1. Media Evaluation Kirsten Hartley

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My project was based on producing a music magazine with an r and b theme, attracting the target audience of female teenagers. A front cover, contents page and double page spread article were produced. For my front cover it was essential that a direct mode of address was used. As my magazine was based upon r and b music and targeted at females, I used a female model that dresses and had an appearance which suited and fitted well within my theme. I also used big bold fonts especially for the main titles such as; the name of my magazine Funk- Beat, contents page and a title for my article. I decided to use the name Funk- Beat as it hasn’t been used in the music, magazine industry before, making it unique and individual. These ideas symbolised and gave a clear view to the audience what my magazine was about, as nearly everyone of my participants of the questionnaire quickly related the magazine to an R and B style, and said that the title Funk- Beat gave them an impression of fun, quirky and individual styles of music which is what I aimed to achieve.

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My magazine was chosen as R and B because it specially links to teenagers attitudes of what they illustrate, the costumes they wear and the overall image they aim to produce. I kept the basic idea of the theme, by having basic R and B ideas such as the types of fonts that were used for the titles being bold and unique patterns, the costumes that my model wore being things such as patterned scarf's, long necklaces, big earrings and also an iPod to illustrate the fact that it was purely based upon music. I decided to aim my magazine at teenagers as in today’s music industry adults don’t appeal to this type of music for different purposes the main one being that it is not suited to their particular tastes. Close up camera shots were specially used on every page as I wanted the models to dominate the page and make it look as if it’s specifically aimed at them, so the audience get a clear view of what theme my magazine is surrounding. When I gathered my pictures together, I then used Photoshop to edit these and make them more appealing. I did this by changing the lightening on them and the colour use, making them brighter and for them to stand out and attract the target audience, as to start off with my pictures were rather full with no expression added to them but by changing my colour and contrast on them, they soon became more outstanding and stood out on my individual pages. I wanted my magazine to avoid addressing the original typical R and B style which would usually involve things such as chains, caps, often pictured smoking etc, I focused on being more suitable to a teenage variety by adding more relaxed connation of the style. I did this by using more relaxed clothing items and a more relaxed image on the whole creating a better atmosphere to the audience.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The main magazine which is similar to mind would be vibe as they do a similar style to mind making the target audience aimed at teenagers and having a more relaxed atmosphere on the whole. The way my magazine also symbolises uniqueness and individuality by expressing stereotypes which are more based upon music and not the props which are generally used to express this. Also the way in which it isn’t just purely based on making it stand out with having the most bright colour possibly used which can often give an impression of tackiness, instead I used more calmer colours such as red so that the images and fonts etc do create the right impression amongst the audience.

5. Who would be the audience for your media product? My magazine would specifically be aimed at female teenagers addressing the ages of around 15-24 as their interests would be similar but in different ways and my magazine aims to provide for these specific ages, by adding information and pictures which are needed to do this. I chose this target audience as only these ages would appeal to this type of genre as an older audience would be more interested in possibly older styles of music, rather than the types that are surrounding the media in today's society, which also shows on my results of the questionnaire where most of the older participants before old classics to new beats. My questionnaire when asked did my contents of magazine interest you in reading more also provided more evidence as the people which were over the age of 24, simply said it was too appealing to teenagers and didn't really focus on the interests for them. The participants under 15 said that the magazine gave them the same impression as they related it to being too detailed to understand and featured artists either they'd never herd of or just weren't interested in.

6. How did you attract/ address your audience? To make my magazine the best it could possibly be I have used various programs in doing so. For example I used Photoshop mainly to construct and reproduce my photos by changing the impressions of them and also the size and where I learnt to make them brighter, more colourful etc. I used the Internet to gather various image fonts the main being www.dafont.com to gather specific fonts to use within my magazine. I also used the program in design to create my magazine overall as this allowed me to add the pictures and fonts that were needed where I learnt to adjust the pictures in size and angel format and Installing different fonts into the system to change my text types also the size. In my questionnaire I have asked the audience questions related to the technology I have used such as; do my pictures grab your attention? What concepts of my article need improving? If the answers are given where the concepts do need changing this can be done by using various technologies such as In design, the internet and Photoshop.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I have learnt various things and gathered new ideas since starting my first task which was my preliminary, such as adjusting the pictures in terms of angels, size and also the shape, colour, effects etc to make them the best they can possibly be. I also learnt how to make my text bolder by using the bold button within in design and to make the size bigger or smaller. This has helped me to make my final magazine the best I can possibly achieve by learning different concepts.

8. Conclusion The concepts I would change about my product would be better photography use making them look more professional which therefore a more scheduled time plan of when they were being taken, and also the colour use possibly using a wide range of colours rather than a few main ones. Overall I think my product did the best it could by definitely aiming at the right target audience which my questionnaire also provided evidence for this. I thought it was colourful and descriptive and got my point across of what I wanted to say. I think my stereotypes of the R and B theme I wanted to create had a great response towards the teenagers and gave of what I saw as a positive energy just like I wanted to achieve, steering them away from the typical stereotypical original types.