Project analysis

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

products? Whilst carrying out my research on the existing magazines and their brand I identified several key codes and conventions prevalent across seemingly all products in the magazine industry. I then replicated these into my product in a attempt to reflect the professional impression seen within the other products. Some codes and conventions resonated thought the entire magazines styling. These included themes such as

• A strong colour, this is usually taken or adapted and altered from the artist’s theme colour, style or the clothes they are wearing.

• This strong colour was almost always counter acted using a weaker or paler combination of colours for the background.

• The artists colour scheme isn’t always carried thought the majority of the magazine

However, it’s often comes into conflict with the magazines typical colour scheming. This leaves the ether forces the production manager into one of two options. First, the altering of the entire magazines colour scheme to fit that of the image. This is often used in “special edition” versions of the magazines. For Example, this it is seen within the edition focused on the ‘American icon’. This motif is carried throughout the magazine and is rife within the front cover. To this extent the regular red colour scheme of NME has being transformed into an Americanised white and blue. Secondly, they have to force the magazines colour scheme onto the front cover. This could be something as simple as a colour alteration or the photography using a similar colour to the magazines colour scheme. For example, the colour scheme in this front cover image has incorporated the NME stark red colour scheme into its photography. Causing the front cover to match the entire magazines theme. During my production phase I attempted to follow the convention used within my NME red example, in which the photograph’s mise en scene is altered to fit the magazines colour scheme. To this extent I had the model wear clothing very in keeping with the magazines colour scheme. This creates a nice little synergy between the artist and the magazine.

I believe that this method forges a strong association between the magazine and the artists within the readers head. This is also a key code and convention within many magazine’, they seek to gain the elusive group of close nit dedicated fans mainly for the great economic benefits they offer. For example, a dedicated reader with the magazine is effectively a continuous stream of guaranteed sales of both the magazine and any merchandise associated with it. While this offers the obvious benefit of sales it also gives the magazine reputation and prestige within the music industry allowing them to get better interviews with bigger stars. To me this process is essential in a magazines survival in the hyper competitive print industry this is why during the creation of my magazine I intentionally made this a key code within my magazine as the strong relationship between the two is a key component in the formation of an emotional or personal attachment by a reader to the magazine. This in turn is vital to any magazine if they seek to form a strong loyal fan base of subscribers. Through planning I intended to build upon this is two ways. Firstly, I attempted to use a distinct writing style in all my magazines articles. This creates an informal atmosphere for the reader in Which reading the magazine is no different from having a conversation with friends.

Secondly, in my advertisement for my magazines subscription model I offered an incentive. During this step I found it hard to balance the informal nature of my magazine with the inherently impersonal nature of advertising. I think I avoided this however not perfectly. However, I’d like to think that the incentive in itself counter acts the impersonality of the advertisement, as in this context it doesn’t seem like a bribe, more of a friend giving the reader a few cool new albums he just picked up and is recommending them to the reader.

I finally attempted to develop this convention of dedicated fans by giving the fans a small level of their own personality within the magazine. I did this by carving out a small area of the contents page for fans to send in their own photographs to be featured in that issue of the magazine. While this my seam a small thing I believe it to be an area untapped by my magazines would be competition it allows the fans as a whole to be involved in the process of the magazine even it in a little way it furthers the idea of the magazine being a friend.

In conclusion, my magazine doesn’t really break any industry codes and conventions in any tangible way. This is deliberate I found during my research phase that magazines that break the codes and conventions in any major way typically die within a few years or find a small niche audience for a while until they stagnate or are replaced by a flashier or digital version of them. For example, Giant magazine attempted to make a racially exclusive magazine tailored for African Americans. It stagnated within 6 years and consolidated to an entirely digital format. Instead I attempted to follow and build upon the conventions in ways I hadn’t seen in other magazines while this was harder than I anticipated I believe my efforts to create a loyal fan base of subscribers is distinctive among similar magazines.

Thought my magazines creation I never really thought about its representation of particular social groups. Whilst, my magazine was not designed to be gender specific it does heavily feature a male model in my front cover and my double page spread. However, this androcentrism only extends to the two pages. To this end my magazine definitely represents the male population and arguably over represents them. The only other models are featured on my contents page as faux fans who have sent their photos in to the magazine’s “your face here!” segment. However, in this segment I made an effort to include some female models. Although I found it hard to actually find anymore female models willing to pose for my magazine. This explains why my male to female ratio is completely under representative. While this was a restriction of my friendship group, if I had to redo the project I definitely would have tried to balance the genders. On that note my magazine has no representation of ethnicity with every model being white Caucasian British. This again was not my intention, of course if I had to retake this project I would have made more of a effort to increase my magazines race representation.

