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

The magazine I created uses many conventions from a real magazine as I used the magazine ‘NME’ to draw some ideas and conventions to make my magazine appear more professional and life like.When making my magazine I followed the usual conventions a music magazine would follow. I kept my magazine more masculine, and in doing this I used a male model artist on the front, which I edited in black and white to give a more dominant effect. The magazine I was potentially aspiring to follow was an issue from the magazine NME. I chose this issue as I felt it could appeal to my target audience and stood out amongst other magazines.There are a few features of my magazine that challenge forms and conventions of music magazines. For example I have used my own photography for my front cover. This I thought would make the cover appear more realistic.

I think my media product has used a lot of stereotypical conventions, as well challenging some of the typical conventions.First, I used usual conventions such as the feature of a strap line at the very top of the front cover to advertise inside content. Next was an artist shown on the front cover as the main focus of the magazines attention. This is very common among music magazines, to focus on an artist or band, as the whole concept of these types of magazines cover new musical talent. Especially texts such as NME which is where I drove most of my inspiration.I also seemed to challenge some of the typical conventions by not including things such as freebies, which seem to be included much more frequently these days, because of the rapid growth of the internet where people get their information. So this is not included, I want my audience to feel as if, my text contains trustworthy, and more information than you would get on the internet.However most of my inspiration was drawn from a number of NME covers, the flamboyancy and the simplicity is something I have taken and incorporated into my text. The Indie Scene is notable for its unusual and different dress sense, and this can be reflected with the presentation of the magazine and the artists included inside.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groupsThe social groups represented in my magazine are a range of social groups, because my magazine has an average age range from around 16-25, there are social groups such as college students, younger workers, university students.I think my magazine represents these types of people as it is not a childish magazine, it has a messy but fun aspect to it, the images I have used are not ones that I did not think about first, I planned them in a way that they looked professional then edited them to make them look more realistic. My images also have good connotations as I used mostly that age ranged models in my pictures so my social groups are able to look at these images and relate them to their selves. I think my magazine represents a young indie social group which stands out from the ordinary This particular social group is influenced by the music they listen to and the artists fashion style and content of music so they reflect of each other.

I wanted my magazine to stand out and look different compared to other magazines, my front cover represents a particular social group by having a variety of different rock and indie artists spread around it gives my target audience a chance to see what kind of up coming and older artists are included in the magazine.The image on my front cover shows more of an indie style