Evaluating My Music Magazine:GiveMeMusic

Rosie McIntyre

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

For the front cover of any magazines, there is a main masthead which is usually the name of the magazine. In this case it is “GiveMeMusic”. A typical magazine would also include a main background image on the front cover which tends to be the focus of the first page, as it instantly shows the style of the magazine, therefore enticing the correct target audience to buy it. There are some cover lines which are the main features included inside, and the basic conventions such as date, issue number and price. I have included all of these in my music magazine in order to make it as realistic as possible.

A typical contents page of a music magazine will consist of a editors letter possibly, maybe a few small pictures, and most importantly the page numbers and features included in the magazine to match. I have also included a competition to make my contents page a bit different from others. The background of my contents page, unlike the other two pages doesn’t have one of my own images as the background, just a cream colour. I am aware that this may not look as effective next to the others, but realistically, most contents pages in everyday magazines have a plain background, as the colours of the font make the page bright enough.

A traditional double page is generally an exclusive interview with a certain celebrity, in this case Beth Miller, winner of the X-Factor. There is another main picture of them, as they are usually the ones that are on the front cover as well. I have used the whole picture of Beth in the forest as part of the background as well, to make it look more professional. I have then used white, blue and pink text, the same three colours that I have stuck to throughout my whole 3 pages.

Hopefully, I have included all of the necessary conventions in my own magazine, and as said before, I have done few things differently. On all three pages, I have put a lot of focus on Beth, because she’s the exclusive interview that the magazine has got and I think it is effective to make her the priority of the first issue to really show how the magazine is one that relates to young girls, as Beth makes the point that she is from a small town and will never turn into a diva, as that’s what fame does to s lot of young singers. That is why I have included a part of Beth in each page: the front cover picture and double page spread interview most obviously, then the small picture of her in the contents, with a caption and page number; as shown below, to remind readers that she is the main topic of the very first issue.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have represented young, female teenagers, who listen to mainstream music in my magazine. This is because mainstream music is very much popular with younger generations today, so by targeting mainstream fans, it gives me a wider target audience, despite the fact that it’s only aimed at females.

I have shown a representation of this particular social group by the colour scheme I have used. In order to prevent the pages looking too busy and disorganised, I have stuck mainly to three colours: hot pink, turquoise and white. I chose these colours, originally to math Beth’s turquoise gloves on the front cover. The pink is an obvious girly colour and the white brings some basicness to the colour scheme, so I thought these three colours worked well together. I have only used four images overall, and three of them are of Beth, due to the reasons stated in the previous slide. I haven’t used any photos of male celebrities because the photos are mainly of female singers, as the young readers aspire to be like them. It is also clear that there would be posters of male singers from the information in the contents page.

The language I have used is very colloquial, to represent the informal way in which teenagers speak. To a certain extent, GiveMeMusic is very stereotypical of young girls, but that’s because it symbolises the type of people they are, which will appeal to them. It is overall, a positive representation of them, because the magazine has a very innocent style to it, with problem pages and generally lots of girly themes which emphasises their youth- (see below). Ethnicity is not an issue in this magazine, there is no indication of race or religion, so it is representative of any female teenager.

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

The institutions that deal with mainstream music magazine are a likely distributor of my media product, because they would deal with magazine such as NME and Q, which are the magazines that I researched in the beginning and have since based my one on them. However, maybe a slightly different institution could be more effective, as there is less competition. If they had a gap in the market then I could offer them an alternative music magazine which is targeted at a very specific gender and age group. As you can see from the comparisons below, GiveMeMusic is clearly targeted at a fairly younger audition, by the use of vibrant colours.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The magazine is targeted at female teens who’s favourite genre of music is mainstream pop. The target age of the magazine is 14-17 year olds as this is the generation that are most influenced by pop and mainstream music appeals most to them. A lot of the readers are likely to have part time jobs so they can afford to purchase the magazine as it is only monthly. However, a lot of the parents will buy them the magazine and will be in the C1/C2 socioeconomic grouping so I'm aiming to give it an affordable price so the low economic groupings are able to enjoy it too.

Some of the readers will be aspirers so will look up to the celebrities features in it. That's why the Beth’s pictures are young and fresh, setting a good example to readers. However, the majority of readers are mainstreamers who enjoy media content that isn't challenging and is familiar to them. Young girls are focused on keeping up with fashion trends and buying the most recent gadgets so GiveMeMusic will supply them with tips and tricks on topics such as beauty.

They will also of course, have a large interest in music, playing instruments, singing themselves or even dancing. The desire to sing is one of the most popular, so the female readers will look up to X factor winners for instance as role models, as they went from having normal lives to being rich and famous. GiveMeMusic readers are the typical teenage girls, who are confident and only want to have fun, but will need advice in some areas such as achieving their dreams, which is where GiveMeMusic comes in, by providing advice and information on how other young people like them have reached their goals in life.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Due to the fact that 70% of magazines are bought on the spur of the moment, I put a lot of focus into the front cover as it is generally the deciding factor in whether someone will buy the magazine or not. That’s why I wanted to use bright, eye catching colours in order to attract my target audience, as they are likely to be enticed by this style. By using Beth as the main image and showing clearly that the magazine includes an exclusive interview with her, it will encourage female teens to read it as it is someone young like them, who they recognise to be newly famous. They will therefore feel that they can relate to her, especially from the caption: “I’m an out-doorsy girl; I’ll never turn into a diva.”

The image on the right shows the way in which I planned before hand the layout of the front cover, in order to make it as appealing as possible.

