1. Who would be the target audience
for my media magazine?
Nothing has really changed with regard to my target audience. It is just a revamped magazine to give
it a more professional look. The target audience remains 15 to 60! This is because I have a wide range
of music from different eras – ERA. The name of my magazine tells it all.
Having a wide age range it gives me a lot larger audience to aim at and gives me the opportunity to
include within my magazine a wide range of bands and music.
Traditionally my audience would be stereotypically as quite easy going and quite eccentric with their
fashion.

2. How does my media product
represent particular social groups?
As the social group I have tried to attract is quite a wide range of ages
but all with a similar taste for music of rock, indie and ‘mod’ music.
The way I’ve gone about attracting a wide age group even with the
big age difference is by mixing old and modern rock together
involving all sorts of bands all with a retro feel and sound. I’ve
shown a lot of signs of patriotism of with the repetition of the
colours; red, white and blue which symbolize both Great Britain and
America as they are the colours that make up flag and the vast
majority of the music within my magazine is from these countries.
I have demonstrated that the magazine can also be for women as the
artist on my front cover is a woman. I believe this was quite a useful
tool as women will feel they do have an involvement within the
magazine but also the female on the front is very attractive so it
may also attract male attention.

3. Who would publish my magazine and
why?
Bauer media group is a private European publishing group. They are a subsidiary label involving
both magazines, TV and radio. They have produced many well known and successful
magazines such as Q, Kerrang and Heat. I decided to use this company for distributing my
music magazine as I feel my magazine can relate to many of their current products such as
Kerrang and Q. As the music within their magazines is very similar to mine they will have
good existing knowledge of their target audience and how exactly how to produce, advertise
and distribute my project.
If Bauer was to distribute my magazine I would also aim to do the same as they have for Kerrang
as Kerrang have got their own radio station and music channel on TV. That can be used as an
outlet to their audience for all their music, this will create a greater brand name and image as
a lot more people that don’t usually read magazines will hear of the brand. It will also enable
me to aim straight at my target market as playing the music within the magazine people may
start to like the radio channel or TV programme and this may tempt them to buy the
magazine also

4. How did you attract/address your
audience?
Before I started my magazine I conducted a small demographic of just 2
people, 1 boy 1 girl who I believe would be my target audience to create a
mental picture of what they would like.
One technique I used to try attract my Another way I have tried to attract my audience is
audience was by using a sell line. Within by really expressing the fact that with the
this sell line I have included a quote from magazine you get 10 free songs. This will really
an interview within the magazine from a interest customers so to make it really stand out I
very famous and recognizable character have put it in a bright red circle so it’s very eye
from the music which my magazine is catching and I have also put ‘FREE’ at the top in
based around. big, bold writing to catch attention as everyone
loves free stuff
The final way I have tried to attract my audience is by using an
extract which will be very appealing to a lot of my audience
showing there is an exclusive interview with them so people will
be very enticed to see what they have to say.

5. What have I learnt about technologies
during the making of my media product?
• During the making of my media product I have used and learnt a lot about different types of
technologies and how they can be used to benefit you. Throughout my magazine I have used
several different technologies available on the computer to help create such as Photoshop
elements 5.0, Microsoft PowerPoint/publisher and the internet using many different websites such
as www.picnik.com and www.dafont.com . The main software I used for the creation of my
magazine was Microsoft PowerPoint. I have used this software as I believe it is the easiest and also
the best for the making of my magazine due to the diversity of different things you can do on there
such as from simply writing to adding pictures and changing everything about them to how I
specifically want them. I used both Photoshop and www.picnik.com to edit, crop and enhance my
photos, I used Photoshop to manipulate my photo removing the background of my image so I could
then add my duel image of the mod symbol for example on my front cover. In order to firstly get my
photos I used a Nikon digital. I found the use of this camera very useful for the making of my
magazine and I don’t really know where Id be without it! As the camera was very high megapixel it
enabled me to get quality pictures giving the picture a professional look. I found the internet very
useful as there was plenty of useful tools on there to really get the most out of my media product
but also it was really helpful for research as there were many examples of professional music
magazines already made to give me ideas on what to do on my magazine. Overall the use of
technology throughout my magazine has really helped me get through it and without that I believe
my finished product would of been of a much lower standard

7. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or change the codes and
conventions of real media products
Within my front cover I have stuck to codes and conventions to a certain extent by using things such
as a main cover photo, masthead, sell line and barcodes. I also feel I have added my own twist by
adding an iconic signifier in the background of the royal air force symbol which has been adopted to
the sign for ‘mods’ who take up quite a bit of my target audience so having this signifier in the
background it will catch their eyes immediately encouraging them to buy the magazine.
From my research I found that most music magazines
include a sell line usually involving something involved
in the magazine so I chose to adopt this into my
magazine to create a realism to my magazine. I also did
this with my masthead as not a single magazine I seen
was without a masthead as no one would be able to
tell what magazine it was so I tried to imitate the
masthead used by NME as I feel as soon as you look at
the magazine it grabs your eye so you know straight
away what magazine. For example, I found from my
research 50-70% of magazine buys are spontaneous so
if your magazine doesn’t stand out it’s unlikely it will be
bought.

8. The first thing I noticed about nearlly
every music magazine such as Q or NME
that right the top there is always the
magazines logo as well as heading
saying ‘contents’ and the date or issue
number of the magazine. Yet again I
tried to use this feature to give the a
sense of realism to it.
I also noticed that the majority them used columns to give the page a crisp look and
making it easier on the eye and easier to read for the buyer so I also used this convention.
Another convention that I followed was the use of subheadings, I done this by breaking up
the different types of articles for example I have used ‘News’ and ‘Features’. Similarly to
columns this makes the page much easier to read as people can see exactly they’re after
instead of having to read through the whole list of what’s in the magazine.
How I did break conventions slightly with the use of 2 pictures as most magazine I
researched only used one picture. I did this as from the research I conducted I found one
of the main reasons people buy magazines is just to simply look at pictures so I tried to
match what people like by including 2 pictures.

9. In terms of conventions I feel have followed the common ones such as; columns, main
picture, headings/subheadings and also an advertisement for the artist promoting their
facebook and twitter so people can find out their latest tour dates, albums etc...
Yet again the use of columns has been used to keep the page neat and easy to read for the
reader.
Lots of magazines I seen included interviews with artists as well as a outline of the artist so I
decided also to do this to create a realism to my product.
The use of questions and answers may prove interesting for readers as fans of the artist
may have plenty of questions they want to ask them so they may be able to find the answer
out through the questions asked.

10. However I have gone against conventions slightly by instead of using the name of the
artist for the heading I have given the artist a nickname, in my magazine I have
named the artist ‘The outsider’. I done this as if ERA was to be a real magazine this
would be a regular thing having an interview with an artist and giving them all
nicknames of where they and ERA feel they are within the music industry.
I have also added the magazines logo as well to give the magazine continuity which I
have not seen in any other magazines.
Overall I feel I have followed codes and conventions fairly well with lots of the
techniques used but also I have done a good job with adding a bit of a twist and
my own touch to it to give it a bit more charcater.

11. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression from
it to the full product?
My original task was to create a sixth form magazine. From this I used my experience to help
produce my music magazine

12. When I first started my 6th form magazine I was new to media and creating magazines etc so I never really had
much clue on what to do, I firstly started off by doing some research on other magazines looking at the
codes and conventions of what most magazines include to get an idea of what was needed to do but I as I
got further into the task I realised I hadn’t done enough. My magazine looked very amateur and lacked
continuity throughout.
The first thing I felt I had to improve on was colour continuity. On my 6th magazine there was no continuity so I
chose to have a common theme so I used a lot of red, white and blue within the magazine on the grey
background. Using these colours it made my magazine stand out a lot more making it vibrant compared to
my school magazine which I felt was very dull.
Also on my 6th form magazine I don’t feel I experimented enough with fonts, in the end I used a very boring and
‘proper’ not making it look inviting whereas it’s meant to be friendly and inviting as it’s giving advice.
From my mistakes, in my music magazines I used a lot more ‘bubbly’ writing making it appealing and
giving it this sense of fun which ‘rock n roll’ is all about. The colour of font I used also on my front cover of
my 6th form magazine was black which yet again didn’t seem inviting so the use of red, white and blue
gives it character and warmth.
Another aspect which I didn’t really capitalise on was the technology available. For my pictures I applied no
edits. This was a big problem in my contents page of my preliminary task I tried to get rid of the
background but only half of it deleted leaving this green partly round the image. From this I learnt how to
use Photoshop in order to get rid of the background of the image if need be.
My preliminary task lacked plenty of conventions such as a barcode and sell line. Without these conventions I
felt my magazine lacked realism and looked far from professional.
Finally, on my contents page I felt it was lacking a lot of character, it was very simple and lacked conventions
such as headings and subheadings.