Evaluation: How does your media product represent social groups?

Throughout this Prezi evaluation I have demonstrated an understanding for the representation of the various social groups throughout my music magazine, and have gone into more in depth detail about the various sub topics throughout the entirety of the Prezi presentation.

Evaluation- Looking Back at your Preliminary Task, what have you learnt in the progression to your full product?

In this video that I have produced, I am discussing my preliminary task concerning a a sixth form magazine. My general knowledge and magazine making skills has come on leaps and bounds since the start of the AS course, and in the video below- I discuss that in further detail and eloquence, and explain how I have improved as a producer over the duration of the course.

Evaluation- How does your media product represent social groups?

This is my prezi presentation how my specific media product (my music magazine) represented the wide variety of social groups that my music magazine would potentially include/involve. In my Prezi I have gone into depth about how my magazine brought these different factors such as race, gender, class, age and rock/goth stereotypes.

Evaluation- Who would be the ideal audience for your media product?

Evaluation- What have you learnt about technology from constructing your media product?

Evaluation- What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

I believe that IPC Media Publications would distribute my media product, as they distribute one of my favourite music magazines NME, which is also one of the magazines closest to the magazine that I have produced myself. They distribute a lot of different magazines, from Homes and Gardens to Amateur Photographer and right back round to Golf Monthly. Although they distribute over 60 iconic brands onto our shelves, there is only one magazine which they decide to distribute, and that is NME. As there is a big ratio between the non-music and music magazines that they distribute, (and as there are hardly any music magazines published by them) - it is a perfect opportunity to get my magazine published as there is a prevalent gap in the market.


 With IPC media targeting 2/3 of UK women and over 40% of UK men and with it’s fairly equal balance between the sexes reading their magazines I believe that my magazine ‘Amped Up!’ would slot nicely into its distributing sector. The target audience for my magazine is between the ages of 15 years to 25 years, classing that selection of people into the ‘young adult’ to ‘older adult’ age range, and because of this (and the wide variety between the different types of magazines IPC Media Publications produces) my magazine would fit nicely into the selection of magazines that IPC offer. Quoted on the IPC Media site, under the NME section, they state “NME.COM is the world's biggest standalone music site serving an intensely engaged audience of 16-24 year-olds.” From looking and analysing this statement it is clear that NME engage and overall target audience which is extremely similar to the group of people which I’m aiming for (give or take the year or so gap). This supports the idea that because NME caters for such a similar target audience, it would benefit the wide distribution and overall income of my media product, if it is proven that NME is the “longest published and most respected music weekly in the world” with over “1.1 million music fans every week”. With the obvious wide spread audience via its magazine and website, with such a massive following, it would only highly benefit my media product ‘Amped Up!’, and potentially gather the same kind of audience for my magazine. Also, as NME is a magazine targeted at a specific genre of music, which is very similar to mine, and it has built up such a massive following by avid music magazine readers, that if ‘Amped Up!’ was to ‘arrive onto the scene’ (as it were), that the pre-existing ‘fans/readers’ of NME would somehow latch onto my media product- knowing that they would enjoy it when they discover it is a music magazine similar to the one that they are previously a fan of.


 I believe, with this in mind, IPC would be the best media distributor suited to my individual magazine. With the gap in the market for my magazine (knowing that they only distribute one music magazine from the 60+ that they distribute overall), and it being of a similar style to ‘Amped Up’ as well, that IPC Media Publications would be more inclined to distributing my magazine if they know that something similar that they work with is respected extremely highly from a vast number of physical and online fans. If IPC was to distribute my product, I believe that eventually the large amount of success from NME would only be mirrored in my magazine, if it carried on from the success of the music magazines that they distribute- in turn amounting to enormous profit, national/global success, a great mass following of music magazine readers, with a passion for the world of rock/alternative bands and the atmosphere encapsulated within that particular genre.

NME Magazine - IPC Media Publications - £2.40 (per issue)

 

Home & Gardens - IPC Media Publications - £3.90 (per issue)

Amateur Photographer - IPC Media Publications - £2.75 (per issue) 

Golf Monthly- IPC Media Publications - £4.30 (per issue)

Evauation- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?

2nd Draft- Music Magazine

These are my second drafts for my music magazine, I have made some small changes to it after I recieved feedback from my earlier draft, and I am still aware the more improvements are to be made for it to become a successful music magazine (cover, contents and double page spread).

Improvements on cover: For my cover I have decided to change the text of the articles on the right hand side of the magazine, changing the position of them also, as to make it look nice on the eye. I have decided to add a cover line to the front cover also, which says "THE BEST ELECTRTIC GUITAIRS ON THE MARKET", relating to one of the articles inside. The use of a cover line on the front cover will add interest to the cover itself, and be one of the reasons why someone would be drawn to it on a shelf.

Improvements on contents: On the contents page I have enlarged my title more as to try and fill up some of the blank space (as this was an issue which frequently arose when I was given my feedback), I have also changed the page numbers on the contents, leaving a bigger margin between each. This is to give an illusion that there are 40 pages or more in the magazine itself, contrary to the 20 I was advertising previously. The increased number of pages is also, now, more representitive of the price that I was aiming to sell my magazine at realistically. On the cover I have specified that I will be selling my music magazine (Amped Up!) at £2.99, and when I recieved the feedback, I was told that for the number of pages there was in the magazine, £2.99 was too dear. Since then I have "added" 20 more pages to it, so you would be getting more 'bang for your buck'- as it were.

Improvements on my double page spread: The double page spread itself has received some improvents since feedback was last made on the magazine as a whole. I have spread the title across the double pages as to make it look more professional (and to add more interest to the spread itself). From doing so I have repositioned the text (interview) slightly so it, again, would look more pleasing on the eye. Throughout the past couple of weeks I have attempted to wrap the text around the picture, but it has been unsucessful as far, though I plan to figure out how to do this in the coming weeks, thus to improve it even further.

Media Studies Coursework: Update

This week during our media studies coursework lessons we have been improving our magazine from our teachers suggestions. The main improvement which needs to be made for my magazine is to minimise the blank spaces, and fill it with either text or pictures. As I have already taken pictures of people, the main area of pictures that I need to work on is of props that relate to my magazine and articles. During the week I have been planning out which props I will be taking a picture of, and reevaluating certain aspects of my magazine such as price etc.

Music Magazine: What did they think?

For one of our tasks we had to "interrogate" a couple of people from our specific target audience on camera, and ask them what they initially thought of all aspects of my music magazine, and see what could be improved overall. From this video I took away that I needed to add more pictures where appropriate to fill the blank spaces, that I could include some sort of information about the artist 'The Dashing Racqueteers' on my double page spread, and to include more text in certain places on my magazine. I will definitely take these into account, and when working on the magazine in the next few weeks I will be sure to make improvements from the feedback I've got today.