1. Media Evaluation By Aisha Clarke

2. Q1) In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products? My media product (music magazine) uses a lot layout features and representational features of the magazine “RWD”. In that Magazine they would use a predominant dark coloured back ground with eye catching or stand out font to show that grime is like an underground type of music but has its controversial sides. It also attracts young people as its aimed at quite a young aged target audience as my magazine is. My magazine develops quite a few conventions of a real media product as it has a lot of similar aspects to it like the selection of items inside the magazine like an interview of an artist, latest gossip on what's happening in the industry, promotional items etc. It challenges a lot of conventions of real media products as it shows both sides of arguments but at times the majority of media products have a 1 sided view which will position the reader to have a premade idea in there head.

3. Q2) How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups? My media product does represent youth culture from 14 to about late 20’s early 30’s. I feel I represented the group as being quite loud and independent and I positioned my audience in a way that isn't completely biased but mostly positive things are presented so it would give the reader a positive mind set and not take the other factors into account (if any). I think I did reinforce stereotypes because I did have mostly black people representing grime music. Also I did stereotypical formats and layouts of the magazine as it typical that it would have bright fonts and big lettering in graffiti and also cliché poses. The audience my perceive things either way but they would more likely thing positively about youth culture and grime music as that’s what represented.

4. Q3) What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why? The type of institution that would distribute my product would be a publishing company that publishes niche market type of magazines like, guitar magazines, classical, bashment etc. Grime/UK Music would be in that segment as it doesn’t have as much of and audience as other popular musical styles have therefore it would be only distributed in “urbanised” areas in the UK like London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. I think that the publishers Future would be ideal as it does niche market products like Future Music, Classic Rock, Revolver etc. Also they will do cross media promotion for the product like a website, then it could advance on to radio like “NME” have. They could also make offer platforms for people to purchase.

5. Q4) Who Would be the Audience for Your Media Product? Under the “SOCS” (Standard Occupation Classification System) my audience would C1 to E band people. I did this range of people because the age roughly in these groups are quite young which is ideal for the type of genre of my music my magazine is portraying. The age of the majority of artists in UK music are quite young as the genre of music is quite new and recent compared to other genres of music especially, grime, UK hip hop etc. Also people that are young and need to know where they are going or inspiration then this magazine could cater to them as grime can be stereotyped as negative and boisterous to some and can show young people that they can take a better approach to life. Statistics show that black teenage and young adults are more likely to not be in education by the age of 14. The majority of artists in this genre of music were in this situation and it would be a more realistic role model for them to look up to, to show that they can do something in life. Also I made the SOCS quite broad so that more people would be able to buy my magazine. Also if I targeted it for more “upper class” people they probably wouldn’t buy the magazine as it wouldn’t be of any interest to them.

6. Q5) How Did You Attract /Address Your Audience? I felt that they way I attracted my audience was by the layouts and colours I used and the pictures and language I used. I Think I used layouts to attract/address my audience by make thinks look different, new and unconventional to cater for the younger market because if I did conventional layouts, the audience might not be drawn to it when they look at it because if it doesn’t appeal to them, they aren’t gonna look at it. I used colours that are stereotypically known as “urban” colours like purple, gold, blue etc. I also chose bright colours as young mostly where bright colours and are attracted to bright colours, with age they tone down. I used pictures to attract the audience by making them do certain poses to appeal to young people like outlandish and controversial poses because while your young its all about making a statement. I used language to attract my audience by using words and phrases they can relate to so the didn’t find the extracts and text’s boring and bland.

7. Q6) What Have You Learnt About Technology From the Process of Constructing this Product? I learnt so much about technology from the process of the construction of the magazine. First of all we used the internet to access a lot of the things. We used search engines to research and compare existing magazines and information using search engines which took us to various website and web pages to get all the relevant information we need. Next we started to learn how to use the programme “InDesign” which is a designing/publishing software package which allowed to us to create, modify and edit various parts of our magazine like pictures, text, the layout etc. Then we learn how to use digital SLR cameras to take picture with. At first it was quite hard as it was the first time I used the camera for proper photography. Then we learnt about the blog site which was the place we put up all of our work to show the teachers & examiners what progress and work that we done to achieve our final product. We also learnt hoe to use “Photoshop” if we wanted more intricate design ore modifying tools.

8. Q7) Looking Back at the Preliminary Task, What do You Feel You Have Learnt in the Progression From it to the Final Product? I feel that I have progressed phenomenally as looking back at the preliminary task, the photo for the front cover was quite blurred as I didn’t get the full technique of using the camera. But on the final product, you can see that the outcome looks so much better. Also, I didn’t know how to use any of the software packages comfortably so the layout and where things were placed weren’t as good as the final product. I wasn’t sure how to make colours as well as so the colours were a bit drab compared to the final product and I didn’t know how to use the effects correctly as well. I wasn’t too sure how the blog worked either as I was quite confused on how to upload everything on there so things took a bit of time to get on there. In the preliminary task I wasn’t too clear how to address my audience via the way the page was presented compared to the final media product. Also I learn how to export and import fonts and different styles to magazine whereas in the preliminary magazine I wasn’t too sure how to get the picture in a full bleed very well. Overall I think as the stages progressed I think I learnt and understood the whole concept of the magazine more and learnt how to develop ideas and portray them in a certain way to others and how to use a various amount of software packages, cameras and blog space.