1.

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

During the production of my music magazine AMF, I have tried to follow

the generic conventions of music magazines with a similar sub-genre to
mine; to do this I have been using Kerrang! magazine as a style model and
that is why many of the elements of my magazine are the same as or
similar to Kerrang!. To demonstrate how I have done this, I will now do a
quick overview/comparison of my magazine to an issue of Kerrang!. The
thing to remember though however, is that as the whole idea of my
magazine is to be independent/alternative and to get these connotations
across, my magazine’s mode of address will undoubtedly be different to
Kerrang! in some respects.

To start with my front cover then: (Issue: 1300)

The colour schemes of the two magazines’ are virtually the same with the
only difference being Kerrang! using blue instead of yellow for contrast.
They both contain the generic music magazine convention of a banner
conveying the main artists featured in the issue and have their main cover
line splashed across the centre of the page, with the only difference being
the colour choice which I changed from originally being the same to add
more contrast to the heading and the background image.

The masthead is roughly in the same place along with the barcode. The
barcode itself contains all the elements of the barcode that Kerrang!’s has
and apart from this the only real difference is that I have composed my
images differently and decided that I would not use an image for every
cover line as I believe my front cover would appear too crowded this way.

Moving onto the contents page then:

To start with on both magazines there is a box which details how to

subscribe to the magazine, also there is some sort of contents list divided
into sub categories on both contents pages. There is a paragraph which
details the editors views on this issue of the magazine, there is a banner
that divides the contents page and finally both contents pages can clearly
be seen as having images with captions and page leads that are
photographic representations of the main features of the issue.

Finally for the splash page of both magazines the artists image is clearly
shown as separate from the article, both articles use a drop capital and
use a colour scheme that contrasts to the background. The headings of
both articles overlap and are bigger than any other text element present.
Both articles have a short paragraph with medium sized text which leads
you into the article also called the lead of the article, there is a by-line
clearly displayed for the article and image with the only difference being
the position of mine in relation to theirs and finally quotes of some form
have been used on both products.

So then you can clearly see that on the whole I have followed and applied
the generic conventions of music magazines for my intended sub-genre in
the production of my magazine.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents as a whole two main social groups in our society, the groups
that are represented are the subculture Indie Kids, which I have represented by featuring
indie rock bands in my magazine and the second social group I am representing is the

By Thomas Swallow

AS Media Studies: A: Block

Alternative Rockers which I have done by featuring alternative rock and general rock bands in
my magazine.

So the idea of the magazine is to represent alternative Indie lifestyles and

this can be seen through various elements of my magazine which include
the masthead, which has cracks in it, like much of the text seen on my
product, and the reason this represents these two lifestyles is that when it
is juxtaposed with a black background, which is an alternative and
underused colour in conventional lifestyles and the sell line “The void of
music is eternal” we get symbolic resemblance of non-conventionality and
the cracks in the text resembling this non-conventionality breaking
through into the conventional lifestyles of teenagers and young adults;
which are my target demographic.

Apart from this specific example on the whole most of my elements try to
represent some form of non-conventionality, whether it is through the
style of the element, its colour or any other mise-en-scene based elements
such as costume etc. which represents the element as being alternative
and different.

In the case of gender, I would say my magazine represents both genders

as equal, as the dominant ideology of men being of higher status and
importance in society is flouted in my magazine; as the female models are
portrayed as being just as important and in the case of the lead singer of
Bleeding Rose excelling to the top of her field. So, in my magazine both
genders are represented as equal; as both genders are represented
equally by the number of male/female models and the aspiration of
becoming like the ideal portrayals of self image aka successful and
accomplished in life, is connoted by the images in my magazine of both
genders.

Finally to conclude this video, I have represented ethnicity in my magazine

as well, but I have done so indirectly, as our society is a multi-ethnic
society and I have represented this in the various ethnic influences that
make up the diverse British music scene; which I am representing in my
magazine, by exploring music that is different to the mainstream music
available in the UK, which therefore as Roland Barthes suggested has
semiotic meaning which connotes the various ethnicities that make up the
individual types of music portrayed in my magazine through the various
bands or artists mentioned.

