Evaluation

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience I targeted my media product at was 17-19 year old girls interested in the rock genre. Guitars are often a main instrument used in rock/metal and the music is often loud. It is from this that I decided on the name ‘Amped’ because it uses connotations of loudness, however does not sound too harsh (i.e Kerrang – sounds harsh like snapping guitar strings) and therefore more likely to appeal to the perhaps slightly softer nature of female audiences. I found from my questionnaire that other magazines from the same and similar genres most appealed to 17-19 year old audiences, however when making the product I did try to keep it so that it would still appeal to audiences outside the targeted age group. Similarly I tried to make my product open for appeal from both male and female audiences even though it was intended for girls. I chose girls rather than boys for my targeted audience because from my research there appeared to be few if any rock magazines steered more towards female audiences because rock genres generally have more interest from male audiences. I felt that because of the lack of female targeted magazines that perhaps there is space in the market for one hence I focused the magazine towards appealing female audiences.

How did you attract/address you audience?
I attracted my audience by sticking to a broad well established genre which meant it already has a fan base and there are already audiences that potentially could buy my magazine. I used a bold main image on my cover of a pretty girl (lead singer) so that it is not only eye catching but appeals to female audiences because they can aspire to/ admire her. This also appeals to male audiences because they can also admire and/or find her attractive. Also the girl in the main image is looking directly at the camera which makes the address to the audience more personal because the reader will feel that the main image in looking at them. The large bold masthead ‘Amped’ is again not only eye catching but uses connotations of the genre of the magazine. I kept to a colour scheme of black white and red because I felt that used together on a page they are eye catching from afar also, these were the three most popular colours chosen in my questionnaire research. Lastly I listed features of the magazine in bold on the cover such as what type of articles and bands so that the audience will want to read the articles or read about the featured bands.
I addressed the audience in-formally and to an extent slightly chatty. I wrote assuming they had a fairly good knowledge of the genre so as not to bore the reader. I also wrote using plural first person so it sounded as if the magazine is addressing the reader personally, much like addressing a friend. Lastly I used slang and exaggerated words such as ‘awesome-ness’ to relate to the audience more.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I think my product challenges conventional rock/metal magazines in that its audience is more female orientated however I do feel that I have kept a lot of conventions from existing magazines from the same/similar genre. Conventions I felt that followed typical rock magazines was the colour scheme white red and black – red and black being stereotypical ‘rock colours’ and often found on other similar magazines such as Kerrang and NME. Also the name ‘Amped’ relates directly to the genre because electric guitars are more often than not a key instrument in rock music and an amp is therefore a key piece of equipment used. It also suggests amplifying something which suggests loudness- another trait of rock music. Also a convention often found in rock magazines and not so much other genres for example pop or RnB is live reviews of gigs, because live music is popular with rock audiences, therefore when I came to produce my articles I decided to do a live review. In contrast I feel I challenged and developed on the genre of magazine by targeting female audiences because typically bands and people featured in rock magazines are male and the genre is portrayed as very masculine, even women featured are quite masculine i.e lots of tattoos, piercings etc... I developed this by not only introducing more women into my magazine which is again challenging convention but also portraying them in a more feminine way so as to attract more and appeal more to female audiences.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My product is aimed at social groups that like the rock genre, and represented in my magazine is the faces behind the music. I feel I have portrayed the musicians in my magazine as focused and dedicated musicians, this is a vital factor in rock music because it is often played live and this focus and dedication appeals to rock audiences because it improves music quality. Also I used pictures and featured musicians that are slightly older than the target audience so that the audience can relate to them as a young adult but still look up to them as role models. Again I have gone against convention and used more girls in my magazine to appeal to female audiences. My magazine focuses on no particular religion and therefore keeps it open to people of all and no faith while at the same time not offending those of particular faith. In addition to this, two main nationalities featured in my magazine is British and American, this is however purely down to the majority of bands from this genre originating in those countries and therefore does not exclude people from other nationalities.