Hannah HenryCandidate Number: 2466Centre: 33435 Aquinas College

AS Media StudiesOCR G321 Foundation Portfolio

Q1) Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q1The demographic for my product would be people who are quite mainstream, like popular chart music, high street shops like Topshop and River Island and enjoy food at well known fast food restaurants.

I aimed my

magazine at:

Influenced by

Girls

Who shop at:

And spend money on:

Live in the UK

Enjoy festivals/gigs

Enjoy current pop

Q1

Older teens

Q1

My magazine is similar and influenced mainly by Top of the Pops magazine as they both have the same teen girl audience, however my magazine is aimed at the older teen girl as I feel that there is a gap in the market for a pop magazine for older teen girls.

Q1Sub- genres and hybrid publications

When I carried out my research, I found that there were a lot of music magazines and a lot of fashion magazines separately for teens for example Teen Vogue however there were not many that combined music and high street fashion together for females in there late teens.

Q1Top of the Pops magazine uses a lot of bright feminine colours representing that this magazine is specifically aimed at girls.

However, even though Top of the Pops aims its magazine at young teens, they do sometimes try to attract an older audience with boy/romance features.

Mainly pop music related features.

Q2) How does your media product

represent particular social groups?

Q2

To attract my correct target audience, my star needs to be an inspiration and popular with the general public to appeal to many. She must be mainstream and non-threatening.

I wanted my cover star to look happy and like she was having fun when I photographed her by smiling and laughing as this fit in with the style of the magazine and also with the feature about her. My star wore a white jumper to match my pink and blue theme with a fashionable statement necklace.

Q2On the following slides I will show how Selena Gomez, a celebrity that appeals highly to my audience as someone to look up to can filter their appearance depending on the audience.

Q2Selena Gomez in Wizards of Waverly Place, a TV programme on Disney for children.

• Selena is dressed younger than she actually is and is covered up with appropriate clothing, she is wearing some plain trainers which show she is not completely girlie in this show.

• She has demure body language and is posing on the set of the programme and is looking into the camera with a positive smiley expression.

• She wears a clip in her middle length layered hair to show off her childish character.

• Selena is wearing a necklace, bangles and ring that show off her characters unique personality.

• Natural make-up.

Q2Selena Gomez in Spring Breakers, an 18 rated film.

• Shorter messy hair to create an older, sophisticated look

• Visible make up• Direct mode of address with the camera,

however Selena creates a pouty, moody look.

• Bikini top and hand placement is overtly sexual.

• Single silver ring on one finger reminds us of the good girl she can be and is unique as it is the only piece of jewellery that she is wearing.

Even though Selena Gomez is a role model for many teen girls she can dress and act differently depending upon the audience that she is entertaining. She would never wear just a bikini top for a teen magazine cover or something that was aimed at children. Likewise Selena Gomez would not wear an outfit of a young character she plays while advertising the Spring Breakers film or while promoting her music.

Q2

Q3)What kind of media institution might

distribute your media product and why?

Q3

I will promote my magazine Replay by its own Instagram page.

I will create an application available for iPhone and android phones where readers can get extra pop gossip.

ReplayMag

Megan Peet 2013 Festival pictures

First see videos right here!

I also created a Tumblr page for my magazine.

Q3

Welcome to another super-cool issue of Replay, packed with fabulous music, fun and the famous. Miley Cyrus, Tanya Burr and One Direction - how much would we like a day hanging out with them?

Check out our exclusive interview with Megan Peet and find out what happened between her and Justin and why she’s on the road to success.

You’ll also be in with the chance of winning VIP tickets to see Conor Maynard and you’ll get receive the best beauty tips to make sure you’re looking stunning this January.

We’d love to hear what you think! TWEET US @ReplayMag

Replay website:

Twitter link

The brand identity and logoExtra features available online

Front cover of magazine shown on website to encourage people to buy it who may just be browsing the site.

Further information about what's inside the magazine

Q3I would advertise my magazine on pop concert tickets to inform people attending the concert (who like pop) of the magazine.

Q4) In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

The brand of magazine that I used most to influence my music magazine was Top of the Pops because I know this magazine from when I was younger. I also felt that Top of the Pops aimed its magazine at a similar audience to me, teen girls. Top of the Pops is very popular and as well it was the same pop music genre that I was going for.

Q4

Front cover:I like Top of the Pops because it uses many of the conventions of a pop music magazine that you would expect, the front cover is always very busy and bright which attracts its target audience.

Brand identity

Secondary Images

Main image

Pug

Barcode/issue number/price

Pull quote

Masthead

Banner

Q4

Q4I followed many of the same universal front cover conventions of a pop magazine as Top of the Pops did: bright colours, fun fonts, different shapes and a happy direct mode of address main image. However my product did not have as many secondary images on the front page as I was aiming for a slightly older teen girl, I thought that a tidier front cover would be suited better as its more sophisticated.