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

My media product is a product that would be distributed nationally as the target demographic
is a target demographic that spans the nation aka one that is not confined to a specific area,
and to do this my magazine would have to be the product of a multinational conglomerate
such as Bauer or IPC and the reason for this would be directly due to the fact that as being a
product of a multinational conglomerate, the potential target demographic in theory could be
greatly expanded aka reach more people, possibly in different countries and the
conglomerate is also more than likely to be vertically integrated in it’s specific field and what
this means is that things such as distribution and production costs can be kept to a minimum,
in order to maximise profits, which is the main purpose of any product. Finally there is also
the prospect of my magazine becoming a cross media product this way, as for example a new
music channel might be created to represent the magazine; like Bauer has done for Kerrang!.

Whereas if my product would be distributed by an Indie company, there is less chance of the
target demographic expanding as it would only be able to reach certain areas and the concept
of a national magazine may be impossible in some cases due to financial and in turn
distributive resources available.
By Thomas Swallow

AS Media Studies: A: Block

So due to the overwhelming advantages of my magazine being a product of a multinational
conglomerate, I am inclined to state that if a choice was given for the production and
distribution of my magazine, it would be to have my magazine produced by a multinational
conglomerate. As my only possible concern would be that the alternativeness and
independence of my magazine may be overshadowed by what some of my target
demographic would consider to be part of conventional society; however as Kerrang! is
produced by Bauer, I don’t believe this would be a problem as Kerrang! has been very
successful this way in a similar field to my magazine.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my magazine, is middle class people who are of the younger
generation aka teenagers and young adults who would be most likely students and
predominantly male. The aspect of these people though in particular I am targeting to form my
target audience, is their appreciation of the diversity of music available in the present day,
inside the UK. Another important aspect of my audience is to be individuals, to be alternative
and this is expressed in their habits such as listening to indie or alternative rock music which
my magazine is based around alongside general rock and other things such as their shopping
habits, for example buying converse trainers which you can get customised which obviously
then can show individuality.

But the most important reason behind this choice of target audience is that they want to have
fun and a social life such as going out to gigs and as they are most likely students aka part of
the underclass of society with a disposable income, this alongside buying my magazine is
possible for them.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The way in which I have constructed my media product to attract and target this audience has
been through a variety of ways. To start with the mode of address of my magazine, which is
one that conveys non-conformity and as my audience are students who stereotypical don’t
want to conform and want to be individuals this would be greatly appealing towards them
which I know to be true due to me testing my product on my target audience who approved of
it. Moving onto my writing style I have chosen a writing style that conforms to the conventions
of Kerrangs!’s writing style which is successful in targeting this specific audience.

The way in which I have used my images also reflects the way in which I have targeted my
audience, as I have used images that portrait either through the models themselves or in the
objects portrayed in them some sort of individuality and non-conformity.

Colours which I have used also represent an attraction to this target audience as I have tried
to use contrasting colours which connote when juxtaposed with their background the idea of
standing out, of being individual and of not conforming to those around us.

Throughout my magazine in particular in my images the mise-en-scene elements I have used

also are a part of the process of attracting this target audience, as the settings I have chosen
are often unusual and quite unique. The costumes used tend to connote non-conformity and
independence, for example on my front cover Charlotte is represented as a hybrid which
crosses the ideas of being a rock chick and a Goth girl which are two alternative lifestyles and
as such symbolises the mode of address I have created for my magazine and finally some of
the gestures, such as on the Sons of Archangel band photo, connote non-conformity by
contrasting to the dominant ideology of younger people always being happy as according to
older generations we have nothing that would make us unhappy in our lives.

By Thomas Swallow

AS Media Studies: A: Block

Finally the last two ways in which I attempt to attract my target audience is through the house
style of my magazine, in particular the cracked font which is used, which shows non-
conformity through its semiotic value and through the cover lines which talk about things such
as gigs and downloads which adhere to the social conventions of my audience’s lifestyle and
the technological convergence which has been centred around this audience in relation to
how they obtain music.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?

Whilst constructing this product I have developed my understanding of various technologies

through my use of them in the process of creating my media product.

I have used blogs which I have found to be a great resource in the obtaining of examples for
my research and with posting various documents and data to create an online coursework
folder. There have been some issues with exactly what could be displayed on our blogs as a
visual element once uploaded, however due to Posterous aka the site which we were using to
create out blogs, newly enhanced post editing functions these problems can now be
overcome with the option of uploading documents to a post and dragging and dropping them
in exactly where you want them in your post. So for example when I originally tried to upload
a high resolution PDF of my draft contents page to my blog through Google mail, I had to Zip
it as an archive, but then once this new development had taken place I was able to remove
that archive from the post and upload the PDF directly, so it was then shown as a visual
element on my blog.

