Evaluation of the Music Magazine

By: Pedro Simoes

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

The ways in which my music magazine uses, develops and challenges forms of conventions in real media products is by having the masthead of the magazine in big bold rich letters which stand out from the crowd, also my use of the photos with the polaroid frame make my music magazine different from other music magazines in the market at the moment.

The use of outer glow in my main articles makes it stand out, the article attracts more the customers to it as the text is bold with a white glow around. I did not use a drop cap in my magazine for the reason that I felt that it was not really necessary, there were other ways that I could attract my target audience to buy the music magazine.

The use of ad- features and just adds in general that I used in the music magazine that I created were in the contents page and editorial for the reason that I wanted to

How does my magazine represent a particular social group?

The front cover of my music magazine has the main article which let’s the readers know what is featured in my magazine; the image of the front cover instead of having a band has a solo artist as my research showed that the target audience that I am aiming at prefers solo artist rather than a group music band.

The way in which I have represented my solo artist in my music magazine is by having the music artist covering nearly the whole page so it attracts more people to the magazine. The ways that the photographs of my magazine in general and special of the solo artist show a constructed representation of my solo artist that I featured in the magazine is by having him meeting the fans.

The use of pull quotes in my magazine and the written copy reinforce the representation of the solo artist in my magazine for the reason that the writing bit is a interview that was done by a journalist from the magazine “EDGE” and it basically talks about the artist, how he started and progressed with his music career to get where he is.

What kind of music institution might distribute your magazine and why?

The kind of music institution that could distribute my magazine is “Issue” for the reason that issue’s website is free meaning anyone can sign up for it and access the magazines without paying. As well as it would be free for me to upload my magazine and have it their for an unlimited amount of time so my readers would be able to access it as they would please.

Issue is very simple and easy to navigate and it is even possible that a company like IPC or Bauer Media might see the magazine and would want to take me on to use their company and resources to publish it out in the market in paper.

http://issuu.com/

Who would be the target audience for the music magazine?

The target audience for my magazine would be females between the ages of 17 and 18 for the reason that these two ages were the ones with the strongest responses on my survey.

The type of music that my magazine aims at is mainstream music for the reason that it was the most popular in the research for the music magazine.

Audience Feedback

The audience feedback that I got from the research that I did for my music magazine was the factor that most people liked about my magazine was the photographs and the layout however the thing that people thought that I could improved was the colour of the font and the background. What I can gather from this research is that most people that buy music magazines don’t like the colour green.

In terms of the navigation and the layout that my magazine most of the people that done my survey found that it was easy to navigate because of the line separating each article.

Audience Feedback

From the survey that I did was about my music magazine I found out that about only 80% more or less would buy my magazine for the reason that some people don’t buy music magazines at all; this is the reason I mention before that I would publish my music magazine on issue since its free and easy to access.

For the reason that a few people mention that there could have been a some things improved on the magazine the style/layout/photographs and the genre of music suits my magazine some people didn’t agree that it works well together which meant that the overall rate went down to “good”.

What have I learned about technologies?

While I was doing my music magazine I did research to know more about my target audience and what the readers wanted my magazine to have, I did a few survey and also a focus group video. For me to get as many responses possible I posted the surveys on my Facebook and twitter account so it would be easier for people access surveys, this one a method of using participator cultures.Also I used my blog to have the photographs of the magazine when I sent out the last survey for the evaluation of the magazine as well as posting all my work that I did throughout the year. What I learned about using these three social networks was that they are excellent to interact with other people and communicate.

What I learned about Photoshop was how to use it into more depth for example how to add the masthead to the magazine. The two print screen show the progress however I will go into more detail when I do my skill development.

What have I learned in general since I started my music magazine project?

Looking at the front covers for example I would say that I have improved a great deal for the reason that I added and took out bits that did not fit in within the content of my magazine well, also I improved a few photos to make them suit my music magazine stand more from the crowd.On the production skills I felt that I have improved on during the progress of my magazine are on the layout of a magazine and how the articles, photographs and contents should be positioned as well as how a magazine works in terms to attract the readers .This year doing AS Level Media Studies has taught me a great deal about the production industry of magazine specially music magazines since that was the project that I just done but also about what people actually want to see and read in a magazine. In terms of coming back next year to do A2 Level Media Studies I would really like too since it was enjoyable to create two magazines and a CD album cover I wonder what Media Studies has in store next year.