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

I attempted to make my manganese universally readable amongst the 18-30 demographic however this obviously hasn’t translated into my use of models. However, I would say that in my magazine my age demographic is represented well to a extent with the ages of models being between 19-26. This age range would fit the most popular ages for a 18-30 range magazine. while my magazine definitely represents the 18-30 white male it under represents almost very other racial and gender group. In hindsight this is not realistic or professional within the magazine industry and I would definitely change it if I had a second chance.

Finally attempted to represent my would be readers social group. While this may have been difficult due to the instrumental genre not actually having any distinctive social group, but believe I succeeded simply by having my models wear simple average clothing As many social groups can be clearly defined by their clothing.

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

I believe my magazine would be suited best to be distributed by Bauer Media. This huge media conglomerate casts a wide next across a large section of the media. They provide more than “60 iconic media brands” across multiple platforms including: print, online, mobile, tablets and events. And yet their music section is the most restricted. They only produce two different magazines kerrang! & Q. While both these magazines are hugely successful neither of them focus on the instrumental and the underdog aspects of music. This gap in the market could be easily filled by my product.

Choosing Bauer Media also has a huge array of experience and expertise in the music industry. With Q being one of the most successful music magazines in this century any level of cross promotion could catapult a new magazines readership into the hundreds of thousands. This could be further improved by bundling my product with Q for the first few issues. This would give Q readers a taste of my product for free getting them invested before charging. While this would create a innate readership before the paid launch it also wold cause problems such as the syphoning of readers away from Q to my product. However, I believe this would be avoided due to the differing nature of the two magazines. With Q focusing on that week’s BIG thing while my product aims to find the smaller more underground artists. As many people read music magazines to find new music I believe the two could work well in tandem without treading on each other’s toes, with my product covering artists rise to fame and Q covering existing Artists next big plans. Bauer Media also have a great track record for multi format magazines. This can be seen in Q’s superbly designed website which offers a great source of information while still advertising the magazine and paid subscriptions.

Bauer Media also has the prominence to provide a huge list of contacts essential for any new magazine to quickly build a relationship with the artists, producers and agents necessary to get the biggest and best exclusives.

I believe Bauer Media would also be a better fit for my magazine over other institutions such as IPC Media. This is due to the competition that would be created within the institution between my product and NME. While not too similar in genre both magazines strive to find the newest artists. This would of course cause overlap and a competition between the two. While competition is usually good for consumers this would be disastrous for my product which after a while of infighting would probably be shut down or consolidated into NME. By using Bauer it instead gives my magazine an edge over the competition with the monolithic we of connections provided by Bauer. These would be essential to survive in the hyper competitive world of magazines.

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

Throughout my magazines production I attempted to create a broad audience without over extending it. To this end I aimed for the 18-30 demographic. For example, a typical reader profile would be the average reader of NME is a 22 year old enthusiastic music fan who lives on the mirrors edge of the internet and print based media. Predominantly male, usually a just out of university and in full time employment. The total readership spends a fair amount of their new disposable income on audio equipment per year, and typically enjoys going to gigs and other live events in their spare time. The standard reader spends a lot of time on the internet searching for the next big thing to impress their friends. In addition to this, the reader finds clothes and image very important. I would attempt create this audience in a writing style and tailored articles. I would also include a cheap subscription model to entice the low budget readers. I am aiming for recently out of education ex-students as they have an incredibly strong sense community and are most likely to share music with their friendship group. This allows the magazine to be spread by word of mouth creating a more genuine form of advertising, this in turn furthers the idea of the magazines friendship with the reader.

5) How did you attract/address your audience? I attempted to attract this audience with my method of writing. I wrote in a very informal manor. This method attracts the young audience as it gives the sense of community and friendship young people desperately crave. It gives the magazine the appearance of a chat between friends simply telling their friends what cool new bands are around, instead of an informal source simply selling people information on the music industry. I also used young models in my photographs. To make the magazine more relatable to the individuals reading them. I also attempted to attract my audience by making each magazine at least in a small way tailored to the readers. I did this by the addition of a ‘your face here’ section in which fans send in their pictures. While this creates a visual representation of the fan base it also attracts the creative type of reader who desire the feeling of control even if its in such small doses. Finally, I attempted to attract readers by selecting colours common in my desired audiences fashion sense. For example, I used a lot of deep reds and crisp greys to instantly attract the eyes of any would be consumers causing them to associate my magazine with their clothing.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

At the beginning of this task I had little experience in any photograph editing software and had zero experience in text manipulation software. Thought the course of production I steadily improved my skills using Photoshop. This was evident in my early drafts of the front cover and contents page, which were honestly relatively poor. I lacked a consistent colour scheme and the foreground was too different from the background that it just looked shoddily cut out over a poor background. This is especially evident around the hair of the model. My contents page was also just awful it lacked a consistent colour scheme and relied far too much on straight lines making the magazine seem more of a document than an informal fun, music magazine.

