AS Media Studies: October 2013

Friday, 18 October 2013

Reader Profile of a Music Magazine

This is a reader profile from NME Music Magazine. It states all the relevant in depth information on the audience of the magazine. The first we can see is the stats of the gender and age of the audience. The dominant readers tends to be male (68%) compared to women (32%). The average age tends to be around 24 and NME have took this into consideration by putting male oriented things into their magazine such as alcoholic drinks that tend to be associated with males, male brands such as Top Man, boy bands and speakers. This shows that NME think a lot about how to make their magazine appealing to this specific audience. The magazine has also putt Top Shop (a brand specified to females) onto their reader profile because even though the majority of readers they have are male, there are some female readers. This shows that they think about the smallest details as well so that the magazine appeals to females also. The reader profile also tells me that there are two reader groups – students and people that are employed for the first time. It is essential that NME research the interests of students and socially active people in their first job so that they know they are meeting the correct expectations of their audience. The people that read the magazine are pretty high class (75% ABC1) which means the magazine has to put something in the magazine that’s appealing to their tastes, such as high class drinks like Jack Daniels and brands such as Top Man. It would be useless putting a brand such as Primark or Pound Stretcher on there because; because of the reader’s high class it wouldn’t appeal to them. It shows that most of their readers are interested in music and style which means they have to include things of this type to keep their readers engaged. The bottom images show that the magazine also includes things that people of a lower class can afford. This shows that they want to make their magazine appeal to those of a lower class to keep their readers more wide spread and to make people that aren’t as higher class, like some students, feel included and not like an outcast.

Thursday, 17 October 2013

Music Magazine Brief

• To design a front cover, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text used must be original, a minimum of four images must be used.

Magazine cover Evaluation - Preliminary Task

Preliminary task College Magazine front cover

Evaluation questions

My media product is a magazine front cover, which usually have conventions such as a mast head, plug, header, footer, barcode, feature stories, and a main image. I have took this into consideration when creating my cover such as my main image had to be near enough centre so that I could fit feature stories around the sides of the cover. The barcode of real magazine covers is usually on the bottom right hand corner, which is where mines placed. I did this to mimic the professional look and make my cover look real. I did the same with the footer and mast head.

With my magazine cover I haven't really isolated a social group in my media product. The main image is of a girl holding a folder, and my feature stories can be related to by both male and females, or all social groups. I wanted to leave it open to all social groups because there seems to always be some sort of divide between them in colleges and I think the one way to bring them all together would be a college magazine, so that one or a few didn't feel completely left out. As a college we should be including everyone and not focusing the magazine on a certain group.

My audience would be college students aged 16 to 18.

I attracted my audience by putting the colours of text on my magazine cover the same as the college. This way they'll feel like it's familiar and not too much like its a new thing. I also put a student on the cover to make them feel equal to them, if I put a super model on the cover they'd feel beneath them. I have addressed them by putting the feature stories ones that they can relate to and find helpful and informative. By putting about study periods and fresher's party I am able to connect with them because they know and have heard about them things.

During this task I have learnt how to use photoshop properly. I have learnt how to use layers to change things and how to change text and font colours. I have also used how to constuct an appropriate front cover image by using composition and chosing the right background.

Looking back on my perfume task, now I think I have learnt how to construct a better looking product. My magazine cover looks professional and sophisticated where as my perfume advert looks like a student has done it. I now understand properly how to use conventions to construct a professional looking product.

If I was to do this task again I would try to make sure I had all the conventions in there instead of missing out a header. I think putting a header on my cover would of made it look even more professional however I couldn't of moved my mast head down any more to fit one it. To do this I would of had to go futher back when taking the image to make more room between my subject's head and the top of the image, this way I could of fit both in.