Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My particular magazine represents females more than men. This is due to my models being female and being on every piece of my magazine. They are represented in a very strong way as all the pictures show them doing very dominant, confident poses.

Here the models stance is very clearly confident, they are all making eye contact with the camera which again shows confidence and will also draw in the reader.

Although there are only females in these sections of my magazine, the audience I aimed at includes both genders.

The age range I am representing through my magazine are around 17-25 as even though my models are all 17, they look very mature and the 'characters' of the band are older.

My magazine stereotypically is aimed towards an audience of lower/middle class. My magazine represents this by showing the price of £2.20. The magazine is inexpensive enough that students that would be interested in this kind of music would be able to afford it. A higher class audience are usually made up of people older than my target audience so are unlikely to buy this magazine.

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

I have ensured that my magazine follows the regular conventions of a real music magazine, yet i have also challenged some of the regular conventions to make my magazine original, especially my front cover.


Masthead

This is the masthead of my magazine. It includes the name of my magazine which is 'CRASH' and includes the two main colours in my colour scheme; Black and Red. My masthead covers the entire top of my magazines front cover as all usual mastheads do.

Sell Lines

I have stuck to the regular conventions of a music magazine by having sell lines to attract the audience. This includes having taglines such as 'Free' to catch the audience's eye. Usually, these sell lines are at the top of a front cover, yet I have put mine at the bottom to develop the usual conventions and to ensure my magazine looks as  professional as possible.

Bar code & Price

I also have a bar code and a price on the cover of my magazine which, again, is a convention of a real media product.

Headline & Sub headline

Another convention of a magazine is having a main headline and a sub headline. I have done this here by using the name of the band on the front cover to be my main headline and draw attention to them and then also using 'our big comeback' in smaller font so that it's obvious what the main article inside will be about.

Page Numbers

Another regular convention of music magazines are page numbers. These numbers relate back to my contents page to ensure it's easier for the readers to find the information they want. These specific numbers are from my double page spread.

Mise en scene

My entire magazine connects together through the use of mise en scene. I have used specific colours; Black, red and white, throughout my magazine. These colours are all conventional colours of a music magazine and the main colour, red, connotes power which links to the pose on the front of the magazine. Also the red links in with the hair colour of the lead singer of the 'band' on the front cover. I have also used the same fonts throughout my magazine to ensure each page links in and the magazine looks professional.

Costume, Props & People

I have ensured the costume my models are wearing relates to music and catches the eye of the audience. The red hair I have applied onto the 'lead singer' through photo shop adds to the costume and links it in to the colour scheme of the rest of the magazine. I have not used any props as I believe the stance and the expressions on the girls already prove that this is a music magazine and follow the conventions.

Font size and Style

The font and size of my front cover heading 'CRASH' is done in a way that is regular to magazine conventions. It is a large size and very bold as it is a solid black. The style of this font can relate to a music magazine as it looks almost broken and sharp which reminds me of rock music. A large portion of the rest of the text on my front cover is in a font called 'From where you are' which may be challenging regular conventions as it is not a usual font. I chose this particular font because I believe it fits well with my magazine and gives it a unique look, yet still manages to look professional. 

The article text within my double page spread is quite small to fit in as much information as possible and as when I looked at my style models the font was also very small. This body of text is also just a regular font that relates to the usual font on my front cover. Another font that does this is 'From where you are' as I have used this font again for the heading of my double page spread to stay with the house style.

The contents page also follows the rules of my house style as I have used 'From where you are' as the headings and the other fonts are just an average font to ensure the audience are able to easily read and understand the text.

Content

The content within my double page spread is an interview with the feature band of my magazine, Renegade. It is a common interview talking about upcoming tours, albums and other artists. This is a very regular convention of a music magazine. 

Questions

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

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

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

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

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

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

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

Draft of Double Page Spread

Draft of Contents Page

I have improved my contents page greatly by completing the text so I now have my story. I made the font of my text much smaller to fit in with the usual conventions of a music magazine. I also added a gradient to my background as the completely white background did not seem very professional. This was also suggested in my audience feedback. I have added an image at the bottom and I will be adding one more and some text underneath them to fill in any white space

Draft of Front Cover