EVALUATION 7: PROGRESSION.

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                                                  APPLYING THIS TO THEORY.

Obviously before creating my preliminary task, I hadn't been taught a lot of theory information which I think affected the quality of it. Throughout the course of the project I have learnt how to apply this   theory to the genre of pop and it has helped me achieve my final product. 

Four Fs.

When it came to making my end product, I took all of the different categories (format, function, frames, formula) into consideration to make my product look professional. 

I made sure that the format of the magazine was bright and cheerful so when people thought about it, it would portray happy and joyful thoughts. I also wanted it look look appealing to my target audience, therefore I made it look girly by adding swirly fonts and adding love heart symbols where appropriate. 

I made sure that when it came to my magazine it had a certain purpose, otherwise known as the function. I wanted to make sure it had this as I feel it would be more meaningful and would gain more interest. I maintained this by structuring the work so the readers could easily find the same features in the magazine each week. I've included a real life story which will be included in every issue. The function of my magazine was that it supplied readers with all the latest news about my featured pop artists. 

I made sure that the frames of my magazine were kept equal throughout for it to look neat and stylish. This included lining up all text in the same place for it to look equal and 'stylish' and so it doesn't look untidy. 

When it comes to the formula I made sure that I included many conventional features so that I could continue to use them in upcoming issues in order from them to look similar. Another part of this would have to be the colours and fonts. I think it would be useful to stick to the same ones in other issues for it to show continuity. All of these features had a set placed in order for them to look right and to prevent the magazine from looking untidy. 

Obviously as we hadn't been taught this before the preliminary task was set, I couldn't incorporate the features into it.
                                                                            


During the process of the main task I also learnt that I'm now a gate keeper. 
"A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something"
                                                        -Wikipedia
As I designed all of the content in my magazine, i have limited the information on what my readers find out about; this allows me have power and control over my audience. 
                                                                         


As I have said in the presentation above, I have learnt a lot of terminology and theories. One key theory which helped me a lot was ideologies. the basis of ideology states that everything generates different thoughts and overtime is becomes a set idea or belief. I took this into account through the creation of my main task as I carried out secondary research in order to get clear ideas on what people associate pop music with. I found that people find pop lyrics are mainly to do with love and relationships and generally create a positive vibe. I incorporated all this information into my magazine so readers could clearly identify that it was to do with pop.
The ways in which I included this in my magazine and therefore represents ideologies is by creating several sell lines based on love, crushes, secrets and relationships. This is reinforced by a 'Love Special' teaser which informs readers that the topic of love is featured inside. 
Ways in which I heightened the positive vibes is by using bright bold colours throughout. 

EVALUATION 6: TECHNOLOGY.

TECHNOLOGY.

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What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?

Throughout this whole process I have learnt not to rely on technology! Below are some of the problems  that I faced...

Macs
The problem when using the Mac was that they was very time consuming seeing as I had never used one before and had to learn how to work it, especially how to construct front covers, contents, and double page spreads on Pages. I took several attemtps creating drafts as I was still getting used to how to work it, and discovering new techniques that I could incoorperate in on my work. I also had to ask for help on several things, such as how to find software and even how to use the software, such as 'grab'. I had to use this as I had to convert my Pages document into a picture file in order to upload it to my blog.I had to do this with each of my documents or otherwise they wouldn't be on my blog!

Latops
One of the main problems that I experienced was that when starting my work on Mac Pages, I then couldn't open it on a normal laptop as it didn't support the Pages software. This obviously was a big problem as I couldn't work on my magazine pages in my own time as I couldn't get access to a Mac. This delayed the amount of time I had for creating the front cover, contents as double page spread as I could only continue to create them in school time. Alongside this I didnt have Mircosoft Publisher on my  own laptop, which alos prevented me from creating the magazine pieces at home.

