Evaluation

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

Before I created my student magazine I looked at other examples of student magazines in an attempt to get ideas. This gave me an insight into how professional student magazines are formed and what sort of content they include. There are certain characteristics that can identify a magazine as a student magazine, such as the content being focused towards students and the language is generally younger and colloquial. Examples of content in my magazine that applies to students include revision tips and music reviews. For my contents page, I inserted an editorial as this introduced the magazine to the reader as well as being a used media convention.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine is aimed at students so I wanted it to look and feel like something that I would want to read myself. I used photographs that link to the college itself but I focused more on the people at college.  For the front cover I chose a picture of a boy looking stressed, which will hopefully make the potential audience relate to the magazine as they too are stressed about exams.

For the contents page I used a photograph of myself revising to replicate the situation of many other students who are currently revising for their exams. I also chose a picture of the lunch lady Dawn to symbolize that there is more to college than just the students.  I changed the background colour of the contents page to a blue, which is a lighter colour than the black background of the front page. This makes the contents page more visually appealing, which will entice the reader into looking at the contents page to see the articles within the magazine. The font type is kept the same as on the front cover, although the colour of the font changes. The cover lines on the front page were kept short as this attracts the audience’s eyes without boring them with massive amounts of text.

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

Before we created our own student magazines, we looked at examples of other student magazines, both professional and students of previous years.  ‘Verge’ magazines cover of Ke$ha inspired my front cover with the black background and the bright writing. It could be sold at college to the students who are interested in what is happening at college and in the future. It could also be sold to students at other colleges who are interested in what our college is like.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My audience is 16-18 year olds (college students). It does not have a specified gender group, as the stories are those that interest both gender groups, such as music and parties.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience through the use of brightly coloured writing on a dark background, as well as the image choices and composition of the front cover. The colours I used were bright and eye-catching which will hopefully attract the audience it is aimed at, but I was careful to avoid using tacky colours or too much text because I didn’t want the design to look cheap. The colour yellow was used to enhance the lure so it foregrounds it more.  I chose a lighter background for the contents page so it gives the reader a warmer feel when they open the magazine, with the pictures being placed in positions to split up the text to make the text seem shorter.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing his product?

When creating this piece I learned to use different software that I have not used before. I used Adobe InDesign to design my magazine and magazine mock-up, as well as using Adobe Photoshop to edit the images I have used. I also used software that I have used before, such as Microsoft Word for the action plan, analysis and evaluation. I also used blogger.com to put my information online.