EVALUATION FOR MY

SCHOOL MAGAZINE…

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

My media product contains certain conventions of real media products such as the mast head, cover lines, images, pugs and even a strap line. However it does not contain certain conventions like the bar code and price. This is because I felt using these conventions would be inappropriate as school magazines are never usually priced or produced as a means for profit but are made to benefit and support their target audience. Also as it would not be purchased by retailers to then sell in their stores it would not need to contain a bar code to identify the item. Like other real media magazines I have adapted my magazine to its genre and made it suitable for my target audience. I have also tried to include reader interest in my magazine for the audience it is aimed at, a key ingredient in magazines because if the magazine is not interesting the reader will not be attracted and therefore will not buy. Throughout the magazine I have tried to stick with the house colours (colour scheme) by using the same colours on both my contents page and front cover. Another convention I did not include on my front cover is the date, however I did not do this by intentionally (like I did with the bar code and price), I forgot to put the date on, a mistake I will not make with my music magazine.

Main article- Similar fonts causes the magazine to look more like a contents page.

Although this says the school motto “Learn to love and love to learn you are unable to see it properly due to the colour.

Mast head

Strapline

Pug

As you can see there is a continuity of the colour scheme throughout the contents page and front cover.

My media product represents the social group of young students. To adapt my magazine to its audience I had to be careful about the content it contained. Also due to it being a school magazine the topics it contained had to be school related or contain a form of support for the students for example “the agony aunt” which is basically a page where students are able to seek advice for any problems they have in school. Another way I have adapted my product to its audience is by selecting appropriate images to suit the genre of the magazine. As it is a school magazine I used mainly students as they are at the top of the hierarchy above staff, governors and parents. All my photography was original. Also I felt using images of people like them would be a form of attraction as it is showing that the magazine is for people like them making it more personal. I tried my utmost to make the articles within the magazine of student interest by applying cover lines I thought could help within the life of the students and including things I believe would help in my student life. Again the agony aunt allows the magazine producer to build a relation ship with its audience and makes the magazine more personal as students are able to write in and explain their problems or even relate to another persons problem. Usually young people are quite competitive and competitions are a way of attracting young children to the magazine therefore I included a pug which had a competition on it which I felt was another way of attracting the audience. Finally although there is not a lot of content towards the older target audience, personally I felt getting the main target audience interested was the main objective as school governors, parents and staff main interest is basically knowing what is going on at school which they can see within the magazine from things like exam revision times and projects like the Comenius project.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

My product would be distributed on school grounds by staff, students and teachers. Parents would receive the magazine through the students who would usually take the magazines home allowing the parents to read them. Due to it being distributed on school grounds it may be difficult for the governors to get hold of the magazine however this could be done through the head teacher who could give copies of the magazine to school governors.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main target market for my media product is young students aged 11-16 . However for the older target audience it would vary as parents, school governors and staff would be a secondary target audience. The pupils would come in to the E category on the social demographic scale, the parents could be anything from C1 to A As a result of this the topics would be related to the younger target market although it would contain some content for the older target audience. As you can see although my magazine had a wide range of target audience I targeted it mainly at the students as I felt this could build a relation ship between the audiences. Also the magazine contains things about school and things that are going on in school which parents governors and staff would like to be aware of.

On my front cover the main images used are images of the students. By making the magazine colourful, bold with a interesting layout I tried to attract the audience by making it eye catching. Also I thought by using images of mainly students emphasised their importance. This meant that if the students were happy so would the older target audience (staff, governors and parents). Before constructing the magazine I created a questionnaire to see what my target audience wanted increasing the popularity of the magazine. Having received the result of my questionnaire I created a basic flat trying to include everything my target audience had asked for. Once I had created the flat plan I began to construct my magazine on InDesign. During construction I had to make a few changes to improve the quality of my magazine and make it look more effective, for example on my flat plan I had said I was going to use a number of images, however I had to decrease the amount of images due to a lack of space. Although I could have decreased the size of the images instead, I felt it caused them to become unclear also too many images caused my magazine to look overcrowded. Another thing I changed was the type of images I used, on my flat plan I had decided to used a variety of shots due to the feed back I got from my questionnaire, however I felt that mid shots looked the most effective therefore used mainly mid shots with a minority of other shots. On the front page I have used only mid shots. To see if I had made the correct decision I asked a few of my peers for their opinions and they agreed with me. On my flat plan I had decided not to write the colour of my background as I wanted to experiment with different types of backgrounds once I had constructed my Magazine. After testing a few

How did you attract/address your audience?

colours I settled for black as I felt the font and images I used stood out well on a black background. Unfortunately once I had constructed my magazine I was unable to apply a back ground as I had not placed layers for my objects, as a result of this I had to start again. However I think this was good as I it has taught me not to make the same mistake with the music magazine (my main task). Looking at my finished product I can see that I have only used one type of font, on my music magazine I will use more then one type of font as I have just realised that on other magazines more than one font is used.

As you can see here I was going to use six images however I used only three due to a lack of space. Also I was going to use different types of images but ended up only using mid shots.

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

Throughout the process of constructing my magazine I have come across a new form of software which I have not previously used. This soft ware is called in design. I feel I am now confident to use this software for my main task (the music magazine) and any queries I had about it have gone away therefore I am confident and now looking forward to constructing my music magazine. My knowledge of other programmes such as Photoshop has also been expanded as I did not know how to use it properly before and throughout this process I feel I have become an expert at editing photos and using tools such as the magic wand tool .Other programmes I was unaware of and had not come across before are blogger and slide share; With blogger I have learnt how to upload pictures, embed videos etc. ; and with slide share I am able to upload power points on to my blog.