Cameras
Using the cameras bought many problems. Firstly, when I was taking the final images, with the Nikon camera it started running out of battery and need to be charged, meaning we had to rush taking the photos. I think this affected the overall quality and 'look' of the photo as they weren't how I wanted them. This meant I had to arrange another date for taking pictures so the camera could charge and be ready.
Secondly, when I was taking the recce photos with the school's camera it had a cracked screen meaning I couldn't see what the pictures turned out like and it soon rang out of batteries meaning I could no longer use it. I couldn't even take it back and get another one as the rest were either in use, didn't turn on or had no battery. To overcome this I used the camera on my phone to take the recce pictures then sent them to my email to then upload onto the computer. However putting aside these problems, the Nikon camera did produce good quality pictures and I finally got the end result which met standards.

1001 fonts
Even though there were several fonts on this website that I could of used and represented the 'pop' feel I ended up not using them as when I copied and pasted it into Pages, it came with a white background and didn't fit in correctly with the rest of the context. It also didn't let me change the colour which also posed as another problem.

Pages/IPhoto
As I previously said I didn't know how to work Pages or IPhoto, so it took a bit of time working these and figuring out how to use them. In the end I didn't use IPhoto because it was too confusing and Piknik was a better solution to use as it had more features and generally was easier to use.

Serif Draw Plus
This is the software I used to remove the background behind my model in order for it to be clear. At first this I didn't know how to do it however once my teacher shown me, I got the hang of it. As you can see the pictures aren't perfectly cut out however I done it as best as I could and tried to cover up the jaggered edges with text.

Desktop Publisher
I created one draft of the front cover on this to experiment and see whether it produced a better standard of quailty than Pages. I found that I could get the work done much more quickly and I found it easier to contruct as I have worked on publisher many times before. The only problem with this is that I don't have a clue how to upload it to the blog so I will need to do some more research on how to upload it.

Slideshare
I had plenty of troubles when it came to using this! As I had never used this before I was unaware of how it works and how to use it. I then asked a friend and they said you had to create the document on Mircosoft Word or Powerpoint first and then upload it - so that is what I did. However it took me several attempts to upload as it kept on saying 'error'. I worked out that this was because I still had the document open on my desktop. So once it uploaded I then figured out the the fonts I used where too big and made the text 'hang' off the page, so I had to delete that presentation and change the fonts and size on the document... then upload it again! Once this was done I had troubles on how to upload it onto my blog. I 'Googled' and even 'Youtubed' how to do this and it soon gave me the correct way. I embedded it into my blog and realised it had to go in the 'HTML' tab. It was as easy as that.

Apart from these problems I felt that working with technology. was the best option to use as it made me get my work done more quickly and efficiently while making it at a better standard. 

EVALUATION 5: ATTRACTING MY AUDIENCE.

Evaluation 5- how did you attract/address your audiences? on Prezi

Laura Mulvey Theory - Male Gaze.

This theory states that males enjoy looking and gazing at other peoples bodies (preferably females). Places such as cinemas and magazines you can do this without getting caught and judged. This could reinforce the reasons of why so many attractive people are featured in them. 

As men are usually seen as the 'on looker', women are often objectified by the camera in sexual, seductive ways. I agree with this to some extent as from males perspective making women passive in products allows it to be more interesting, however from mine and other females view making the camera object men - it would be more interesting and enjoyable for us.

For this reason I would have to support the Kaplan and Kaja Silverman (1983) study, which says men aren't always the 'controlling  subject' and woman are the 'passive object'. I find each gender has it turn of being objectified by the camera. 

                                                                                                         

As it says in the presentation above under the 'Artist' heading, I have chosen to use a good looking model who is obviously going to attract readers because of her looks. These wouldn't necessarily be male readers though as the image of my model isn't posing in a sexual or seductive way. The image of the model who will attract female readers as the model could be seen as an inspiration to younger girls. 

EVALUATION 4: TARGET AUDIENCE.

Who would be the audience for you media product?

I have created my magazine to interest teenagers, preferably young girls aged between 12 to 17.

