Evaluation

AS MEDIA STUDIES

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation

The media product that I have produced for my coursework is a music magazine, the style and layout of my music magazine all determined on the target audience.

The media product I have produced uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because I have tried to look at a wider audience. I have tried to do this in quite a few ways, one being by making the main image on my front cover female, after researching into similar products before actually producing my music magazine, I realised that many of the existing top music magazines like NME, Q, Vibe etc, seem to use males as the main focus on their magazines most of the time. But I thought that if I still made my front cover attractive, and if the reader, male or female, was interested in the type of genre in my magazine, they would still be willing to buy it. Another way that I have challenged existing media products is by using synergy. I have done this by advertising a website for my music magazine in the main feature of this issue. (www.fusemagazine.com). Although many other institutions do use synergy for their media products, some are not as popular as others, for example after researching the top music magazines available at the moment I think that NME is a lot more popular than Vibe magazine, so because I have decided to advertise my website in the main feature on my magazine, this will be one of the most popular parts, therefore many people will come across it.

My media product mainly represents an ‘indie’ social group. Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the 1980’s, this term is used to describe an independent kind of music. ‘Indie’ artists are known for maintaining complete control over their music career, for example writing their own songs and advertising their own music. The way that I have portrayed this particular social group on my media product is by making the artist seem quite rebellious, and making them come across as being quite carefree and independent.

The types of existing media institutions that I would expect to distribute my media product would be a company such as IPC media, I think that this would be a good institution for my product because after doing my research, I discovered that they already distribute some existing products like NME and Q magazine, and these magazines are the same kind of genre as mine, and these magazines are where I got some of my ideas, therefore I would hope that they would be willing to distribute a magazine like my own.

The target audience I have focused on for my music magazine is both males and females aged around 17+, the reason I have chosen this kind of age group is because after researching the ‘indie’ sort of culture, I discovered that the artists in this type of music genre, seem to avoid the ‘normal’ artist-cultivating behaviour, which I think would attract many young adults. The way I have tried to attract this kind of audience, is by using a female on the front cover, I have done this because after doing my research into similar existing products, I discovered that most institutions choose to make males the main image of their front cover. So by using a female on mine not only will it make the magazine stand out visually, but it should also appeal to a wider audience, this challenges the conventions of many other existing music magazines. In my opinion this is because many males would still be attracted to the image on the cover, or even attracted to the female actually in the main image, and also the magazine would appeal to females as they would realise that this genre of music does not just consist of male artists, and they may also be able to relate to this female cover artist.

Whilst constructing my music magazine I have learnt that I can manipulate a photograph to how I want it to look using Photoshop. I chose to use Photoshop to create each part of my music magazine because I felt like it gave a more professional approach to my work, rather than using a programme such as Microsoft publisher, for example by using Photoshop I was easily able to cut around the parts of the image that I wanted to use, whereas if I decided to use Microsoft publisher, I would not be able to do this.

I feel that I have learnt a lot since producing the preliminary task, I feel that I can now use Photoshop more confidently, as before when I was producing my college magazine, I used Microsoft publisher. I feel that I have had a much better outcome with this piece of work as I think it has a much more professional look, as I was able to manipulate each part of my magazine exactly how I wanted to. Not only do I feel I have had a better outcome with the technologies I have used this time, but I also feel that the research I did this time has gave me a much better outcome. I think that because I researched through quite a few different existing products, this gave me a much clearer idea of what music genre I wanted to focus on, and also helped me decide on the layout of my magazine.