Preliminary Task:
As part of my AS Media Studies coursework, I have been assigned to do a preliminary task: creating a school magazine. I have decided to create a College magazine aimed at St Francis Xavier (SFX) student’s as well as other college students. This means that the social group for this magazine is D – students, 16 – 19 year olds. From my planning, I decided to have a front cover image of a college student (myself) - identified as a SFX student by the worn SFX ID card.
I researched 2 existing college magazines; Lewisham College and SFX College. From my research I found that both magazines have consisted of the title of the magazine, one large image which dominantly covers the whole page and a main leading cover story.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses the forms and conventions of real media products it consists of a cover masthead, positioned horizontally across the top of the page, a large image, a bar code, the date, issue number, as well as 3 – 7 cover lines. Below is an image of my school magazine. It uses the conventions of real media products as it has a main image of a student (myself), however my media product challenges a form of a real magazine as my media product does not just have one cover line as the ones that I researched but 5 cover lines.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product is aimed at the students aged 16 – 19 of a D social background, both female and male. My media product represents this by the image of a student of this social background. The fonts are not too much sophistiscted but are appropriate for my target audience. However, it can be argued that my magazine could be just aimed at female students only because of the use of the colour pink and the image of a female.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
From my researched, I found out that IPC is one of the biggest, most well-known companies for distribution of magazines therefore I think the IPC could distribute my media product. One reason why I have chose IPC to distribute my media product is due to the advantages, one being because of their good reputation and secondly as they own many media products, cross media advertisements is a big advantage to the selling of my magazine.Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product are students (mainly sfx students), aged 16-19 of a D social background. The audience for my magazine is students due to the contents of the magazine. The contents being things like “UCAS help”,
“college raving” etc. will only appeal to this target audience.
For the production of my Gospel music magazine, I wanted to research a couple of magazines so I could use, develop and challenge their forms and conventions in order for my product to fit in the market and sell. It was somehow difficult to find a strictly Gospel Music Magazine. I managed to find a magazine two monthly music gospel magazines, which are; Gospel Truth and Gospel USA. I closely looked at its front covers, analysing its features inc. its masthead, cover lines, main image, font and colour. Below are the two magazines that I researched:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From my analysis of this magazine, I found that the name ‘Gospel Truth’ is associated with the genre of the magazine – Gospel (Christianity) makes sense, as people will connote the name with the genre making it easy for the reader to know what the magazine is about. The Gospel magazine that I am creating uses this form as the title of my magazine is called ‘Genesis’ which is the first book of the Bible (-Christianity’s holy book) associating with the genre Gospel as the gospel is four books from the Bible. I choose this name as I am confident that many people will automatically associate my magazine with the genre Gospel, as I believe that many people have the knowledge that Genesis is a book in the Bible.
In addition, through my research of gospel magazines, these Gospel magazines dominantly portray the black race through content and advertising. My magazine uses this form as my magazine will also portray the black race; however it also develops this convention as my magazine is aimed at a different age range and social group. Again, through research, most existing products were mainly aimed to the older generation: 30years old and above with a B/C1/C2 social status – my magazine is aimed for youths aged 13 – 19 with a social status of C1/C2. Real media products focused on the music of black race and its culture, my magazine challenges this as it contains other cultures to welcome others however still having a main focus on the black race. The main image on both of my researched magazine is of middle-aged black men (late thirties +). My magazine challenges this form I am planning on using a young black female on my front cover. As well as this, the content of my magazine evolves around the lives of young people; therefore most of the images in this magazine will be of young people.
Furthermore, they both follow the same convention - the masthead is boldly at the top of the page with relating colours to the main image. There is a big main image, most likely to be a well known Gospel artist, model, pastor etc. The leading cover line is normally, placed on top of the main image - bold and quotes the name of the person in the main image. My magazine will follow this convention as my magazine will have an image of a well known young Gospel Artist winning an award. The average cost for these two magazines is £3.50 ($5.75), therefore - in order for my monthly Gospel magazine to fit into the market and also taking into consideration that this is a youths magazine, my magazine price will be between £1.50 and £2.50. Furthermore, these front cover consist of a bar code, pricing, date, big image, issue no, a bold masthead, cover lines, a main story relating to the big image labelled by the group/persons name. My magazine will follow this convention and consist of all these features.