I have chose to aim my product at this age range as I feel that they are more interested in purchasing and reading about pop music and the gossip to go with it. This idea is enhanced as now we have artists such as Justin Bieber, One Direction and JLS in the limelight and these are the bands that teenage girls love! Most young girls are obsessed with these pop artists meaning they are likely to be more interested in reading about them if they were on the cover of a magazine. 


In the presentation below I am going to discuss my audience for my magazine product and how I've gone about this. 

Who would be the audience for your media product? on Prezi

In contrast to this people who would not be a fan of this kind of music and genre of magazine is those who favour heavy metal and rock music. Magazines such as Kerrang! and NME would be more appropriate for them.

EVALUATION 3: MEDIA INSTITUTE.

What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why? on Prezi

As the presentation states, I think Development Hell Ltd. would be best as it has a gap in the market for my product. Personally I think the best place to distribute my magazine would be in any supermarket or corner shops. For example supermarkets such as Tesco's and Asda would be ideal because they sell a variety of magazines and mine would fit in nicely. 

How I based my decision:

I overviewed each institute and picked two magazines they distributed. After I had chose these I checked onto the NRS website (National Readership Survey). I have previously used this when researching magazines history so I knew what I was doing. Below are the statistics I found when I added the sales of males and females added together in the time period of January 2011 to December 2011:

Bauer Media

Kerrang! - 357

Closer- 1632

BBC Magazines

Top of the Pops- /

Gardeners World- 1228

IPC Media

NME- 253

Horse and Hound- 224

From the statistics placed above, IPC Media are the least successful as two of the magazines I have chosen that they distribute have not had many sales over a year. This could be a biased response though as I have only chose two magazines from their company. The most successful company seems to be Bauer Media as the magazines sales are high and are closely followed by BBC Magazines. (No statistics were found for Top of the Pops).

Development Hell

As the two magazines that Development Hell distribute are aimed for a niche market, I could not find any statistics of Mixmag and The Word on the NRS. This could prove as a bit of a bad decision as my product is aimed for a mainstream product rather than a niche market. The positive of this is that they would have a lot of time to distribute my magazine and put a lot of attention and focus into it. A negative would be that they don't have the expertise and skills needed to target mainstream markets.
However this is a risk that I'm willing to take in order for my magazine to be distributed b a successful institute. 

                                                                                                                    

From previous media tasks about film, I gained media terminology about film institutions. I came across the term 'conglomerate' and this can be applied to this area. The term conglomerate is two or more corporations which join together from completely different businesses but then are found under one corporate structure (business). 
I find the institutions that are conglomerate are Bauer and BBC Magazines as they have different branches. This would act as a benefit as more expertise would be present and more skills would be added into the products for it to be at the best quality that they could and generate more money. 

EVALUATION 2: SOCIAL GROUPS.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Within my style model of 'Top of the Pops' there is a consistent feature of fashion that appears in each magazine. This visibly categorizes the magazine in to a girls favour. Boy would not be interested in girls clothes. By this, it could categorize girls into caring about this aspect - the way they look.

The kind of content involved in the magazine also makes it clear that the magazine is aimed towards young girls who are fans of pop music and artists. The style model issues always print information about male celeb secrets or love gossip - it would be rare to find a boy wanting to read about these kind of things!

My media product could represent social groups as being  keen on finding out celeb gossip and maybe stereotype them into the 'girly' kind of person who likes beauty, fashion and advice.

How are social groups represented by your media product? on Prezi

EVALUATION 1: CONVENTIONS.

Evaluation 1

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I mainly stuck to reinforcing the original conventions of a magazine in order for my magazine to be successful and gain a lot of interest from my target audience. If previous conventions of Top of the Pops attracted the similar age range to mine about became a great hit, then surely mine would! 
I thought that by sticking to conventions then it would make my magazine look more realistic and allows the readers to have clear insights on the genre that it is. Also by following conventions I instantly knew that the final outcome of my product would look similar to a pop magazine - meaning that I didn't have to worry about altering it at the end of the process to make it look like my chosen genre.