Rabbeah Ahmed AS Media Coursework

For my AS Media Studies coursework I chose to create a magazine with the genre Classical Rock. After careful thought and research into Classical Rock magazines I decided to target my magazine towards 35 to 45 year old Middle classed men.

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

Conventions of a Front

Cover

Masthead: This masthead is bold and unique which makes it stand out. This magazine also illustrates what the genre of the magazine is. Classic Rock’s masthead is always situated at the top of the page and in the centre.

Eyebrows: Classic Rock magazine normally has an eyebrow on top of the masthead.

Central Image: This is always in the middle of the page . The person in the image is always facing the camera.

Cover Line: As this is a special edition that came from a cardboard package, there is only one cover line.

Barcode: Every magazine has this somewhere on their front cover. In this magazine the barcode is at the bottom of the front cover.

Masthead: Just like Classic Rock magazine my front cover has an eyebrow on top of the masthead.

Central Image: My front cover also has a central image facing the camera, due to the fact that I was following Classic Rock magazines convention. This would be much more appealing and grab the target audience’s attention, as the eye would get the attention of the reader instantly.

Eyebrow: Classic Rock magazine normally has an eyebrow on top of the masthead and this is exactly what I did for my front cover.

Cover line: As this is a special edition that came from a cardboard package, there is only one cover line. I chose to do this as I was following the conventions of Classic Rock magazine.

Barcode: The barcode for my front cover is layed out in the same way as Classic Rock’s barcode.

The Colours: I choose to use black , blue and a bronze and white colour in the masthead. This is because the audience is elderly males.

The masthead of my magazine is bold , outstanding and unique just like Classic Rock magazines masthead. I followed this convention. However, to challenge the conventions of Classic Rock magazines masthead, I added bronze to my masthead and changed the style of it.The colours used in the masthead are gold and white . This is mainly because the audience of the magazine is men, and so therefore feminine colours are not used such as pink. Also, I did not use bright colours as my magazine is related to a audience between the ages of 35 and 45 so in this case bright colours would not fit in with the magazine. Similarly, Classic Rock does not use feminine colours and just keeps it simple with a white colour.

As seen when I conducted my research, Classic Rock magazine uses a variety of fonts. Due to the fact that I was following some of the conventions of Classic Rock magazine, I used many different font styles for my front cover, contents page and double page spread. This made my magazine look like a professional and real media product.

Although the Classic Rock magazine didn’t have a house style and I was following the conventions of this magazine, I decided to go against the conventions of Classic Rock magazine, and make my magazine have a house style in colours and layout which is similar to what Q and Uncut magazine have.

Headline: This is shown in a bold and swirly font. It also gives the page number on which the cover story will be in the magazine.

Features: Shows the page numbers and a brief description of what would be included in the pages.

Image: Is showing what the cover story is based on.

Winning Offer: Grabs the readers attention by making them aware that they could win something .

Special Offer: Another way to get the readers attention and make them want to read on.

Features: Just like Classic Rock magazine, I also decided to have a features section layed out in a similar way.

Image: I have placed an image of what my cover story is going to be based on, as I was following the conventions of Classic Rock magazines contents page on this.

Unlike Classic Rock magazines contents page, I did not include a special and winning offer on my one. This is because I feel that a free gift coming with my magazine is enough to get the readers attention. This is one way in which I challenged the conventions of Classic Rock magazines contents page.

I followed the conventions of Classic Rock magazine on their contents page layout of the page numbers, and the brief descriptions on what is on each page in the magazine.

Main Image: This is placed on the right hand side of the page and is a full bleed image.

Headline: This is placed at the top of the left hand side page in a fancy font. The reason why this font is used is so the reader is aware that the article is about that.

Pull Quote: These are genuinely used to grab the reader’s eye and persuade them to read the article.

Box Out: This is another way that the attention of the audience is caught.

Stand first: This is a convention of all magazines, which gives a brief description on what the article is about.

Columns: There are normally 2-3 columns in a double page spread in Classic Rock magazines.

By line: This says the name of the person who wrote the article

Drop Cap: These are the big letters at the beginning of an article.

Headline: This is placed at the top of the left hand side page in a fancy font. The reason why this font is used is so the reader is aware that the article is about that.

Drop Cap: Big letter at the beginning of an article.

Pull Quote: These are genuinely used to grab the reader’s eye and persuade them to read the article.

Footer

Header

Standfirst: This is a convention of all magazines, which gives a brief description on what the article is about .

By Line: This says the name of the person who wrote the article.

I challenged the conventions by adding more drop caps to the copy on my double page spread. Also, I put the full bleed image on the left hand side instead of the right hand side.

The By line, pull quote, stand first and headline of my double page spread are illustrated similar to Classic Rock magazines’.

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

Representation  refers to the construction in any of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. These representations could be in speech, writing. Still or moving pictures.

The magazine I have chosen to produce is a Classic Rock magazine. This magazine will be aimed at B-C2 class white men between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. This magazine clearly would not be suitable for young teenagers as the language is formal, and the music in the magazine is more or less based on one part in the music industry.

