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

My magazine has followed some of the conventions of a rock magazine. It uses a dark colour scheme; the background is grey and there is a red and grey colour scheme running throughout the magazine. The masthead also gives my magazine typical conventions of what would be expected the font is black and the letters have a rough, broken up effect, this is typical of a rock magazine. Also there is a circle which advertises the things readers have a chance to win inside. This is also typical of a magazine. At the bottom there is a section saying ‘plus+’ which is also typical of a magazine from any genre. The writing at the side of the magazine is also typical of what someone would expect of a magazine in the left third I have the names of artists and then a little bit of writing underneath saying what the pages which include them are about.

My contents page also follows the conventions of a rock magazine. It has the numbered pages and contains pictures of the artists which make people want to read about them. The title is at the top of the page next to the masthead which is typical of all magazine. The colour scheme also runs through the contents page. The colour scheme contains red and grey and the names of artists are in a different front and in the colour red to make them stand out. I think this gives the page a nice effect and it is not commonly used in magazines so I this way my magazine is breaking the conventions of a magazine. I have laid out the magazine in a way that would be expected of a magazine. The list of page numbers is divided into three different sections; upcoming events, reviews and regulars. After examining lots of other contents pages I have observed that these are commonly used as the titles of features in the magazine. The list of features runs down the left side of the page and on the other side of the page contains pictures of what can be expected in the magazine and advertisements. These are conventions found commonly in most magazines.

My double page spread consists of one main image on the left page, something common of a double page spread and a smaller image at the bottom of the right page which not so commonly seen on this format of double page spreads. On the right page there is a large article of text in which is an interview about the new tour of a successful musician who has left is band and ‘gone solo’. The interview is set into three columns. Everything the interview says is in a red colour and anything which is not from the interview is put in bold. This is something I have seen that’s been done in other magazines. The double page spread stands out from the rest of the magazine. The font and colour scheme don’t match the rest of the magazine so it makes it stand out.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine is aimed at a large audience of teenagers aimed 15-22 who are passionate about rock music. There are many people from different social groups who it could represent. This is because rock music is widely listened to by lots of different people.

As there are all kinds of people who love rock music ranging from different ethnicities who follow completely different ways of life it was hard to represent the majority of them. However through research and examining magazines I found that social groups most commonly associated with rock music were drug abusing, low income young adults. Or this is what most people perceived them to be. I wanted to avoid this image on my magazine so I aimed my magazine at audience who would not exhibit this kind of behaviour.

The magazines show pictures of well-dressed young adults in the music scene. They are not portrayed as rough or dangerous individuals as I want to create good role models for my audience who are not involved in the conventional rock scene. However I didn’t want to completely go out of the typical convention of rock magazines which are associated with dark music so I represented the role models in a positive way but kept the conventional dark theme running throughout the magazine while trying to avoid some subjects like drug use, suicide and crime.

On the double page spread I focused on a musician who is represented in a positive light. So for this I avoided using the dark colour scheme of the rest of the magazine and focused more on the person.

Overall I think I have done a good job in representing an audience by maintaining the dark convention running through rock magazines but still avoiding using negative stereotypes and not using bad role models to the young and easily influenced audience I have aimed my magazine at.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think IPC would distribute my magazine. They are the distributors of a wide range of very successful magazines such as NME. Parts of my magazine cross over to the genres of NME although the majority of mine contains a different genre of music. They are an extremely successful magazine distributor. With loads of different brands of magazine each one of which is successful, they also host their own award show for NME. The IPC website states ‘With more than 60 iconic media brands, IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events. We engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. Our

award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month.’ With this success and ability to produce magazines they are the best choice for a distributor of my magazine.

IPC Media currently only make on music magazine which is NME. Because my genre is different but contains a few crossovers this may mean the people who are into NME may also like my magazine. A disadvantage of this however is that the two magazines could have competition with each other. However as NME are such a large organisation they will easily be able to fund a lot of advertisement for my magazine.

