G321 Media Studies Evaluation

By Ollie Charlton

Front Cover: my front cover follows magazine conventions pretty well. What I would say is different is that the background is a solid white. I did this because I wanted the people who bought the magazine to completely concentrate on the text and image on the page. I put all of my coversine's on the left because that is what will be seen on the newsagents shelf or where ever it may be placed. I also tried to develop upon that point so I put my main coverline on the left and at the bottom of the magazine. That also isn’t very common for magazines but my target audience liked it.

Contents Page: my contents page wasn’t based of anything that I saw but it was what I originally thought of when I started this subject. Usual magazines have a bigger image that has the main feature on it, but I decided not to do that because, even though my feature is the one I’m working on, there is a 6 page feature in the magazine. So I thought it would be a good idea to have 2 images of the same size. I didn’t challenge many conventions of a real media product because I have all the necessary things.

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

Double Page Spread: the main difference that I had in this part was that I had an image above the text, therefore it’s the first thing you see on the page. Apart from that I hadn’t challenged any media conventions. One convention that I used, which is very obvious, is that I put the text in columns. I did this to break up the text so it isn't a boring long chunk of text, which I know is very boring and doesn’t look interesting at all.

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

My magazine represents the group of people that the elderly might ‘avoid’ on the street. The facial expression of the model on the front page shows the overall ‘attitude’ of my target audience. I purposely didn’t include anything that would attract people like ‘Goths’ or anything like that because I wanted my magazine to represent the ‘hip hop gangster’ sort of person. I may have not done this throughout the magazine but that’s because I wasn’t able to because I only had a limited amount of pages/pictures. It more represents the ‘chavs’ and people like that.

How does you media product represent particular social groups?

Throughout this task I have seen quite a few media institutions that publish my genre of magazines. I think the institution that I would want to publish my magazine is Thrust Publishing Ltd. I chose them because they publish DJ mag and that’s also a magazine which is partly like mine. So with the publishing fame of DJ mag I think my magazine ‘Wrapped’ would have a lot of sales from them because it is from the same company as a very well known magazine. I did also consider Brauer Media because they publish many famous magazines like Q, Mojo and Kerrang. I am hoping that in choosing this publishing institution that my magazine will have a mind blowing first issue sales figures.

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

I have used a varying amount of different technologies throughout this task. I have also used a lot of new technologies. Using an Apple Mac has been the newest thing because I have always used a Windows computer. Photoshop was also very new to me because I had never done anything like that before and I didn’t know how to use it. The internet/powerpoint/prezi/camera are all things that I have used before. I have learnt that there is a long process and a lot of technologies are needed if a new magazine or any magazine wants to be produced for publishing. This is also the first time I have use a blog to upload all my work to, so its all in one place.

The one great thing about photoshop is that it is so versatile because you can do so many thing with so many tools its unbelievable. If I didn’t have access to it at home I know I wouldn’t have been able to finish this, one because I’m still not 100% comfortable with it and two, because I’m a slow worker!

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

I know I have learnt a lot during this task. I have learnt that there is so much a company has to do before they can even think about sending their media pack to a publishing company. There is so much research and planning involved with it, its unbelievable.

The one main thing that I have learnt from my prelim task is how to use Photoshop! It was very new to me and now I am a little more confident but still not 100%.

I have also learnt a lot about how media conventions affect the sales of the magazine and why they are where they are. Before starting this I just thought they were there because they looked nice, but now I know they serve an actual purpose.

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