Top Of The Rocks Reader ProfileMichael is thirty-five years old and owns an extensive record collection. He listens to a

wide variety of music genres including classic rock , punk, reggae a touch of C&W and the ‘best’ of mainstream pop, particularly pop/rock. Michael goes to gigs as often as he can, usually these are by established musicians. Michael loves to talk to his friends and anyone he can about his musical tastes and memories. In short Michael is an established middle-class man who sees his self as a connoisseur of good music and of all other things.

The way her hair is presented in a scruffy look represents the look of Blondie who always has untidy hair in her images.

My magazine is shown to be a classical rock magazine as the copy shows this. Also, the clothing in a way suggests that the magazine is a classical rock one as they are dark colours and quite baggy.

On top of this, the red lipstick is also another typical Blondie feature, as she is seen with red lipstick in her images on many occasions.

The way my model is posing demonstrates that she is a singer considering she has a microphone in her hand. Also, her hands are on her hips to make her look more ‘sexy’. This pose also connects back to the fact that Blondie is not only a singer but she also had acting roles .

In order to create my front cover image in such a way, I used a black backdrop because I wanted a black background to my front cover image. I also used lighting so the tone of the model of Blondie would come out right.

My front cover, contents page and double page spread all target a specific social class group . This is shown by mise-en-scene which is every element that is placed inside the scene to be captured by the camera: lighting, costumes, props, set, performance.

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

During my research on magazines, I researched on Future publishing, IPC media and Bauer.

Bauer publishes many magazines but mainly targeting females around the ages of 24 to 55. These magazines consist of Heat magazine, Closer etc. However Bauer also publishes magazines such as Q and Kerrang. This clearly shows that Bauer publishes magazines aimed at men and women.

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/To visit Bauer’s website click on

IPC Media’s print reaches almost two-thirds of women and 42% of men in the UK which is almost twenty-six million UK adults. It offers something for everyone, but mainly focuses on men, mass market and upmarket women. Also, in 2001 IPC Media was sold to Time Incorporated which is the magazine publishing branch of Time Warner. This means that IPC Media is part of an international co-orporation.

Their men's magazines consists of: Country Life, Horse & Hound Rugby World, Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME.

Also, their mass market women's magazines include women's weeklies such as: Look, Now, Chat and Woman; TV entertainment brands including What’s on TV, TV Times etc.

They also have upmarket women magazines such as: Marie Claire and InStyle etc.

To visit IPC Media’s website click on http://www.ipcmedia.com/

Future Publishing is a company has been present since 1985, and is based in the UK, and situated in London on Balcombe Street. Their biggest-selling magazines include T3, Total Film, Classic Rock, Guitar World, and Official Xbox Magazine. They hold market-leading positions in games, film, music, technology, cycling, automotive and crafts. Also, Future sells 3.2 million magazines each month and best of all they export or syndicate publications to 90 countries internationally.

This is the publishing company I would choose to distribute my media product mainly because they export and syndicate publications to 90 countries internationally.

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

The audience for my media product would be B-C2 class white men between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. As my magazine is targeted towards men, I made perfectly sure that the house style is including masculine colours to attract the right audience.

Also, by having an attractive female modelling as Blondie on the front cover of my magazine, it would get the attention of males.

The audience of Top Of The Rocks are most likely to shop in not very well known shops or online for products. This is due to matter that their taste in clothing is not really in the mass market.

Websites like: http://www.emp-online.com/ where many parts of clothing can be purchased.

http://www.jeffery-west.co.uk/ where specifically unique Jeffery West products can be purchased. Or Ebay.

As my audience is middle class white men between the ages of 35 and 45, they probably have a car, house, like products like perfume, may like alcohol also may like old music that they still love.

So in this case I would say that adverts on things such as: car insurance, certain products for their

home, toiletries, Alcohol and adverts on old record albums.

Audience FeedbackFor me to be able to get audience feedback on my magazine, I asked a person that would be my

target audience a few questions. This conversation was recorded as an audio clip using my mobile phone. The questions are based on the front cover, contents page and double page spread of my music magazine. These questions consist of:

1)What are your first thoughts when you see this front cover? Who would you say my magazine is targeted towards?

2)What do you think is the best feature of my front cover?

3) If you saw this magazine on a shelf in a shop would you purchase it? 

4)Would you say that the contents page connects to the style that is in my front cover?

5)What do you like about the contents page?6) Would you be interested in reading this article?

To listen to the audio clip, click on the volume speaker image on the right hand side.

The person I interviewed is 45 and is a middle classed man that listens to classical rock, as well as other genres. Therefore, this person is the target audience for my magazine.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my target audience in many different ways. First of all, my front cover image attracted my target

audience as it is an image of a female modelling as Blondie, who is facing the camera directly. The facial expression, view of the look in the eyes and the clothing is also the other ways that I attracted my target audience. This is because it shows what the genre of the magazine is.

Also, I made my magazine have a housestyle with black white and bronze colours making sure that these colours are clear to see, and that they don’t overlap. The reason why I also added bronze onto the black and white in the list of colours for my magazine is because, this bronze/gold colour is the colour of showing that this magazine is successful and just the best and is labelled as not bronze or silver, but gold.

