MEDIA EVALUATION

Rachel Gibson

FINAL MAGAZINE COVER & CONTENTS

IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

I based my magazine similar genre magazines like Classic Rock, Uncut, NME, Q and MOJO.I used a black, white and neutral brown colour scheme for my contents and cover. A lot of rock magazines use a similar simple colour scheme, using one colour alongside black and white to draw attention to certain things. The colours also relate to the music in these and my magazines, as they are moody and dark conveying the mood of the music rather than a bright colour which would give the wrong impression. A good example of this being used in real media products is this cover of Classic Rock, using almost the same colours as my cover as this is the closest example of my magazine. It also has red and yellow in the top left with the Free CD feature, similar to the small area of red and yellow on my cover from the Reading and Leeds logo. Other examples of a similar colour palette to my cover are a few MOJO covers using black and white with a light brown colour and NME which uses this brown colour alongside It's red black and white house style.

COLOURSCHEME

For a classic rock genre most magazines use a black and white image like I have used. The most common type of image used is a head shot of the artist looking directly at the camera, drawing the audience in. The black and white image reflects the music genre, as the audience see the artists as timeless, similarly to the way a black and white photograph is seen. Usually the rock artists have a serious or slightly angry looking expression, conveying the mood of the music as the lyrics and instruments in their music can be about serious things and have a loud and heavy sound. Most of the people are front men or individual artists, and are most commonly men. I have not challenged the codes and conventions by not using the main member of the band, but I have by using a female artist as the main focus of the cover. The photography of the artist reflects the way the audience feels about them and draws them in; a magazine which challenged this convention the NME cover I looked at in my analysis, where the artist was looking away from the audience with his eyes covered with sunglasses, seeming quite obnoxious.

COVER IMAGE This cover of classic rock uses a similar style image to me as there is a lot of contrast and a mostly dark background, with the most attention going to the face of the artist.

On this cover of NME magazine there are the logo's for Reading and Leeds festival. I have also put these icons on my front cover, as this interests the type of group I want to appeal to.

The main story on this cover, for The Libertines also mentions Reading and Leeds festival, and the subheading below says “the first interview in five years” which is similar to my subheading, “reunite for the first time in 10 years”. The artists in this genre of music often make comebacks from old bands and also take breaks from making music and appearing in the media, unlike artists involved in pop for example, Katy Perry.

STORIES AND PUFFS

I have used similar style “plus” feature on the cover showing a list of various other bands in the magazine. I have used the same colour format as NME by alternating the colours between white and my accent colour, making the feature more interesting and make it look more professional as it is often used on magazine covers. The text alignment is also the same, using different sized and spacing of the different band names so they are all in line, again for a professional look similar to real products.

...STORIES AND PUFFSI chose to do a feature for “100 greatest songs of the 21st century” as many rock and classic rock magazines do feature lists, either “of all time” or of a specific type. On the left there are a few examples of this from NME and Classic Rock. I chose to focus on songs of the 21st century because the magazines which feature “of all time” or “greatest ever” are aimed at an older audience such as Classic Rock, whereas more specific and recent lists are in more young audience magazines like NME. As my audience likes both old and new music, there is a mix of artists and time periods on the cover to draw them in with the range of music they are into. The 21st century is when they were born so they have a lot of knowledge of what they like in this period.

I also put in smaller text about a free CD of the top 20 tracks. This relates to the audience as they prefer the quality and meaning of having the music on CD rather than just a bad quality download. Classic Rock and Uncut also offer free CD's in issues of their magazines.