1.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
After looking at existing magazines and
doing a questionnaire, I decided that I wanted to base my genre on hip hop
music. I was excited about doing this because I know a lot about this music
genre as it is the type of music that I am into and listen to myself, including
RnB and Rap. The questionnaire that I did before starting to do my magazine
helped my figure out the age group to base it on. Many people that said they
were into music magazines were in the age group of 15-25 and they were of all
genders so therefore I came to the decision of making my hip hop music magazine
for ages 15-25 of all genders and when I came to making my magazine, made it
clear throughout all the pages that it is a music magazine. The colours red and
black often represent hip hop in magazines; looking at other magazines such as
XXL, you will see that it is also a colour the both males and females like.
When I planned my magazine I intended it to be like my XXL
magazine. I intended to focus on two main hip hop magazines, XXL and Hip Hop
Weekly. However my design turned out to be quite like the XXL magazine and
exactly how I planned it to be. The aspects of design I wanted to use from it
were the colours such as the red, black and white fonts. As you can see my work
is similar because I intended to use bold red text as my masthead, and a medium
close-up image similar to the image on the XXL magazine. The contents page is also
similar as I used the same colours as the front cover and contents page of the
XXL magazine, and the same model.
In the contents page I included names of
hip hop singers such as Chris Brown and YMCMB. These are existing singers which
a very popular and famous to people who listen to hip hop music, I believe that
they are a success in the music industry so therefore I added their names on my
contents page.
The
features that I have used challenge forms and conventions of real, existing
music magazines, and most importantly, something that all existing magazines do
is to Photoshop there images and that is something that I have done throughout
my front cover, contents and also double page spread.
However there are some differences as I didn’t intend to use
two people in my front cover like the XXL magazine and the cover lines are
spread out differently from the real magazine. I also didn’t use similar pose
as I intended to use my own pose instead. Also another difference is that I
didn’t use the black and white effect because I personally think a colourful
front cover is more eye-catching than a black and white one.
Looking at my feedback I realized that I’ve made many
improvements compared to my first magazine.
2.
How does your media product represent particular
social groups?
The genre of my music magazine is hip hop and my made up
artists are called Trisha, La’Quisha and Kimberly. The real life artists I
based them on were Nicole Scherzinger, Nicki Minaj and Kim Kardashian. They are
interesting because Nicki Minaj and Nicole Scherzinger represent hip hop as they
are really good role models. And especially Nicki Minaj as she is known as the
Queen of Hip-Hop
The artist I featured in my double page spread is a typical
hip hop artist, because of the different types of poses I chose for them to
pose as, as I found different poses on the internet of hip hop artists. I tried
to make them typical of the genre in the photo shoot because I didn’t want it
to look over the top therefore I chose simple but hip hop poses. The models I
chose were Andrea Duggal, Sakhile Khanye and Rhianna Miller and Maiya Markovic.
I chose them because Andrea looks quite like Nicole Scherzinger, as she has
similar hair and skin colour, and the same reason with Sakhile and Nicki Minaj.
The setting was in a photo shoot studio, with white backgrounds and different
lightings. The clothing I included were jeans and low tops, as it’s a hip-hop
trend, and Nicole Scherzinger mostly wears tight skinny jeans.
3.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?
Harry
Publications is a magazine publisher of many magazines including a lot of hip
hop magazines such as XXL. I think that Harry Publications might distribute and
publish my magazine because it is a music magazine of the genre hip hop and
they have published hip hop music magazines in the past such as XXL so they
have experience.
XXL is a successful publishing company because it’s the
number one selling music magazine on the news stand, and very popular amongst
the hip-hop culture. On its website XXLMAG.COM it says that it has maintained
its status as the most respected hip-hop music magazine, by both consumers and
the industry.
I will profit from them as my publisher because it will be
read by a large amount of audience and advertised largely across the hip hop
culture, and large companies as XXL are very well paid, as their average income
is $56,571.
4.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The age range of my target audience would be between 15 to
25 year olds and they’d mainly be male as there are mostly male rappers, but
there are some female rappers such as Nicki Minaj. Regarding their race they’d
be black Americans, as most of the rappers are, and they would be classed as
middle class.
Their hobbies would tend to be going out and drinking,
fashion trending. in terms of the other media texts, they’d consume they would
like expensive and popular phones such as blackberries and iPhones, magazines
such as Vibe and XXL, and movies such as Stomp the Yard, which features popular
hip hop celebrities such as Chris Brown and Ne-Yo.
Looking at information in my XXL media pack, they’d be
similar to their target audience because it contains statistics of the average
buyers which are male and the average age, which is similar to my target
audience age. Judging by what I learned from my questionnaire, their main
desires for a music magazine would be for it to have three main matching
colours, and to have an effective front cover picture.
5.
How did you attract your audience?
I attracted my audience by having a female
model. This is so that female readers look up to the hip hop model and so that males
get attracted to it and lead it to buy the magazine. The colours of my magazine
also attract female and male audiences because it is colours they both genders
like. My masthead is also big, bold and red, typical hip hop colour so I think
it would attract someone’s attention as soon as they see it on a magazine shelf
inside a shop. My cover stories are very interesting so I think that that is a
way of catching my audience’s eye.
My typical reader probably would pick up that there are
typical attitudes and ideas in my magazine such as the slang language used and
how the characters is giving direct eye contact, and how the headphones are
used on the masthead. They’d like these attitudes because the headphones link
with Hip-Hop, I would hope that the impression my typical reader has of this
magazine overall is satisfaction and would acknowledge them that it’s a Hip-Hop
magazine.
6.
What have you learnt about technologies through the
process of this product?
Overall I think that both of my magazines turned out to be
like I wanted them to be, however comparing both of them I think there is a
slight difference as the music magazine turned out to be better; therefore I
think I have improved. This is because had a magazine to compare it to my music
magazine and to gain ideas of how to make it. If I had time for improvements, I
would add more cover lines on my college magazine and another picture on the
front cover, for the music magazine I would have made her top whiter and leave
the background white but brighten it to make the image stand out. I also
focused more on Photoshop than before to create different shaped and to create
mastheads. I have also learnt about how to attract my
audience for example by using the right colour, fonts depending on my target
audience.