The style of the front cover attracts a young audience because of the contrasting colours and slight disorganisation of the page. However, when making the front cover, I made sure that I kept a degree of organisation so the target market wouldn’t be put off by a cramped, busy page. I edited the front cover image of Beth slightly, on Photoshop, in order to brighten up the page a bit. However, when I actually took the picture, the sun was in front of her, shining on her face so it gave it a bright image anyway, making her eyes more prominent and so on. This is why I didn’t edit her too much as it would look too fake and I wanted it to look realistic so the readers can see that she’s just like them. That’s the reason also, for the fact that I took all of my pictures outside, for not jus t the front cover but all three pages. If the photo shoot took place inside or in a studio with artificial lighting, the style of it would look less real. The whole purpose of GiveMeMusic is to be a magazine that relates to all readers of all kinds, so the outdoor photo shoot shows to look more fresh and vibrant when put on the pages of the magazine, which will appeal to the target audience.

The mode of address of GiveMeMusic will entice young females because the language used is informal .The majority of teenagers nowadays communicate in a very colloquial way, so I kept that in mind when writing text on my pages, such as the editors letter on the contents page. As you can see below, I’ve used chatty language and refrained from using large words to prevent boring the audience. It is vital for them to recognise that the magazine is very laid back, meaning that it is something they can enjoy without being challenged. By adding in smiley faces, it enables the magazine to come across as welcoming and friendly.

The double page spread shows instantly that it’s relatable to the audience because even though they don’t have Beth’s fame, which is naturally the main topic of discussion, the quote taken from her interview and put as a heading is very down to earth:

It shows how she was in the position of thousands of other readers, who would be turning to GiveMeMusic to provide them with advice on dilemmas with factors to do with school for instance. It puts emphasis on how Beth can relate to them as she can share their worries, because she’s been though what a lot of other girls are struggling with.

People would therefore definitely feel inclined to buy the because it’s at the low price of £2.50 and comes out monthly, so there is a lot covered in one issue.

Ensuring I had adequate audience feedback when in the process of making my magazine was vital to know what they prefer in layout designs and features etc. Because my classmates are within the age group of my target audience, it was suitable to see what they would want in this style of magazine. As you can see below, I’ve had various bits of feedback, from comments on posts and votes in polls. It was even helpful when it came from boys, because every suggestion is helpful and it’s beneficial to get a wide range of opinions. This enabled me to create the best magazine I could, in order to fulfil the expectations of the targeted readers.

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

I have used a wide variety of technologies when creating my music magazine, including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Blogger, digital camera, Microsoft Publisher and of course Microsoft PowerPoint.

Photoshop: I’ve had some experience with this before, when doing photography last year. However during the process of making GiveMeMusic I have learnt a lot more skills on it, in order to edit my pictures and fonts. I’ve used tools such as magnetic lasso tool, magic wand, paint bucket, horizontal and vertical type tool and experimented with colours such as hue and saturation.

InDesign: I enjoyed using this for the first time, because its given me a far better understanding of other ways in which you can design with technology. I used InDesign to help me create my double page spread and it turned out to work really well. I struggled with it at first but then learnt how to use the tools in order to move text boxes to be equal to others, edit the double page spread picture as a background and create two effective pages that worked well together.

Blogger: This is obviously a vital resource in order to create the music magazine, and it proved to be really useful in order to gain audience feedback, record our progress, compare it to others and keep us organised. This is a new skill that I’ve learnt and have thoroughly enjoyed using blogger and hope to use it again in the future as I feel confident with what I’m doing. It was fun to be able to customise our own page and make it our own, and I learnt how to use other tools within it, such as polls. These were helpful in order to obtain feedback from my peers on how to improve my pages. It was useful to be able to post my pages as JPEG pictures and write comments to track my progress and look back to what I have done in previous weeks to see how I improved.

Digital Camera: I used the school’s digital camera numerous times on various photo shoots. I used a Nikon 550D and gradually understood the different tools on the camera as I progressed. It was interesting to experiment with it without any limits. I used zoom, flash and a number of other different elements on the camera in order to capture the best picture I could. I also made use of the natural lighting. Below are some pictures of my first photo shoot with Beth; ones that I didn’t use in GiveMeMusic.

Publisher: I’ve had a lot of experience with Publisher in the past so already have a lot of understanding of it. I used it to make up my contents page as the majority of it is text, even though I did use Photoshop for some of the graphics. I also used Publisher to crop anything that I needed, so it was useful especially when choosing fonts for GiveMeMusic at the start of the task.

PowerPoint: PowerPoint is of course what I’m doing my evaluation on. I have used it regularly in the past so have had a lot of experience with it. It is simple to use and effective to display pictures and texts in a professional manner, but the use of colour schemes liven it up a bit. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with animations and giving each slide different movements. Using this for my evaluation has helped me to gain a further understanding of it and I feel more confident using it in the future.

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

I think I have improved a lot since the preliminary task of making a student magazine, because there was less limits on the images that can be used for instance. I have hopefully made my work look more professional compared to before and you can see the comparison on the next slide. I have really made GiveMeMusic appeal to my target audience as I have spent a lot of time picking out colour schemes and layout designs, and of course what features I’d but in and the mode of address. With the help of a great deal of feedback I’ve made the best possible music magazine I could.

I’ve developed more practical skills and have a greater understanding of technology after using all the different forms of it, which I can hopefully use again in the future. My understanding of the music industry has also widened through my research at the beginning of the task.

Preliminary TaskFront cover and contents…

Music Magazine front cover and contents…