Q4

I modelled my masthead on the Top of the Pops one as I thought it was really good and different. The star shape was something that I kept running throughout my magazine and I think that it worked really effectively. My masthead is all in capitals which I think looks slightly more professional and my font isn’t as rounded yet it still comes across very teen girl with the bright neon colour.

I also used a banner, similar to one from Top of the Pops to advertise features that were within the magazine with secondary images.

Q4

Both main images are similar on these products, with a happy smiling girl using direct mode of address by looking straight into the camera, the girl from Top of the Pops magazine has bright make-up on, however my model is quite natural which again shows off the more sophisticated side of the magazine. Also even though the girl on the front cover of Top of the Pops is smiling her pull quote is negative, this doesn’t reflect her image however the pull quote on my media product reflects the models happy, smiley mood.

Something that really caught my eye about this front cover was the triangle shape advertising the main feature of the magazine and captioning the main image, I felt that this would bring pop onto my front cover personally as this is quite a girlie bright feature that you wouldn’t see on a rock or indie magazine.

Q4Contents Page:

I took inspiration for my contents page again from Top of the Pops magazine. I felt like they had a good layout that I could use also however they use a busy page I kept mine more structured and neat.

Q4

On my contents page I included a banner informing the reader that they were on the contents page, this is what top of the pops usually do. I also placed it at the top of the page so that it would be the first thing the reader would see.

On my contents page I used a picture of main feature star as the main, biggest image. As this would be the article people would be most interested in so they would want to find it quickly, I also captioned my main image and secondary images with page numbers so that people could go to the page they are interested in quickly.

Q4Double page spread:

I wanted my double page spread to be sleek and sophisticated to reflect on the personality of my star.

Q4

I only used one main image on my double page spread and I photographed my star having fun

Q5) How did you attract/address your

audience?

Q5How I attracted my audience:

To attract my target audience I ensured that I included all of the conventions of a pop magazine:• A bold and bright masthead that stands out

on the page, in the eye line of the reader. Also the masthead usually has a name to do with music “Top of the Pops” or “Billboard”

• The main image is attractive and friendly with direct mode of address. The image also follows the rule of thirds.

• The front cover of the magazine is very busy with many features and shapes. The cover line anchors the main image.

• The colour scheme throughout the magazine is appealed to the target gender.

• The price of the magazine is cheap which makes it affordable for teens.

Q5How I addressed my audience:

My main star was always photographed having fun and looking happy, this addressed my target audience and also as she was of a similar age this made her more attractive.Her story speaks about positivity, happiness and successful new starts which is very encouraging for teenage girls as an inspiration.

I spoke informatively to my audience but also friendly and aimed at my target gender

Q6)What have you learnt about technologies from

the process of constructing this

product?

Q6

While taking my front cover photographs of Megan I learnt how to use the digital DSLR camera, the green screen and the lights. Using these items ensured that our photographs were professional and suitable for our front covers, following the rule of thirds.

Q6For our audience research we did questionnaires upon the general public to see what popular trends there was currently. Instead of going out and taking these surveys face to face, we created an online questionnaire on a free website called Survey Monkey.

To ensure I received a good enough number of responses I posted a link of my survey onto my Twitter account.

Q6Another type of technology we used while creating this product was ‘BlogSpot’ we created a blog where we could post all of our work, so that we could access it from home and also so that our teacher could keep on track of our work too.

The blog was easy to use and set my work out clearly with all of my drafts and final products.

Q7)Looking back at your preliminary task (Aquinas College

magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression

to the full product?

Q7I feel that the Aquinas magazine helped me prepare for the creation of

my music magazine. I learnt about the basic conventions of a music magazine however for my magazine I went into further depth with the hybrid- genre codes. I had more influences to study for pop music that helped me build up the structure of my front cover, contents page and

double page spread.

Q7In the Aquinas magazine we used digital cameras to take our front cover pictures whereas in our music magazine we used a digital DSLR camera and background. We edited both of our images on photoshop, however I had more practice using the programme for my music magazine.

You can tell that Megan has been posed more and her image fits better on the page rather than the casual smaller photo of Elliot.

Q7I think that my masthead has improved a lot because on my Aquinas magazine I created my masthead on the publisher programme so there was only a limited amount of font choices however for my music magazine I was able to create my masthead on photoshop so that I could incorporate shapes into it and have a wider range of colours to suit my magazine as well as many more fonts. My music magazine masthead is bright so it stands out much more than the Aquinas magazine one and it is also a word that fits with the music theme. Before I created my final masthead I did some trial fonts, this is something that I did not do when creating my Aquinas magazine.

Q7My secondary images from my music magazine front cover were more structured and fit the page better making it look more professional.

On both of my magazine front covers I used a shape to draw attention to my magazine. However the one on my music magazine was a lot more eye catching and suited the theme.