Evaluation of my student magazine
In what way does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The key ingredients for a magazine cover are; a variety or bright or interesting pictures that attract attention, bold titles that stand out from the images to inform a potential reader about the content of the magazine and any offers or special articles inside. There should also be a price and date of the magazine issue stated. A typical contents page contains brief summaries of the various articles and stories inside the magazine along with more images to compliment them.
My front cover used all of the correct methods including an interesting image and bold titles; however I think that I could have used some more images on the front page to make it a little more interesting. The audience feedback I have had about this page generally says that the image is very good and likely to gain interest.
My contents page has a variety of images linked to various articles and stories but I have used a little more text than would normally be used for a contents page, I did this because I felt that if I mentioned each article briefly on the front cover, then it would be pointless doing the same for the contents page. So instead I decided to sum up each article but without a huge amount of text that would bore readers.
Front cover Contents page
How does my product represent particular social groups?
I think that I have represented the student social group as all the photos used are of students around college and are fairly comical therefore I think that they will appeal more to them. The language used in my two pages is very casual and in the same style student’s use, this is another reason why I think I have represented the student social group. As for the ratio of text to images I would say that it is about the same however there is a little more text for each image.
What kind of media institution might distribute my media product?
An institution that is likely to distribute my media product would be either a college or a university as they will have the highest number of my target audience and would benefit from selling the magazine as they would make a large amount of money form selling it to their students.
Who would be the audience for my media product?
I think my audience would most definitely be students ranging from first to third years. This is because the magazine is aimed entirely at students, and all the articles featured in my magazine are either aimed at or about students.
How did I attract/address my audience?
I have tried to attract a potential reader by filling my two pages with funny images and articles. I did this because I thought that if the audience found a magazine entertaining then it would make them much more likely to buy more copies of it. I also think that the colour contrast of my image to my titles on the front cover would attract the attention of students.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In making this magazine I have used many programs and new websites and so I have gained new skills and knowledge in how to use them to my advantage. One of the programs I had never used or even heard of before was gimp- 2.6. I used this to change a photo I had taken for my student magazine font cover. In this case I learnt how to develop a photo to what I wanted using a variety of tools and then how to add it to the magazine front cover and then upload the finished front cover to my blog.