At the start of this as course, I knew of the programs; Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop but I had little knowledge on how to use them. I took it upon myself to do extra research on how to use these programs, so I looked for tutorials on YouTube and I gladly found a tutorial which I found extremely useful. Working in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop has enabled me to improve my knowledge of using these programs. In Adobe InDesign, I am now able to open saved images and text and import them into a blank adobe document. After the imports, I am able to rearrange these imports and edit them to fit my likings. Editing the background of the document in Adobe InDesign was not an easy thing to learn, but with time and practice it’s becoming more and more easy. In Adobe InDesign, I learnt that there is so much you can do with a text. When experimenting text in Adobe InDesign, I used the type tool on the left side of the opened program and drew a box where I typed in my text. Once I typed in my text in my drawn box, I changed the type of font by selecting the font I preferred from the Font selection list. After selecting my preferred text, I was able to change the size. Following on from this, I learnt that I was able to vertically and horizontally scale letters, words as well as the whole text. In addition, I found that you could track your text (make letters/words closer together) which I found amazing.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From the process of constructing my magazine product, I have learnt new things through about technologies through using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop.
At the start of this as course, I knew of the programs; Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop but I had little knowledge on how to use them. I took it upon myself to do extra research on how to use these programs, so I looked for tutorials on YouTube and I gladly found a tutorial which I found extremely useful. Working in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop has enabled me to improve my knowledge of using these programs. In Adobe InDesign, I am now able to open saved images and text and import them into a blank adobe document. After the imports, I am able to rearrange these imports and edit them to fit my likings. Editing the background of the document in Adobe InDesign was not an easy thing to learn, but with time and practice it’s becoming more and more easy. In Adobe InDesign, I learnt that there is so much you can do with a text. When experimenting text in Adobe InDesign, I used the type tool on the left side of the opened program and drew a box where I typed in my text. Once I typed in my text in my drawn box, I changed the type of font by selecting the font I preferred from the Font selection list. After selecting my preferred text, I was able to change the size. Following on from this, I learnt that I was able to vertically and horizontally scale letters, words as well as the whole text. In addition, I found that you could track your text (make letters/words closer together) which I found amazing.
My music magazine contents page:
In what ways are you designing your media product to use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I am designing my contents page to appeal to my target audience of students aged 16-19 with a social class of D/E. I was unable to find any gospel magazines contents pages online and due to the lack of resources, I was unable to scan in my researched contents pages. From my researched contents pages, I found that the contents pages were very plain and simple. There were a few images and plain text. In my first researched contents pages, there were no sections. I will challenge this form and have different sections according to the content.
How are you designing your media product to represent particular social groups?
In my researched contents pages, the images represented the black race and the age categories of late 20’s – 50’s. I will be challenging this form and representing youths (16 – late 20’s) and representing different races – such as the white race as well as the black race.
How are you attracting/addressing your audience?
I am attracting my audience through the contents such as ‘raving’ which appeals to my target audience. I am also attracting my audience through the models in my images. My friends (of the same age and social background) appeals to my target audience.
My music magazine double page spread:
In what ways are you designing your media product to use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I am designing my double page spread to appeal to my target audience of students aged 16-19 with a social class of D/E. In researching double page spreads, I found that many gospel double page spreads where interviews – interviews of gospel artist. My double page spread will use this convention as I will be creating a double page spread interview of a BET Award winning Gospel artist.
How are you designing your media product to represent particular social groups?
In my researched contents pages, the images represented the black race and the age categories of late 20’s – 50’s. I will be challenging this form and representing youths (16 – late 20’s) and representing different races – such as the white race.
How are you attracting/addressing your audience?
I am attracting my audience through the content of the interview – asking questions that the target audiences are interested in.
Below is my double page spread of my music magazine.