Layout and colour in my front cover also attracts the target audience. This can be seen when firstly looking at the masthead you see a bronze/gold colour and white, which then leads to your eyes scrolling downwards as the page has a black background.

The cover line also lead to attracting the target audience as it is in a fancy font and right in the centre of the page and in the centre of the image of Blondie.

The contents page of my magazine also attracts the target audience as, the eyes of the reader immediately go towards the model of Blondie as she stands out on the right hand side of the page. After this, the eyes of the reader roll over to the left hand side of the page as the eyes of the model posing as Blondie are facing that side.

Font colours remained similar to ones from the front cover of the magazine as I felt that the reader would still feel interested in the magazine. However, I used many different fonts and sizes to make the pages look more appealing to the eyes.

The language used in my magazine is formal as men aged thirty five to forty five that listen to classical music would read formal language. Also, because Classic Rock magazine contains formal language and I was following the conventions of this magazine.

I used the bronze/gold colour for my front cover,

contents page and double page spread to keep the housestyle going .

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

Word PressOne of the pieces of technologies I have learnt about from the process of constructing this product is wordpress.com

I learnt how to create a blog. Also learnt how to create categories on my blog and put them on a menu. These categories consist of: Home page, Preliminary exercise, Research and planning, Construction and Evaluation . I also learnt how to create posts and how to move these posts into the categories.

To visit Word Press’s website click on http://wordpress.com/

Adobe Photoshop CS5

I used this program to edit the photographs I took for my front cover, contents page and double page spread.

This program is for many

reasons and some of them being to change an image to fit your needs. This can be through changing the size and colour etc.

Adobe Indesign is used for creating professional layouts for print and digital publishing.

Understanding how to use this program was quite a hard thing to grasp as I had never used this program before.

After receiving help from the teacher

and completing the preliminary exercise, using this program became easier.

In the end I would say I now find this program quite useful as you can change so much and is easy to work from.

In order to take the pictures for my music magazine I booked the studio, which is situated in the college, and a digital camera like the one in the image. Before taking my photographs I made sure there was a black back drop, as I wanted my images to have a black background.From this experience, I learnt how to take professional photos in a studio with a camera.

In the studio that I booked there were also lights available which I used in order to make sure my images would come out the way I wanted them to. From using these lights I learnt how they should be set up etc which I was not aware of before.

In order to create this slideshow to present my evaluation, I used the program Microsoft Powerpoint. I was already used to using this program so had no difficulties in using it.

I also used my mobile so I could discuss with Aneeko(Blondie model) about what I would need her to wear, what makeup she would need etc.

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

Looking back at my preliminary exercise, I feel that I have learnt a lot about analysing magazines, using media language and styles.

The image on the right hand side shows the front cover I created for my preliminary exercise. It has a very plain look but I did successfully have a good colour scheme on the page. The image is also not taken to a professional standard.

However, the image on the left hand side shows the front cover of my actual music magazine. It also has a plain look but there are much more better fonts used, and a better colour scheme. The central image also looks more professional and eye-catching.

My preliminary contents page, which is shown on the right hand side, looks very boring and the image does not stand out much. Also, the colour scheme is not eye-grabbing.

However, the contents page for my music magazine, which is shown on the left hand side , has an image that stands out. Also, there is a colour scheme that connects to the front cover of the magazine. There is also more use of different fonts, which altogether makes the page look better.

I would say that the magazine I have created has pointed the audience towards seeing Classical Rock artists as something much more different then what they usually thought of them. The way I have shown this is through the images of Blondie. She looks attracting and has a rock style to her look but does not have really scruffy hair and body revealing clothes on, or a lot of eyeliner on, which is what the audience would expect. This is known as a manipulation of representations in the media, which is one of the things that I have learnt during the process of creating this media product.

Have Learnt a lot about publishers...

IPC Media.. their popular brands deliver high quality to 26 million UK adults. Also, print reaches almost two-thirds of women and 42% of men in the UK which is almost twenty-six million UK adults. It offers something for everyone, but mainly focuses on men, mass market and upmarket women.

To visit IPC Media’s website click on

http://www.ipcmedia.com/

Bauer..publishes many magazines but mainly targeting females around the ages of 24 to 55. They reach over 19 million UK adults and have eight successful media brands with some including: heat, GRAZIA, Closer etc.

To visit Bauer’s website click on http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/

Is a company has been present since 1985, and is based in the UK, and situated in London on Balcombe Street. Their biggest-selling magazines include T3, Total Film, Classic Rock, Guitar World, and Official Xbox Magazine. Also, they sell more than 3.2 million magazines every month.

To visit Future Publishing’s website click on http://www.futureplc.com/

I have also learnt that I should have used Bauer as the publisher for my music magazine instead of Future Publishing. This is because Bauer does not publish a rock magazine and Future Publishing does, as they publish Classic Rock magazine. Therefore, it would be more likely that Bauer would publish my magazine, which would lead to them competing with Future Publishing.