In which way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convention forms of real media products?I felt that one of the most important things to me was making my product unique for the audience whilst still following the conventions of a real magazine. From my research I made sure that my magazine has generic conventions of a music magazine. The image in a front cover magazine is usually a mid-shot or a close up. I have done research on the types of clothing and accessories used in music magazines. From my research and planning, I discovered that the music magazines that I looked at had a barcode in front of the magazine, and I have also included that in my own magazine. They also use a big, main image in the double page spread to distinguish who the article is based on and it is then usually followed by a quote. Drop cap is definitely something that is frequently used in double page-spread magazines that help break up texts. The headlines in the double page spreads are usually amusing and eye-catching to attract the audiences attention. The texts in the double page spread are always organised in columns. They always have a colour scheme in every double page spread that go well together which is what I have in my magazine, and I have made sure that all of these were presented clearly on my magazine. Therefore I believe that my magazine does fit into a conventional form of media products. The title for my Music magazine is called ‘we love r&b’. This makes the audience feel as if the magazine is personal to them. The headphones on my heart is a showing the audience that the magazine is about music.

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Although my magazine is inspired by the conventions of a pop music magazine, from my observation, young teenage girls enjoy reading pop magazines, which means that I would be attracting them to the magazine.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?My media product represents the social group of young feminine teenage girls that enjoy r&b music and gossip. I represented this by including two females in my r&b magazine that are dressed up in a stereotypical r&b female costume. Which included large, eye-catching jewellery and pretty outfits. I believe that I have met all aspects of an rnb music magazine. I have put in styles/fashion which young feminine girls enjoy to see, but still putting my main focus on music. I believe that the age of my main person in my front cover would have affected my target audience. The fact that I have presented a young female in my music magazine would have attracted young females. If I decided to have chosen an older female then I could have attracted an older audience which would have stopped me from succeeding in terms of attracting my particular target audience. The choice of colours is definitely important. The fact that my target audience is feminine means that I would use colours such as pinks, blues, silvers and whites in my front cover rather than dull colours. In my questionnaire responses, those were the colours that were most popular amongst my audience. rnb music is widely popular to black British and black American’s. The fact that I have included mixed/black British artists in my magazine would target the correct audience to my music magazine.

What kind of media Institutions might distribute your media product and why?Twitter is used amongst many young people in today’s generation, so this would catch my target audience’s attention. Magazine apps on phones, laptops, iPads, and computers would also be a huge factor for the distribution of my media product due to the fact that many young people these days have a device which would mean that they would enjoy reading something on the phones rather than buying something. I have also made up a website on my magazine which could mean that is a way that my magazine would promote itself. Facebook could be also be used, although it is not a site which teenagers use a lot today. But creating pages and promoting it to different people would influence people to buy my magazine. The magazine could be published on ‘bestdaily,’ which is one of UK’s most popular, and biggest music magazine companies. This would attract more people into buying the magazine if it is published on a well-known brand.

Who would be my target audience and how did I attract them?As stated previously in my other questions, my target audience would obviously be for young, feminine teenage girls that enjoy listening to r&b music as well as keeping up to date with the latest gossip and the newest fashion. I have chosen this target audience because I believe this is the age and gender where most people would be more likely to listen to rnb music. As well as that r&b music is significantly popular with young teenagers. I am interested in r&b music myself so It made it easier for me to create my magazine as I can relate to it myself. My contents page heading is ‘check inside’ in bold italics, which persuades the audience to turn the page and read inside the magazine. On the contents page there are short stories which tell us what the article is going to be about but it does not reveal all the information. This would mean that the audience would be more excited to buy and read the magazine as they would be intrigued to find out more .The fact that at the bottom of the page it says ‘chance to win’ as well saying it on the front cover, it encourages people to turn the page and buy the magazine. If I had to change or done things differently, it would be to spend more time looking at more existing music magazines to help me get inspired for my own. I have produced 3 articles based on 3 celebrities lives, and two have ‘question and answers’ which is based on their personal lives. I have also

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing have you learnt?I have developed and learned new skills in the media department. One skill I have learnt was time management. I have developed an understanding on how important it is to dedicate certain amount of times into different areas in my media work. For example, I found out that I spent more time on my articles compared to my front cover. It also made me highlight my strengths and weaknesses. My strength is that I am able to write a lot and come up with different cover stories, which enabled me to produce more than one article. My weaknesses are using the correct fonts and styles following through all my articles. I have also learnt about the site ‘blogger’ which is where all my work would be distributed. I didn’t know anything about the site blogger before I had to put my coursework on it. I have developed an understanding about how the music magazine journalists work. I have also downloading fonts from font book to use on my magazine. This been an interesting aspect because I have never used it before. Google docs was very important to me because it allowed me to access my document whenever I am at home, to complete my work. It also helped me to check if my article was grammatically correct due to the fact that InDesign does not have a spell checker.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?I have learnt many things from my preliminary task. I have learnt how to structure out a template for a music magazine. When I had to design a front cover for my preliminary task, and I had absolutely no idea how to use indesign and I was completely unaware on the structure of a magazine, which led to my magazine looking strange. I have definitely improved a lot from my music magazine. I have also learnt how to use Photoshop; I learnt how to adjust the lighting in pictures and how to crop out the background. Furthermore I have learnt how to airbrush pictures to get rid of any blemishes/imperfections.My photography skills have definitely improved. I was unaware how to professionally take pictures at first, but the more I spent time taking pictures, the better I got at it. My skills improved by learning how to focus on the camera lens to take best quality pictures, as well as knowing how to make them fit into the frame of the picture. I have also learnt how lighting affects the quality of pictures dramatically, which I did not know before. The first few pictures I took, I realised that my shadow was in the way. So I was advised to use a tripod lamp, which had a positive effect to my pictures because my shadow was no longer in the way, which meant that my picture quality ended up really good.

This picture above as explained the improvement in my photography skills. You can tell that I have established different angles, and the effect of the lightening in pictures. The picture on the left was ruined because of my shadow, so I was able to fix that buy using a lamp.