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think that maybe institutions such as Bauer and IPC (publishers of KERRANG and NME) would publish my magazine because they are both magazines on the same/similar genre of music and are therefore experienced in publishing similar magazines. My magazine is very similar to KERRANG and NME in that they both use similar colour schemes (red and black) and they both feature similar types of articles for example interviews, features and live reviews, KERRANG especially features very similar bands for example Paramore and Alexisonfire whom are both mentioned on the cover of my magazine and have been featured regularly in KERRANG in the past. They know not only what sells to their audiences but also how to address them. However, because KERRANG and NME are such successful, well known and profitable magazines it may not be profitable for them to produce a magazine so similar to ones they already own especially selling to a similar age group. It may happen that my magazine results in competing with another similar genre of magazine from the same institution on the market and therefore reduce the sales of either one or both magazines.
On the other hand institutions such as BBC might publish my magazine because they do not yet have a rock magazine in their portfolio and this could be a profitable genre of magazine for them to produce. The BBC currently own titles such as Top Of The Pops, Radio Times and BBC Music, none of which cater for the older end of teenage audiences (17-19), so for the BBC to distribute my magazine would be profitable to them because they would be making money from a new audience, also teens spend the most money on products like magazines than any other age group. This however may not be the best choice for the successfulness of the magazine, because the BBC are not experienced in publishing rock magazines (because they don’t already own one) and this could cause them to lose money if the magazine is not distributed effectively. This is more likely to happen because of their lack of experience and knowledge with the genre of magazine and also the audiences targeted by the magazine. Moreover I think the BBC would be the best distributor for my magazine despite its lack of knowledge I think the competition from KERRANG or IPC would be greater and would lose money if my magazine was from the same institution.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?
During the first stages of construction of my magazine it became clear that
Photoshop was a program I had little knowledge of, I admittedly struggled with the preliminary task because I had never used the program before and the layers were something completely new for me to get to grips with. When I started my final construction progress was slow as I was still learning how to use the program, after many unsuccessful attempts I began to learn my way around and eventually got my progress up to speed. Whilst constructing my magazine I learnt lots of ways to manipulate images, I learned how to lasso, change the hue, saturation, contrast and brightness of images, airbrush skin to remove imperfections and how to download new brushes to Photoshop to name but a few. Something I particularly struggled with was changing the colour of the girl’s eyes on my front cover. I wanted to change them from brown to a deep blue; I tried lots of things including creating new layers and changing opacity none of which looked realistic enough, with one attempt resulting in my main image having very unrealistic purple eyes. Eventually I settled for a simpler method of using a small brush with a low opacity so it was still possible to see the natural shading of the eyes, even though close up it is more obvious that it has been edited. Something I found easier was actually taking and producing my own images; I used my Digital SLR which meant I was able to experiment with aperture and shutter speed. I found that blurred pictures produced from long shutter speeds didn’t look good in the magazine because they didn’t convey meaning as clearly so I kept the shutter speed fairly fast and changed the aperture so that the background of my images were slightly out of focus so the main focus of the image stood out more and was more obvious for the reader to focus their attention on.

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 the preliminary task it is evident in my product that my understanding and ability to use Photoshop has advanced greatly because the level of quality is much higher than that of my ‘Zine’ cover and contents page. Also my understanding of conventions in rock magazines on the market and how images, colours and text can affect the audiences understanding of something and create connotations is much better. In comparison to my final product my preliminary task looks un-organised, plain, un-informative, dull and messy which shows that from it I have learnt how to produce work that looks more exciting and professional. I did this with things like keeping to a colour scheme, using bold titles and using relevant images.
I created a lot of drafts for my final product and selected the ones I felt most fulfilled its purpose so as to have the greatest effect on the reader/audience. Also I feel that by creating a questionnaire and having the audience’s views and opinions helped me a lot in understanding what the target audience would like to see in a magazine and what conventions of existing magazines the audience did and didn’t like, for example red and black were two of the most popular colours chosen on my questionnaire and they are also a convention of existing rock magazines which suggest this is an convention that is popular with my audience. I also learnt a lot about my target audience in terms of the type of bands they like to see in magazines and their favourite sub-genres of rock, this helped me select bands and create bands to feature in my magazine that I knew would appeal to the audience. If I could make changes to my final product I would change some of the fonts and use more different types of images.