Another technology I used during the process of creation was digital SLR cameras which had
the great advantage of producing higher quality images than normal digital cameras, but
having also the great disadvantage of being very sensitive in their set up, for example, the
focus of the image, and their fragility, as for example, if by accident we touched the mirror
inside the camera we were warned that the camera would break, and therefore we had to be
very careful when using them as they were so fragile.

Camstudio was another new technology to me that I had used during my coursework as I had
never used screen recording software before. I found it to be a great tool for making things
such as tutorial videos on how to do things, however the major setback over this software is
that it was very temperamental and as such it could take many attempts in order to create my
videos.

I also used the editing software Windows Movie Maker and Sony Vegas when creating videos
for my blog, and the main thing I found out was that like when I used the Final Cut editing
suite last year at my secondary school that compared to these professional editing suites
standard editing software such as Windows Movie Maker are highly inefficient and impractical
for creating effective media products. For example, when I was creating my treatment video I
wanted to use a song called City on Fire, by Fightstar, as background music for my video,
however as I had the song on ITunes, Window Movie Maker wouldn’t let me apply it to my
video due to Windows incompatibility with Apple products whereas Sony Vegas simply
imported the song within a matter of seconds and allowed me to use it in my product.

By using Quark and Photoshop Elements 5.0 I have found out that there is a clear distinction
between these two pieces of technology which originally I didn’t think existed. As I always
knew that Photoshop was a piece of designing and image manipulation software and I
originally thought that Quark would be similar. However as I have since discovered Quark is a
piece of software in which you produce layouts, you do not design things in Quark, and very

By Thomas Swallow

AS Media Studies: A: Block

often you don’t create things in Quark either, you create a basic layout and then import
graphics from things like Photoshop and text from word processing software such as Word.
So I have discovered that co-existing technologies are often interlinked in the professional
media industry in order to achieve a final product.

Finally the last main technology I have discovered and learnt about through the production of
my coursework is that of sound recording software in particular Sony Sound Forge Audio
Studio and Audacity, and have discovered that in contrast between the different editing
software I have used I have preferred to use the simplistic Audacity than the professional
Sound Forge, as although Sound Forge has a lot of tools and features, which I could enhance
the audio of my video by, it was over complicated to achieve a result not much different in
comparison to simply just pressing the record button on Audacity.

So I guess from this to conclude this part of my evaluation I have learnt that although
professional technologies are impressive, for some purposes they would never be the best
possible option.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?

Well, to start with:

The preliminary task we carried out was a sort of introduction into our major practical work.
We researched examples of college magazines and textually analysed them, which gave us
insight into the generic conventions of magazines and then by actually creating our own
college magazine cover and contents page we were able to develop our creative and
technical skills of using Photoshop and Quark, which in Quark’s case was completely new
territory for me.

Then after we had actually learnt these generic conventions and developed our skills through
this preliminary task, we then went on expanding our understanding through doing similar
textual analyses of music magazines, which developed our understanding of generic
elements and conventions of music magazines in relation to what we already knew, and our
skills expanded even further by completing various tasks such as our audience profiles which
required us to use skills already learnt in Photoshop to create a new media product to
represent our target audience and through this task in particular I learnt about a tool in
Photoshop that reduced the amount of space taken off around an object when using the
magic wand tool.

So really, the message is that we were constantly learning and developing our technical and
creative skills. However, I guess one thing we did learn along this line of progression was not
only to use design and layout programs but also to apply the same creativity and skills to
things such as videos designed for our blogs which we all did on various bits of software.

Finally then to conclude:

The dominant theme throughout our learning, I believe is that from our preliminary task when
we were a bit more confined with what we could do, due to the conventions of college
magazine; I believe we learnt how to express our creativity more in our later products whether
they were something like blog work that involved creating some kind of media text or our
actual production work itself, as in this stage of our coursework due to the vastness and
variety of music magazines available we were able to express the creativity of our work more,
for example I created a band logo for my contents page whereas before, we had to copy our
college’s logo during our preliminary task. So really the most important thing we have learned
is that basically we can be as creative as we want in our work; because as we found out
Photoshop near enough has a tool for everything.

By Thomas Swallow

AS Media Studies: A: Block

By Thomas Swallow

AS Media Studies: A: Block