Muna Gaunt's Media Magazine Blog.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Throughout this whole  practical process I think that I have gained and learnt alot of skills. The key skills that i have learnt have been using IT skills such as, Photoshop and publisher, working as a team and being able to manage my time efficently. The most important skill that I have gained has been using photoshop as I was not able to use it properly before, as you can see by the school magazine I created before. I learnt how to manipultate the pictures to fit my target audience which I found quite difficult as I'm not familiar with the target audience I chose. Furthermore, I had to research about my target audience (Indie/Rock) by going to steryotypical places like Camden. This allowed me to experience a different enviroment which helped me further myself as a media student. Learning to time magaging has been exceptionally important to me, as normally I find it difficult. However, I overcame this and kept to my target dates and deadlines which proved that I was able to use my time well. A disadvantage of time wasting was using photoshop, it took up a lot of time than I thought it would, which means I was able to work under pressure well. Finally, being able to work as a team member was a good experience as we were able to share all our ideas together and crete the same house style magazine.

Overall, making my magazine was an enjoyable process which helped me learn key skills which can help me now and in the future.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When working and creating my magazine I learnt new skills on software such as photo-shop, Microsoft words, publisher and a friends professional camera. I then uploaded my work on an online blog site called bloger. 

At the beginning I had difficulty using photo-shop, publisher or the professional camera, however over time I gradually learnt how to use the programmes and hardware. 


I used my friends professional camera to take my original shots at Camden and Southbank. 

I mostly used the school's computer to do most of my work, as I didn't have Photoshop on my laptop, which was quite difficult for me. 

Other programmes I used were:

Facebook:

To get my target audience reaction of what they thought of my magazine, I received some comments on what people thought of my magazine but it was not as helpful as the video. 

Flickr:

I used this programme to annotate my magazine however, it was difficult for me to use as I didn't know what to do. 

Windows Moviemaker:
I used this programme to edit the video's of people's reaction to my magazine and make it more presentable. It was fairly easy to use as it was straightforward.

Windows Publisher:

I used windows publisher to write up my musical article into columns. I did this as I wanted to not have any grammatical errors and give it a professional look, after  then copied it into Photoshop.

Photoshop 7.01

Photoshop 7.01 was a programme that I used a lot, I used it to make my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I also used Photoshop to manipulate my original pictures for example cropping, colour boost or generally changing the pictures. An advantage of using Photoshop was that it made my magazine look professional and was easy to use when I knew how to use the programme. A disadvantage to Photoshop was that it was time consuming as I had to learn how to use everything from scratch.  

Photoshop evidence: 

Manipulation on Photoshop:

This is evidence of how I have manipulated the photo's on Photoshop so I am able to change the pictures to fit the Indie genre.  

Here I'm changing the title, as I didn't want the black background included in my magazine.  

5. How did you attract/adress your audience?

4. Who would be your audience for your media product?

I feel that my audience for my magazine would be people who are creative, have a different taste in music and their lifestyle and wanting to stand out from the rest of society. The age range for my magazine would be older teenagers from 16-20 years old. However, it may appeal more to females as the pictures I have used are mostly girls.

Typically the girl will be intrested in indie/rock music, she would be seen everywhere with her ipod whether it be she's out with her friends or she's doing work. She would also be listening to bands such as Arctic Monkey's, The XX, Paramore and Green Day. She will spend her weekends/free time going to concerts, music festivals and house parties. She would also be quite artist and creative wearing clothes which will represent her personality/identity and may sometimes carry a camera around her. The shops she steroytpically shop at would be Topshop, TK Maxx, Primark, H&M and other botique/vintage shops. When she is relaxing she would either be reading a fantasy book or watching shows such as Skins,Misfits, Japanese Anime shows and films such as 10 Things I hate about you.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 IPC Media: 

After researching for an appropriate company to distribute my magazine. I found that IPC Media would be one of the best options. IPC Media is a huge company that distribute a wide range of magazine. For example they distribute 'LOOK' which is a fashion  high street magazine and 'NME' which is a huge contrast as they are two complete genres. I think that there would be gap in the market for my magazine as it is completly different from 'NME'. They dont have a magazine which are targeted only for individual people.
Furthermore i have found out that IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands showing that it is huge company  which will be good for my magazine as the recognition of IPC Media will attract my target audience more and make my magazine more popular. It would be better for me to use a big company as I think if I chose an independent/smaller company. It would not get a lot of advertisement and people may tend not to buy my magazine.  
I feel that the price for my magazine is a reasonable price (£2.50) as my target audience would not buy a magazine over the cost of my price. 

Beuer would be another magazine company I would consider to distribute my magazine to as they distribute other magazine which is similar to my genre such as 'KERRANG!' and 'Q'.  They also own more than eighty influential media brands like IPC which again shows there wide varieties and interests. They publish magazine such as,  GRAZIA, Closer, MATCH, Magic 105.4, Kiss 100, Kerrang!, Q and many more. However, i feel that they would be too much competition within this company which could lead to my magazine not being popular enough.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Here I have an original picture I took myself and two pictures from a magazine:

My magazine is targeted at people who have individual traits and dress/follow the indie scene. They are normally interested into indie/rock or alternative music like the girls above. The pictures above show that all the girls are wearing similar costumes and have the same natural look to there hair.
The background of the pictures are minimal focusing more on people who are in the picture. All the girls are wearing barely any make-up showing that indie girls in general don't perceive make-up to be important.  There facial expressions are natural and not posing at the camera this suggest that the picture in general is natural and laid back as there is not a lot going on within the pictures. 

All the pictures are medium shots, which allows us to focus more on the girls and their pose than the background.  
Steriotypically, young Indie/Rock teenagers are percived in a negative way. They are normally associated with alchol, drugs, 'Rock and Roll' and partying. However, I have represented the young adults in a positive view, for example, the girl in my front page is seen to be thinking which suggest that they are thoughtful, confident and genuine.
Overall I think that these elements on the photos represent a normal young indie/social group and that my magazine reflects this throughout. You can see by looking at the pictures that these girl dont represent a 'Rock' or 'Hip-hop' genre but an Indie genre. However,  I think the pictures would attract a mature audience instead of young teens by the way the pictures have been taken.