AS MEDIA BLOG EVALUATION QUESTIONS

By Natalie Bennett

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?Well, I started off by reading magazines and looking into how the conventions are on the front cover, contents page and the double page spread.

I kept to the same conventions that were used but I made some changes. Instead of my Masthead being horizontal, I decided to make mine diagonal. It makes it look different to average magazine that I saw in my research and I was happy with the out come of it.

For my genre, which I decided on dubstep, I found that majority of the font type they used was graffiti, so I used that for my Masthead and sub-headings in my contents page.

A big characteristic that I carried out from my research to my magazine was the graffiti writing that came up a lot in my research.

I feel that through the type of font I have used, I adjusted it for my target audience (16+) as that is the stereotype of the type of stuff they do today, which is graffiti art.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

From my research, I found that it was mostly teenagers from the ages of 16-18 that listened to and produce dubstep music.

From the representations that I saw on my research, dubstep was originally made by Afro-Caribbean, but as the times have moved on it has become multi-cultural.

People have now added their own mix to it, being their age, ethnicity, class, etc.

I don’t think that my media product represents a particular social group who enjoy music, but a mix of social groups.

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

I think that Development Hell Ltd as they produce the same magazines that include my genre that I picked, dubstep.

I would think that they would be a good company to publish my media product as their magazines are focused on events like: Dance events Reviews Music And Club nights

Where dubstep is usually a type of music you hear at clubs, I would think that my music magazine would be best suited for them.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?Well, my magazine could go to any reader, but my target audience is teenagers

I have used some colours that teenagers may find interesting, along with the graffiti writing it should hopefully work.

I came to these decisions because it is what I had came across when doing my research, however most of there text was bright colours, mine were dark compared to them.

My target audience I feel are addressed like how a normally a teenager would talk to one another. The use of 2nd person language engages with the reader, but not in a different language that they are not used to.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I used the conventions that I found in my research. Like: Competitions Prizes Freebies

In my interview on my double page spread, I used the type of language that a teenager would understand (slang) as it relates to them and also the reader may feel that the interviewee is talking to them in a proper conversation between two people.

I used 2nd person, where it draws them in using the word “you” which interacts with the audience.

On the front cover I didn’t add that much text, so that if the reader wanted to find out more, they would have to read the article themselves.

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

I found that it was really hard, but fun at the same time as I was learning to do something new, which is weird as I have never used these types of programmes (InDesign and Photoshop) before. The limitations in relation to this, is that I was slow when I first started using them, because I didn’t understand how they worked, but I was able to finish the product in time.

At first it was hard to get to grips with, but as time went on I learnt how to use it and I have designed a product that I am happy with and surprised that I actually made a magazine cover page, contents page and a double page spread.

I was also proud that I had the opportunity to do this as it has added to skills that I have possessed over time.

Q7. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I have learnt how to use Photoshop and InDesign. In Photoshop, I learnt how to use the Polygonal Lasso

Tool, which allowed me to get rid of parts that I didn’t want in ma image for the front cover.

I learnt how to use swatches and strokes, which help me make and choose colours that I wanted for my magazine and the strokes used to outline the text or image that I wanted to be more defined.

How to use light when taking images and using props for my magazine.

Learnt about codes and conventions However, I feel that I still have to practice a bit more

when using Photoshop, with refining my image, changing colours and developing my images better.