Evaluation - Question 1.

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


I have looked at conventions that are successful in existing magazines, to follow, developing my own magazine, so that the audience I am targeting will recognise the conventions. For the front cover of my magazine I have used a model which fits in with the look of a hip hop artist. He is wearing a white vest exposing his muscles this is a fashion trend and often worn by artists in the industry (Chris Brown).

Therefore he fits the criteria to be able to be on a music magazine, which follows real conventions as he

looks like a hip hop artist. The colour used on my magazine instantly establishes that it’s a music magazine as I used black, white and red The real media products that usually use these colours are 'NME' and 'Q'. I use three block colours keeping it consistent throughout. I’ve also realised through my research all music magazines stick to three colours, sometimes more for the text/headlines but usually it’s just three. Magazines such as vibe use conventions such as famous music artist modelled on the front cover, so I have done this too, they also have the title of the magazine quite short easy to remember and spread across the top of the page, so I have also stretched my title however my title challenges forms as its quite a long; “Compilation, the mixed music magazine”, its a mouthful but I think it sounds professional, I used 'mixed' in the title to explain that my magazine isn't just one genre like 'Hip Hop' or 'RnB' its a conglomeration of the two. I created a music magazine about music artists, fashion, sounds, lifestyle culture and the urban music movement, this is clear through the headlines I use on the front cover of my magazine.

A theory I could apply to my print would be Laura Mulvey (since the 1970's) 'The male Gaze' – to refer to the way you look at the image of people on screen/print. Jonathan Schroeder (1998), “To gaze implies more than to look at – it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze”Even though the theory looks at how males look at females this is still useful, to look at in terms of the gazer how the audience look at someone.

My magazine is direct address to the viewer of the magazine, the facial expression of my model is carefree slightly smiling but also seductive. The ways my media product uses conventions of real media products is; I used all of my own photographs in my music magazine, for the contents page I related it to the front cover headlines, sticking with red and black colours to give it continuity. I follow conventions by making my magazine as user friendly as possible, making it easy to access the pages people want to read about, for my double page spread I linked it to an interview with the model on the front The front cover is the most important in terms of advertising, as its the first thing people look at therefore attracted to clutch it in there hands and look more closely, it has to have something which catches the customers eye, makes the magazine stand out amongst others. This is usually done by having a certain role model, someone in the public domain that people are simply fans of; popular celebrities, pop stars, models etc.

So thinking about this, as I was producing my music magazine, I indented to have someone on the front cover who represented music in a contemporary way and looked like hip hop artist. With this in mind I did some research looking at how hip hop/RnB artists looked in photographs, especially in magazines such as 'Vibe', 'NME', 'XXL'. This is why the person I chose to be on the front cover has a cocky, cool, confident look. On existing magazines this is what sells it the person on the front so I knew I had to have someone that people would like.