was simply to provide features and present the magazine in such a way that would attract a specific audience. I listed artists on the front cover which appeal to them, and even based my magazine’s name ‘INDAHOUSE’ to specifically help my potential target audience know of its existence.The magazine has a Facebook and Twitter account also. From these pages the magazine can still act as an informative asset on the most casual basis. Anyone can receive information even if they do not read magazines, or even go on the website. This also drastically increases the public awareness of our institution.

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

I have learnt that you can obtain anonymous survey statistics through SurveyMonkey, and it can be done quickly and with very little effort (the results come straight back and can be organised in many ways). On top of that I distributed my survey on Facebook which also utilises a social networking platform to potentially connect with my audience. Similarly, I have learnt how to use Bloggar and Slideshare. These are also websites which I used so I can display my work.

I used a DSLR and Youtube to capture and upload my video interview, which was then linked to my blog. This whole process, in conjunction with the anonymous statistics showed me that all my findings and research can be easily connected and exibited because of various companies on the web.

The most useful piece of technology I used during this project was photoshop. Learning to use it was tricky but within photoshop I have learnt cropping, separating layers, tone adjustments for photos. If I were to list them the list would keep going, so in essence I have learn the basic and intermediate tools used for operating photoshop.The use of QR codes is something which generally baffled me so when I learnt how to generate them and how they are used I felt I had taken a step forward.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Besides all the technological stuff, I learnt many things regarding publication companies, marketing and distribution methods and of course, magazine production. I have learnt how to properly utilise a photography studio which involved setting up the lights and making sure the light levels are appropriate, I learnt about utilising various tools on a digital camera to optimise the quality of the image. I have learnt about the various fonts and how each can represent a style, and be mixed. I have paid much closer attention to magazines and realised and re-applied various techniques such as using boxes behind text to help push the text out of the page.