Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

Looking back at how I made and presented my preliminary task it has showed me that I did not have the range of knowledge to create the music magazine then, than I have now when I made for my final piece. When i made my preliminary task it only took me a few hours to complete the task of making a magazine for my school. Making this was a way to get a feel of what i was going to be making and how it would all work and fit together. When making my country music magazine i was responsible for all the roles played by industry professionals including researching all information about my genre and about other music magazines similar to mine to get a real feel of what they look like and how they are structured. This would help me understand how to put my magazine together and format it so it looked like a successful music magazine that you would see out on the market. I also produced the magazine completely by myself using my recent research and my own knowledge of music magazines. I then also evaluated by magazine at the end of producing it to explain why i did certain things and why the magazine worked and why it failed at points and how i could improve it now.

When i compare my preliminary task to my final piece i realise that there is so much difference to how it looks and how effective it is to its target audience. My final piece is a lot better than my preliminary task as it looks more like a real music magazine and genuinely looks more professional. I think that it appeals to its target audience more and would like original on the market. Although evaluating my music magazine showed me that i could have made slight improvements like the font's on my front cover, contents page and double page spread i still think it looks worthy of being a real media product. I also learnt the importance of the structure of the magazine and where things are on a page to how successful it looks. Putting a photo in the wrong place can completely ruin the glossy effect on the magazine front cover. Over all i think i have improved thoroughly between the two magazines and i have shown that i can successfully make a magazine from my own research and knowledge that could be worthy of being a real media product.

How Did You Attract Address Your Audience?

What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

 My audience for my country music magazine is targeted at a niche audience at a quite broad age range between 16-60. Having a specific gender of audience to target is not very important with my magazine as i think it is unisex and anyone who likes country music can be enticed by it because it does not use what we would say as 'boy' colours like blue or 'girls' colours like pink and is genuinly very neutral. At the NRS website it tells us that mostly men read music magazines. I did find this quite surprising at first as i did not think this would be the case. It is also important that the target audiences interests are fulfiled when reading my magazine. It means that they would have to be interested in country music but also the type of fashion that country singers would wear. They would also have to be interested in the type of offers and things to win inside the magazine aswell as other aticles and festivals. The type of lifestyle that i would expect them to have would either be at school in the lower ages of the target audience age range or an older person in full time employment. I would also expect them to be in a socio-economic group of ABC1 as i would put my magazine in a more civilised grouping as it is quite a mature type of magazine. However i do think that grouping people in to these groups is very outdated as they are quite vage now and i beleive they can be split in to more niche catergory's which will be more informative of a particular type of person. They will also be part of a 'western culture' as they live in the UK and often have the money to afford luxury items such as magazines. However, some people may suffer from the Penumbra effect. This means that a person who is not really interested in a country music magazine may still pick it up and read it because they are interested in the front cover or what the magazine has inside of it.

 

The first picture on the left is Kayla Law. She is a 17 year old sixthform student who is very interested in my country music magazine. She generally likes things that are more rural, and likes to be different from everyone else. Here is something she said about my magazine.
"I think Hannah's magazine is brilliant and just what i want to see on the magazine shelf's! It is the type of music magazine that i am interested in and i feel that there are no other music magazines of its kind available on the market and i think it would prove very successful if published"

 

On the right is Tiff Eden. She is also a 17 year old student and is not very interested in my magazine! She thinks that it would not appeal to her if it was on a magazine stand as she does not like country music and would not want to read about what it has to offer. Here is something she said about my country music magazine.
"I do not like Hannah's magazine one bit! I think that it would not satisfy my needs and what i expectof amusic magazine,but then again that may just be because i do not like country music"

 

 

 

What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

As my music magazine appeals to quite a niche audience i dont think it would be distibuted by a large media institution as it probably would not make the amount of money that they would want to keep publishing it. For this reason i think that D.C Thomson and Co. might like to distribute my country music magazine as they are a UK publisher for magazines, comics, pocket books and picture books for childen, teenagers and adults. They are also not a well known company for selling music magazine's so they may profit from my magazine.However, this could also be a bad decision for me to judge as people may not buy a magazine if the publisher is not well known because they do not think it will meet their standards and needs. D.C Thomson and co are located in Dundee in the United Kingdom.They distribute 'Beano', 'The Evening Telegraph' and many other magazine's and newspapers. They also distribute 'The Scots Magazine' which i think has the same typical elements as my country music magazine.

About D.C Thomson and co. Ltd magazine-

D.C. Thomson is very much a family firm and has been publishing newspapers since 1905 but the family were involved in both newspapers and shipping before the actual formation of the company itself.
The Company was founded by William Thomson – grandfather of our current Chairman Andrew Thomson – and his two brothers David and Frederick. It was David or D.C. [Thomson] who was asked to run the company for the family at that time. The three Directors of the company are descendants of our founder and other members of the Thomson family also continue to work in the business.

Representing Social Groups

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

I think that my media product follows the conventions of a real country music magazine as it shows simplicity but effectivness. I think that this is a good way of advertising a magazine as it looks good and suits my target audience as people who want to buy the magazine for its purpose only and the information in it, not the amount of information on the front cover. I also think that my magazine challenges the conventions of a real media product within the picture that i used on my front cover. Normally on country music magazines you find a country singer with a guitar or a glamourous women with a plain background. I think that using the rural country idea and dressing it up to add to my front cover is actually very affective and develops the original country music magazine seen in stores on shelves. Adding the real rural effect to the magazine enhances the fact that it is a country music magazine so the element of 'country' should not be lost in the glamour of music. However, is still beleive my chosen images display glamour in a way of their own. I beleive that the font types and layout design is kept simple like a orginal music magazine like the one below and really shouts out to its audience. I also took idea's from a real country music magazine for my contents page and designed this with the same conventions that would typically be seen in a real media product like winning competitions from entering them through the magazine and following the typical housestyle of  a real magazine. I also used many suggestions from the survey that i took about country music magazines during my research before i started the production of my magazine. These include keeping the layout simple and easy but using effective and eye catching images, fonts and colours. I also received a suggestion that i should enhance the rural theme than real media products do not do in their magazines. I have selected 'Country Music's' magazine front cover to compare with my front cover to show hwo similar the conventions are but how different the images are, but how they still both look good and worthy of a place on a magazine shelf.