7/29/2019 How to Answer the Evaluation Questions
1/4
AS Media StudiesEvaluating your Music Magazine Coursework
QUESTION 1
Blog post title: In what ways does your
media product use, develop or challengeforms and conventions of real media
products?
Make a Prezi analysis, containing explanation
and illustration of at least ten conventions
drawn from your three finished products. Write
about what the conventions are for, and how
you have used them to create your own house
style and brand identity, and to attract your
target audience. Add clipped images of similarconventions from real magazines too, if you
can, to show how your use is similar to or
different from professional products. Try to
choose similar or contrasting examples from
real media texts (but if you have based your
designs very closely on a real product DO NOT
USE THAT PRODUCT!!).
Conventions to explore
masthead and title mise-en-scene and technical code of
your main cover photo and other images
Cover lines Graphic and other layout devices Colour scheme and house style Kicker Drop Caps Pull Quotes Cross-heads Column structure Use of white space Use of other layout conventions like rule
of thirds, z reading patterns
End signs/jump lines The journalist style of the written
content
The division of your contents page intoregulars and features
Techniques to connote the excitementand busy-ness of the magazine on your
contents page (inset photos with drop
caps etc)
Remember, some magazines are more
conventional than others.
Cover page terminology
DPS layout
Explain what genre/hybrid genre of magazine
you produced (rock, pop, glossy lifestyle, etc)
and discuss some of the magazines that you
took your influences from. Add pics of these.
PRESENTATION SUGGESTION: Use Prezi foryour analysis of your three pages and link the
Prezi to this post.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HEMq9JxxGuQ/TSoO5pytLEI/AAAAAAAAAHs/Bv9SeRS3Clo/s1600/kelis.jpghttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HEMq9JxxGuQ/TSoO5pytLEI/AAAAAAAAAHs/Bv9SeRS3Clo/s1600/kelis.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HEMq9JxxGuQ/TSRQ-MGj7TI/AAAAAAAAAHo/cR0z8Kq8Bjc/s1600/DPS+layout.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HEMq9JxxGuQ/TSROQlZMBkI/AAAAAAAAAHk/h-9Hpt9vAkk/s1600/cover_diagram20copy.jpg7/29/2019 How to Answer the Evaluation Questions
2/4
QUESTION 2
Blog post title: How does your media
product represent particular social
groups?
Media products take the world and RE-PRESENT
it to us. In doing so they make choices aboutHOW to represent different sorts of people.
Think about how you have represented, say,
male youth, or early teenage girls, or heavy
metal fans, or indie music fans, or your target
audience generally (say who they are
demographically and psychographically).
What qualities have you implied that this group
of people possess? You have represented them
through your photos, your choice of language,
your use of colours, your writing, and even the
things you have LEFT OUT and assumed they are
NOT interested in. For example, lets say your
magazine is aimed at early teenage girls. What
sorts of personalities and interests does your
magazine suggest teenage girls have? Have you
reinforced stereotypes (eg connoted that they
are interested in clothes, makeup, boys, etc)?
Have you challenged stereotypes? (Eg
aggressive poses in photographic shots, or cover
lines about unusual topics such as politics or
fast cars?)
Illustrate your answer with clips from your
products to show what you are talking about,
and if you like compare them to clips/images
from real media texts. Take one photograph
and compare it to a photo of a similar person
taken from a real media text. How are they
similar, and how different? When discussing
photos of the group you have represented youshould consider posture, gesture, angle, shot
type, lighting, costume, expression, hair, etc.
PRESENTATION SUGGESTION: Do this as an
illustrated blog post or as a Word document,
uploaded to ISSUU as a PDF then embedded in
your blog.
QUESTION 3
Blog post title: What kind of media
institution might distribute your media
product and why?
Look back at the work we started with this year,
and decide on a company to produce anddistribute your magazine. Think about what sort
of magazine it is and which publishing company
would be the best to sell your magazine concept
to. You need to refer to actual company names
and processes. If you think you could get your
magazine produced by a big publishing house,
like IPC, Bauer, Dennis, Future etc youll need to
justify it in terms of the size of your target
audience, the advertising pull they would have,
and the companys existing range of magazines.Consider whether it would be best placed with a
major, medium and small/independent
publisher because there are advantages and
disadvantages of each route. What would be the
advantages or disadvantages of going with a big
company compared to self-publishing? Clash is
the only magazine published by Clash Magazine
Ltd but actually it is in some ways more
successful than NME which is published by IPC.
Similarly, if you think you could get your
magazine distributed by one of the big UK
distributors, like MarketForce, WH Smiths,
Menzies or FrontLine, and into the major retail
spaces like WH Smiths and ASDA, youll have to
explain why.
Also remember that digital distribution is
possible, or selling through subscription, or even
giving it away and relying on advertisingrevenue (The Fly).
The key here is to consider all these issues and
name some real companies and their products.
And be realistic about the potential of your
magazine - dont be nave! Can you remember
how many titles fail within their first three
years? (Bonus marks if you can, and put it on
your blog!).
Finally don't forget to reflect on the need for
synergy e.g. there will probably be an online
version of your magazine, there might even be
7/29/2019 How to Answer the Evaluation Questions
3/4
sister products such as a radio station. Some
magazines get involved in sponsoring awards
ceremonies. Maybe there are tie-ins with
iTunes, Spotify, etc depending on the scale of
your venture, the genre of music and your
target audience.
Note: Don't forget to use company
logos and images of related
magazines to illustrate your post.