My magazine will be sold in local newsagents over Britain. It will also be sold in all major supermarkets as with a large audience it could appeal to lots of people in different places. Most people will see it when they go shopping or for a snack at a news agent and it low price and front cover aim to appeal to people making them more likely to buy the magazine.

Distortion will have its own website where you can order the magazine to be delivered in the mail and set up a subscription. This will come once every month as I do not want the magazine to be put out every week until it has been made certain that it will be successful. Alongside a website if the magazine is successful a radio station could be opened with it. This would contain lots of information about upcoming events and like the magazine and also play songs which fit into the genre of the magazine.

Q4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

Reader profiles

My audience is targeting both males and females however I mostly aiming towards the male market. The age of my target market is 15-22 years old who have a passion for rock music. They enjoy listening to it, seeing their favourite bands perform and spend their free time watching videos or their favourite bands performing or in interviews.

Part of my target audience is this 15-17 year old boy, Alex. He loves playing guitar and learns all the songs of his favourite rock band. He reads up about them online and goes to as many shows as he can. He wears normal stylish clothes you couldn’t tell that he is passionate about rock music by his clothes but it is something the only genre he is really into and loves everything about it.

This is emma she is 19 years old and rock music is a big part of her life. She likes to copy the styles of other rock musicians out there and likes to openly express her love for rock music with her style. She goes to lots of concerts and festivals because she prefers to see the musicians live instead of just hearing them. She knows all the words to all the songs of all the bands she likes. Her friends have the same interests they love talking about which bands are the best. She buys loads of rock magazines and loves spending her money as soon as she sees a magazine with an artist she likes, she has to have it. As she is easily influenced by the music she listens to it is important that there are some good role models in the magazines.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience I followed the conventions of a typical rock magazine as much as I could. In the mast head the letter are rough looking and the colour used is black which is a typical convention of a rock magazine.

As the audience I was aiming my magazine at was aged 15-22 I had to make sure it was suitable for younger people. After looking through some magazines, for example metal hammer I found there was a lot of swearing and some issues featured nudity which would be unsuitable for people who fall into the younger ages of the audience I’m aiming for. So to attract them I didn’t include any of these things which would make it unsuitable.

I also included cover lines in large bold writing so they would stand out and be easy to see. They featured the names of artists which would bring the audience in and make them want to read it.

I also a colour scheme which conventional of the rock genre and made sure the images of my artists were large and stood out so people could see them and if they recognised them as an artist who they liked they would be more encouraged to buy the magazine.

The interview about the tour of the main artist on the double page spread would also help to get my audience interested in the magazine they would want to read it to find out about what the artist was saying and this would bring them in attract them to buy the magazine.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Firstly I have learnt about a digital SLR camera which I used to take photos with for my magazine. In order to use it I first of I had to learn about how it worked. I found out how to work the zoom on the lens and how to take the picture. The camera had a very clear resolution and I was able to take good high definition pictures with it.

I also used prezi to assist me in the making of my blog. I used it early on in one of my first posts on my blogger as a way of making an analysis of a school magazine look good. I found it to be tricky at first but it was very useful as I needed some other ways of showing my work instead of having them all posted as a blog.

I also used survey monkey. This was very useful as it allowed me to take a survey from people in my class and other people who could answer my questions and I could then use the data to find out lots of things like ways of getting good information of what I should include in the magazine by asking people who would fit into my target audience.

Photoshop was the main new technology I used. It was very important in the creation of my pages. I used a lot of its features and fonts to help me get my magazine looking good. Photoshop was used to make all of my pages. It helped me to enhance the images and make them look good. As well as using them for my main pages I also used them in the pages I made in my research and planning as practice. I think since I made those pages I have developed a lot with Photoshop and my skills with using it have gotten a lot better.

Another ICT I used was slideshare. Like prezi it helped with blog to make it look better instead of only using text on my blog it was very helpful by giving me a way of making my pages look better.