When I finally understood Photoshop I tried completely alter the colour scheme and adapt the straight lines into a more ordered yet easy understand format. To combat the informality I decided to add a collage of photographs which would be sent in by readers, this allows readers to add their own personal touch to each magazine. On my second front cover attempt I made a better job of colour corrections, and photo editing. This prevented the photograph looking unnatural like the first version. This would have been impossible at first until I learnt how to properly use the software. In a effort to improve my skills I practiced cutting difficult images out onto others. I also used the website lynda.com which provided tutorials and guides for lots of different software . these methods helped me to grasp the software relatively quickly and soon create something that I believe looks quite professional. As I said earlier I had absolutely zero experience with text manipulation software such a InDesign. However, after looking at a few tutorials before hand I quickly grasped how to use InDesign quite well. The program seamed relatively simple but offered complex enough options to make the text look professional enough. This meant I saw no need to alter my double page spread

7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full

product?

Throughout my products progression into its final form I have learnt so much, not only about the creative process of the magazine but of the industry as a whole.

I learnt very quickly the process of creation was actually much more complicated and difficult than I ever imagined. I had little experience in the software but I could fix that with practice I in fact found the creative aspect much harder. I found it difficult to find a style I enjoyed and looked visually appealing. While researching what looks pleasing I quickly learnt the common colour schemes and traits the majority of magazines display. For example, the red, black and white colour scheme is prominent to varying extents in almost every mainstream music magazine. As for why I assume it’s because it looks great, it offers a simple palate which could be altered in balance to fit the tone of that issue of the magazine perfectly.

When carrying out my research into the different media conglomerates I discovered quite quickly how everything is deeply connected. These huge corporations cast such a huge net which seemingly hits our entire media-focuses society .for example, Bauer media has channels in magazines, television and radio each with a strong internet presence behind them. This may seem a little disconcerting at first but I quickly learnt it can be beneficial for all involved. The company gets to cross promote newer products for free within its other products which already have a large fan base, and the consumer gets information on the newest products from a company with (in their eyes) a good track record within media.

On the topic of the industry I also discovered the incredible importance of the consumer. While of course one person can’t even make a scratch in a huge industry’s sales or figures as a mass they are the lifeblood of every product. While this may seem obvious I never really thought about the monetary value of a fan base and how magazines attempt to nudge them into a certain way of thinking. By this I mean the methods magazines employ to form a community or fan base surrounding their product. This is usually done using informal language, young writers making having a visible presence or a heavy focus on the fans for example, competitions and letters from fans. It gives the impression that the product cares for its consumers as if they were friends. This fake intimacy is always used to create a tightknit community. This in turn is created to push fans into a subscription model in which the product is guaranteed sales from them or increase their readerships so the product can charge more for advertisements, these product goals are not mutually exclusive and are often done simultaneously.

I also learned in recent times with the rapid growth of the internet reporter the music magazine industry has been forced into becoming hyper competitive. Andrew Collins who was features editor of NME and edited Q between 1995 and 1997, described the industry’s former prominence “Looking back we were so lucky because there was no virtually no internet then, we were a direct link between bands and the readers.” The golden days of the magazine are indeed be over. This was unfortunately a sad truth I learned very quickly during my industry analysis. Back in the 1960’s NME sold as many as 200,000 issues per week, making it one of the UK's biggest sellers at the time. Where as recently as February 2014 its sales figures have dipped below 20,000 down more than 20% each year it’s hard to argue the magazine industry is certainly shrinking. Andrew Collins goes on give his reasoning why citing reason such as “It's the technology that is doing for these newspapers” he continues arguing that people’s perceptions of music have changed If I'm a young music fan I don't care what other people think about music - I can listen to it myself and write about it on my own blog. There's no need for that third party anymore, which is tragic.” its easy to spot the paradigms between the industry’s decline and the methods we listen to music in the modern, no longer is it a communal event now a personal show of headphones.

In conclusion, I believe this project has vastly improved my knowledge of our media, its influences on everything and how it is also effected by every individual. It is a constantly shifting idea that is reactive to those who use it on mass.