PRESENTATION SUGGESTION: You
could present your response to Qu3 using a
Word document which you .pdf and upload to
ISSUU and share onto your blog.
QUESTION 4
Blog post title: Who would be the
audience for your media product?
Take a photo, find an image online or do a
drawing of a typical member of your target audience
. Post it to your blog and compile a profile of
them in terms of demographics (age, class,
gender etc) and psychographics (lifestyle
choices, tastes in music, films, shopping habits),
etc. Use the words demographics and
psychographics.
You could use UK Tribes links (be sure to add the
links to your blog). You should also refer to your
audience research here.
Tip: look at the type of content featured in the
media kit for magazines (sometimes called the
audience profile) which you can find on
magazine websites or look back through your
notes. Be sure to include similar details about
your planned target audience.
Write a few lines on why they would
buy/subscribe to your magazine.
Make sure you think about the AUDIENCE AS A
PRODUCT too what sort of advertising could
you attract through your audience. Are they a
viable audience for a magazine to target?
PRESENTATION SUGGESTION: You could
present your response to Qu4 as a video clip or
flipbook using a Word document, converted to a
.pdf, uploaded to Issuu or Flipsnack and shared
with your blog.
QUESTION 5
Blog post title: How did you
attract/address your audience?
Use Flickr's annotation tools or create a Prezi to
highlight the ways in which your magazine is
designed to attract and address your audience.
Why would they buy it and what would keep
them interested?
Begin by thinking about the point of sale (ie a
shelf in Asda, WH Smiths or whatever). What
element of the front cover are designed to
grab the target audience and attract them topick up the magazine in the first place? Does
the main cover photo use a direct address (eyes
to camera)? Do the cover lines use second
person pronouns (hey YOU!) or command or
question sentences which demand action or an
answer (You MUST see this!)? What other
elements would attract the TA masthead,
colour scheme, font styles etc? Explain why.
And dont forget you can think about the
CONTENT of the magazine implied by the coverlines. Are there competitions with prizes that
the TA will want, etc?
Now move on to thinking about how the
CONTENT and LANGUAGE is appropriate to your
TA. Concentrate on your use of language,
photos, colours/graphics. What mode of
address does your magazine adopt towards the
reader and why would this be appropriate for
your target audience? Is the magazine trying to
be like a best friend? A knowledgeable older
brother/sister? An expert in its field? Analyse
in particular the language of your DPS article
does it use slang? Is it relaxed or more formal?
How is its attitude appropriate for the
audience?
What is the Unique Selling Point of your
magazine, which you expect to attract your
audience?
Refer to the fact that you constantly asked for
feedback from your audience throughout the
production process.
7/29/2019 How to Answer the Evaluation Questions
4/4
QUESTION 6
Blog post title: What have you learnt
about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
Make some images that show your use of the
various technologies you have used. This can befrom the research stage (eg SurveyMonkey, online
graph generators, Flickr, Prezi etc), the production
stage (cameras, lights, tripods, Photoshop) and the
evaluation stage (Prezi again maybe, Slideshare,
Issuu,etc). And remember very important this one
BLOGGER, where you have collated and stored all
your work from the beginning.
Post these images onto your blog and annotate
them, adding details of what you learnt about
them/from using them. Your written text neednot be too long, but should be specific. Eg
describe some of the tools you have used in
Photoshop.
With Blogger and Photoshop in particular, be
specific in explaining them in detail. For
Photoshop, do some screen-grabs of techniques
you used. For Blogger (and maybe some of the
other Web 2.0 apps like Prezi), list the
advantages and disadvantages of using it as yousee them, compared to more traditional ways of
analysing stuff and collecting information, , like
writing essays etc. Has using these in Media
been a positive, negative or mixed experience
for you? Explain why. Can you see any use for
blogging, Prezi etc in other areas of your college
work or life in general?
Your written text need not be too long, but
should be specific. Eg describe some of the toolsyou have used in Photoshop.
PRESENTATION SUGGESTION: Place directly
onto a blog post or use ISSUU.
QUESTION 7
Blog post title: Looking back at your
preliminary task (the college magazine
task), what do you feel you have learntin the progression from it to full
product?
Put the cover of your college magazine side by
side with your music magazine cover and do a
detailed comparison of the weaknesses of the
first compared to the strengths of the second, to
show what you have learnt about photography,
mastheads layout, fonts, modes of address,
audience etc. What Photoshop devices did you
use in the second which you did not use in the
first and how did they improve your work?
Mention 4 Photoshop techniques that you used
and the effect they had.
Tools and techniques you could mention
include: text alignment and space reduction,
blending options such as stroke and drop
shadow, text wrapping, image manipulations,
text box sizing, using Photoshop rulers, colourpicking, quick selection tool, feathering edges,
varying the opacity, layers.
For example, one of your 4 points could be:
I learnt that the clone stamp tool,
which I used to remove unwanted
pictures on my model's T shirt,
improved the cover image
because the readers eye was notdistracted by this unnecessary
detail.
You should also discuss
Audience appeal (choosing a layoutdesign concept, fonts, mode of address
and type of feature article)
The need to research existingtexts/magazines
The importance of proper TargetAudience researchfor several reasons
Your need to seek feedback and sharecreative ideas
Your need to be attentive to detail Focus on written skills/journalism, proof
reading, etc.
PRESENTATION SUGGESTION: DO this on a
Prezi, or via ISSUU, or using some other
interesting Web 2.0 technique