question 7-evaluation

Question 7 evaluation

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question 6-evaluation

Question 6-What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? on Prezi

question 5-evaluation

Question 5 evaluation

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question 4-evaluation

Dougie Magraw

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Meet Joel; Joel is going to be my perfect example of my target audience as a whole I am aiming for with ‘GMF Magazine’.

Firstly, the basics; Joel is a male and is aged 17; he lives in a pretty modest house and would be classed as working class. His music taste is quite varied but his main genre would be rock music. His favourite band is Muse but loves to listen to a more alternative style of music with the likes of Bon Iver and Laura Marling. If he had to fit into a social category then he would be classed as ‘Indie’ however, he likes to think of himself more as an individual. This is reflected in his common interests; he has always clung onto different hobbies like, skating, football and going to gigs, but even when he is enjoying these activities he still prefers to be sat at home with his headphones in listening and reading into music. In regards to what other media he consumes; he enjoys watching a lot of comedy on the television and absolutely detests soap operas. He thoroughly enjoys films and he if he doesn’t have his Ipod plugged in his ears then he would definitely have the radio in.

Joel is a very precise example of my target demographic; if I were to be more general I would emphasize Joel’s music taste and his whole passion for music in general.  

question 3-evaluation

Question 3 evaluation

question 2-evaluation

Dougie Magraw

Question 2-How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The audience and social group is one of my most important factors when I crea5ted my magazine. I wanted to have a specific target audience but still make the magazine accessible to other social groups such as older generations. My actual target audience is male and female readers aged from 13-30, their music preference would be indie/alternative but still be interested in other genres.

On my front cover I included an image of a popular lead singer of the band, ‘The Enigmatics’, in comparison to other artists in popularity I would compare him to Caleb Followill from Kings Of Leon. I have posed him looking quite smooth and cool to represent him as an idol for his fans. I dressed him in a checkered shirt with tight jeans as this is quite a common dress code for the target audience I was aiming for. I felt that the audience didn’t need to rely on the artists clothes as a selling point because ‘Mickey D’ is a selling point on his own, especially for the female part of my target audience. This brings me to the mise-en-scene of my front cover, the clothes that he is wearing does represent the social group I am aiming for as it puts the audience on common grounds with the star. I’ve also put him posing with a red guitar and for a potential reader of GMF magazine that hasn’t heard of Mickey D just seeing him posing with a guitar will intrigue them to the magazine if they are interested in that genre of music. The statement that the image says about the social group for GMF magazine is that they are fashionable, cool and very much into music.

With my magazine I have also tried to gain a wider audience than just my target audience. This is apparent with my double page spread; I have written an article on a drowned out mid 80’s mod/indie star who is on the verge of rehab. This is a negative representation in comparison to the one of Mickey D, I have made this representation to entice an older generation of readers that would be interested in this article. This could represent the social group as messed up but that wasn’t my intention as I felt it was a good selling point for the magazine.    

The dominant ideas for the social group I have chosen is that they all take drugs and get drunk everyday but are obsessed with music. I feel with the article for ‘Indie Cyndie’ supports these ideas but this can’t be avoided. On the other hand, my cover story doesn’t really challenge or support the dominant ideas about the social group I’ve chosen, but does challenge it a little bit as it isn’t representing the now solo artist as a complete wreck head.

To conclude, my media product of GMF magazine represents the social group of indie music crowd as a slightly toned down version of the dominant ideologies people have of them but still supporting these ideologies; music obsessed, concert obsessed but only a bit getting drunk obsessed.  

question 1-evaluation

Dougie Magraw 

Question 1: In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

With my product of GMF magazine, I was looking to create a contemporary magazine, with regards to the genre, which would obviously develop and challenge mainstream forms and conventions. However, I still wanted to keep certain mainstream conventions as I felt they were a good selling point for the magazine. 

In comparison to other colour schemes that are commonly used in media products I’d say that ‘GMF magazine’ conforms to these. As you can see here for my photo shoot I chose a light grey background to ensure that the red guitar and red font stand out as they are the selling points, especially the red font. In the issue of ‘NME’ magazine (right) they have also used this method as it makes the words ‘Kasabian’ and ‘Insane’ stand out from the rest of the cover. Another way in which I have conformed to usual forms and conventions used in music magazines is with my layout of the front cover of ‘GMF magazine’; my cover lines have been placed on the left hand side of the cover resulting in the consumer noticing them in a magazine rack in order to gain their attention for the magazine. I have also had the cover story as the most noticeable text on the page, also on the left hand side. The convention of using numbers and shapes within a cover page is also apparent with my magazine. I chose these particular conventions because, personally, I felt that they were vital to entice people into buying the magazine.

On the other hand, with my contents page I chose to not conform to typical forms and conventions of a music magazine. The majority of music magazines choose to have separated images of the artists that are in the issue of the magazine (right) to signify where to find these stories. I chose not to do this (left) as I wanted to keep the emphasis on the cover story, also because of my lack of resources in regards to real images I had taken of particular artists. As GMF magazine is split into three sections; gigs, music and festivals. My intentions were to allow the reader easy access to the particular section of the magazine they prefer, I did this by having three sections of the contents; the ‘G’, the ‘M’ and the ‘F’.

finished double page spread for 'GMF Magazine'

finished contents page for 'GMF Magazine'

finished cover image for GMF magazine

draft images for front covers

i decided not to use this image as my front cover.

i also decided not to put these images in my magazine.

Music Magazine sector sales figures for July 2010

 Classic Rock 70,323 (Dec 2009: 71,242, Jul 2009: 70,310) 12 month change +0.0%

Kerrang! 44,013 (Dec 2009: 41,125, Jul 2009: 43,253) 12 month change +1.8%

Metal Hammer 44,034 (Dec 2009: 41,777, Jul 2009: 46,004) 12 month change -4.3%

Mojo 91,678 (Dec 2009: 98,484, Jul 2009: 97,722) 12 month change -6.2%

NME 33,875 (Dec 2009: 38,846, Jul 2009: 40,984) 12 month change -17.3%

Q 89,450 (Dec 2009: 94,811, Jul 2009: 100,172) 12 month change -10.7%

Uncut 74,067 (Dec 2009: 75,518, Jul 2009: 76,526) 12 month change -3.2%

So, the metal mags are doing OK. Kerrang! has bounced back a bit after a couple of years of steep decline. Mojo and Uncut are drifting while Q continues its inexorable fall (it was selling more than 200,000 copies an issue 9 years ago)

The big story is NME. I thought the relaunch was a move in the right direction – more actual writing and a wider focus away from its indie rock staple. But the circulation figures are horrendous. They’ve halved in three years! It can only be a matter of months before IPC put it out of its misery at this rate.

The relaunch was needed. It was desperately poor before. As an outlet for music news it could never compete with the web, so more in depth pieces was the way to go. But I think that just drove away more of its low-attention span indie obsessed readers while failing to re-attract many of those who’d already given up on it. It looks like there’s no way back now and a web-only future beckons.

Record Mirror, Sounds, Melody Maker – all gone. The heyday of the music weeklies is now just a sentimental memory for those of us old enough to remember it.