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

Throughout this part of my Media course, i have learnt a lot of what actually goes into creating just one issue of a music magazine, or any magazine for that matter. Although when it comes to creating a real music magazine, the roles of who does what are divided up, for example, there will be photographers, editors, and writers. Whereas, i had to carry out all of these jobs myself.
Additionally, i had a few months to create my music magazine pages, whereas most companies that produce music magazines only have a couple of weeks. This made me realise that a lot of hard work and effort goes into making a music magazine and the people from these companies must be amazing at their jobs because they produce extremely professional magazines very often.




When comparing my prelim task to my final magazine front cover, you can tell the difference in the quality of the two and therefore how much i have learnt in the process of making my magazine. My final magazine cover has more professional looking tag lines and a more attractive looking title. Additionally, the front cover images both differ greatly. The image from my prelim was taken in a hurry and did not have a lot of thought put into it. On the other hand, the image on my front cover was well planned and thoughtout.

Evaluation part 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There are lots of things i have learnt from the process of constructing my music magazine.
I mainly learnt how to use the Apple Macs as this was the first time i had used them to help produce a media text. I learnt how to import pictures from a camera and then edit them and uploads them onto my blog. I also learnt very small thing such as how to copy and past text as i was not very good at this in the beginning!
Following on from this, another aspect I learnt about was setting up my blog and maintaining it regularly. However, when looking back on the blogging process, i was not very good at including and blogging about all the work and steps i had taken in researching and creating my magazine.
I used Picasa to edit my pictures in, as i had used this many times before and i knew i would be very quick at producing my work on it. However, when it came to actually putting my finished magazine pages together i realised i had never done anything like this before on Picasa so i had to learn to use new features on it to get my finished result.

Evaluation part 5 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As part of this evaluation i researched the publisher of 'Top of the Pops' magazine. This was because i based my features, and target audience on this magazine on this one so they are therefore very similar. 'Top of the Pops' is published by BBC magazines as the magazine derives from the BBC programme of the same title. BBC magazines are experienced in distributing and publishing magazines to mass audiences all over the UK and so is my magazine, 'Burst of Pop'. Therefore, if i were to pick a magazine publishing company to distribute my magazine then it would be BBC magazines due to their experience.

Evaluation part 4 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As mentioned before in my blog posts, my target audience is mainly teenage females although my magazine is also aimed at teenage males too. Nearly all of the pictures in my finished magazine are of young females, so because of this, i feel that my main target audience is represented. Additionally, i feel that my main target audience is represented in a positive way, because the artists i chose to feature in my pictures are ones that my target audience would see as role models.
My magazine is not really aimed at any teenager of a specific social class, but when planning the aspects of my magazine i decided that the price of it should not be too high, as this means that more people will be able to buy it and enjoy it. Another reason that i decided to price my magazine quite low was because my target audience are extremely likely not to have a job, so instead buy things for themselves out of pocket money that they receive.

Evaluation part 3 - How did you attract/address your audience?

The language in my magazine is informal and friendly. I did this because my magazine is aimed at 'tweenagers' and they are more likely to read and enjoy a magazine with a more informal feel to it.
Unfortunately, my audience isn't directly represented in my text by the pictures i too. The pictures i have included in my magazine are all of celebrity music artists. This is something that i think i should have thought more about as the audience would have felt more involved if i included images which would represent them.
To attract my target audience and to represent their general spontaneous behavior, i used bursts on my front cover to house a headline in. My target audience are the type to be more interested in the pictures rather than the text so i had to use pictures of current artists that they were interested in.

Evaluation part 2 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience at which my magazine is aimed at is most 'tweenagers', very young teenagers about the age of 9-13 years old. This therefore makes it a mass audience.
The age range of my target audience is fairly broad because within the UK roughly over a million people will fall into this group.
My magazine is mostly aimed at 9-13 year old girls. It is also aimed at boys of the same age, although i do not think the nature/genre of the magazine appeals to them as much.
My target audience have the general interests that most people in the 9-13 year old bracket have in the UK. Activities such as swimming, going out to play with friends and listening to pop music are all included in this.
All my target audience would either be in primary or secondary school. 'Burst of Pop' is not really aimed at people of a particular social class.
As part of the penumbra effect, parents and guardians of the children who buy this magazine may read it. For example, a young girl's mother may read the magazine to check its suitability. Also, children often let their friends borrow their magazines to read, or they read them all together.

Evaluation part 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media texts?

My finished media product has very similar conventions to real similar media products. For example, I have a variation of about two fonts. This is so that there is still some sense of house style continuing through my magazine. The layout design is similar to most magazines because it is clearly spaced out and therefore makes it much easier for the audience to understand. The layout mainly consists of structured columns of text with appropriately placed pictures and headlines. By using columns of writing, this could possible be challenging the usual conventions of a magazine aimed at my target audience (9-13 years old). This is because, these magazines sometimes place their text in bursts or bubbles to make it more interesting for the readers to read.