4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product is aged 14-18 females, in full time education, either studying GCSE’s, A-levels or looking to go to university, which is quite a big range for this school magazine, but I believe that this is a suitable age range for the type of magazine that I am promoting, this is backed up with the price of the magazine. Due to the age range of the magazine, you need to ensure that the price is affordable for that age range. When talking about my target audience, there is a number of things that need to be considered, especially because it is a school magazine. When designing the magazine, I had to take into consideration the age and gender of my target audience. I needed to ensure that because it is based on school life, it wasn’t everything that they see in an average school day, I needed to make it interesting for them to read. The school is an all-girls school and therefore I feel that it would be more appealing for the audience if it was only targeted at females.

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

I think a school magazine media institution would be the best institution to distribute my media product. I think this because most school magazines distributors will be aimed at all ages, whereas mine is for older students and this would appeal more as it has more of a specific age range rather than for the whole school. Also, a school magazine institution would have more experience in distributing other school magazines, rather than any other magazine distribution; it has more experience in this area.

A media institution such ad Bauer media might distribute my media product. “Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group. The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations.” Bauer media is a well-known media institution and it is also a sister company of H Bauer Publishing, publisher of the UK's biggest TV listings, Take a Break and Bella.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The elements of the photos represent a normal young female student’s social group.  The facial expression of the model on the cover of the magazine, represents an average female student, she is smiling whilst looking into the camera. I addition to this, the image in the left bottom corner of the magazine, represents what an average student would be like doing her work, which is focusing and she has a serious face looking away from the camera. The model on the front cover and the contents page of the magazine is wearing school uniform, which also represents this young female student social group. The location of the front cover of the magazine is also an important factor in representing the social group, the background of the image in the main image on the front cover is the school building and the image of the student sitting down doing work in the bottom left hand corner was taken in the school library. However, the lighting used in the photos is different, the lighting used in the main image is a lot brighter than the smaller images used throughout the cover and the contents page of the magazine as it needs to stand out a lot more. The props used in the images, were folders, text books and pens, which all represent an average student, as these are what they would use in a normal school day. The colour used on the front cover of the magazine and the contents page; represent the colours of the school, which is blue, therefore to keep it consistent, I decided to use the school colours. There is nothing extreme about the models appearance; she just looks like a normal student.

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

Whilst creating my magazine, I understood that there were certain conventions and aspects of a magazine that I had to include in my magazine. To ensure that the aspects in my magazine reached my target audience, I did some research on other magazine covers and contents pages from magazines that my target audience would be interested in reading, such as 'teen vogue'. This research allowed me to get ideas about what I had to include in my magazine for it to reach my target audience.

 

The magazine conventions that I included in my magazine, include:

Title: For the masthead on my magazine, I used ‘Berlin Sans FB’. I used a mixture of blue, black and white colour fonts; I used these colours because they linked into the school colours the magazine was being made for. This meant that I could put the most important features on my magazine cover in the darker coloured fonts. Using Photoshop, I then manipulated the magazine title by stretching it across the page, to make it stand out compared to the rest of the page and because it was a title, it needed to go over the whole of the top of the page and stand out. The colours are formal and reflected the colours of the school.

Costumes and props:  All the costumes and magazines used throughout the magazine are conventional. The costumes and props are an important feature of the magazine, because it helps the audience to look into the image in more detail and also gives them more of an idea of what the magazine will be about. The costumes used in the images that I took for the front cover of my magazine was students in their school uniform. When taking the images, I had to ensure that the setting I used for the image was appropriate and it made the costumes and props stand out, more than it made the background of the image itself stand out.

People: The girl used on the front cover of the magazine, relates to the theme of the magazine, which is a magazine about a new sixth form. Therefore, I had to ensure that when taking my images, I used a sixth form pupil otherwise any other student wouldn’t relate to the magazine front cover and it would make the magazine front cover harder for the reader to understand. (photo of sixth form student-Beth Hayes)

 

Written Content: The written content of my magazine follows the codes and conventions of a real school magazine by covering similar topics in the questions (top 10 exam tips, uniform etc.) All of the topics in the magazine relate to the target audience of the magazine, which are teenagers, therefore, if what they are reading is aimed at them; it will be more appealing for them. In addition to this, the interview follows conventions by introducing one of the sixth form students at the start of the interview.

Barcode: I made a barcode which is placed in the bottom right hand corner of the magazine.

Layout: The layout of my magazine is conventional.

Colour scheme: I used the school colours on the front cover and the contents page of my magazine as this meant that they related to the images and didn’t stand out too much compared to the main image in the centre of the page. The main colours that I used on my magazine were black, dark blue and white.

Contents page: My contents page follows the conventions of any other magazine contents page. It includes a copy of the cover of the magazine, this means that if the reader was interested in something on the cover of the page, they will be able to find it inside the magazine. The layout of the photos and text on my contents page would appeal to my target audience.

Price: The magazine is free, which makes it more appealing and will make more people want to read it.

Front Cover

 



Contents Page

Magazine-Contents page

In today's Media Studies lesson, I created the contents page for my magazine. I used Photoshop to create the contents page. To help me create my magazine contents page, I used the research that I collected in a previous lesson, this research gave me more of an idea of how my contents page needed to be set out and what I needed to include on my contents page.

My magazine contents page includes:

Banner at the top-The banner at the top of the page, is a simple way of informing the reading that this is a contents page. The colours represents the target audience and goes with the colours on the rest of the page, this makes the magazine look more consistent.

Copy of the cover-A copy of the front cover is situated at the top of the page; this shows the relation between the outside and the inside of the page. There are arrows pointing from this, this means if the reader was interested with something on the cover, they can find what page it is on.

Layout-For the target audience, the layout of the magazine is probably the most important part of this magazine contents page. It structures what is going on well and highlights the most important stories.

Date-The date is placed underneath the banner at the top of the page. Although the date doesn’t stand out compared to the rest of the page, it is still an important feature to the magazine and important that the reader knows.

Some other features of my magazine contents page, Include: Sub-headings, brief, Images

I chose these images, because they relate to some of the subheadings, for example, 'uniform' there is a picture of a student in her uniform.

Using, Photoshop, I had to edit my images, to make sure the lighting was correct and if I wanted to crop it I can crop it. I also added text and different shapes (arrow). Photoshop is a good way of changing the colours to match the rest of the magazine and contents page, this helps to keep the magazine consistent.

Contents Page-Research

Before, I started to create my magazine contents page, I did some research. The research will help me when I start to create my contents page because it will give me an idea of what needs to be included in my contents page. For example, what pieces of text need to be bigger than others, what images need to be included in my contents page.

You will find my research below:

 

 

 

Creating my front cover