AS Media Blog

Thursday, 24 January 2013

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Task 10

Task 10

For this task I’ll be answering questions about my magazine according to the feedback received from my peers.

1) Who are the audience? Are they the group that you initially targeted?

As stated in my magazine proposal, there was no distinct market in terms of gender. However, according to the comments I received it seems that my magazine is more aimed towards females. I assume that this is because the cover star is a female. My target age group on the other hand seemed to be up for debate. One of my peers commented that my magazine seems to be aimed at 16-18 year olds, this is a very narrow market and I would have to disagree. Another peer on the other hand argued that because it’s a hip hop magazine, my target market could range from those aged between 17 and 35 years old. I believe that this is a more accurate figure and is closer to the age group whom I had initially targeted.

2) How are particular social groups represented- fans of particular music, age groups, defined by social class /gender / ethnicity..? Are these representations positive, negative, mixed?

According to the feedback that I received, young people are represented as bold and ambitious. This may be due to how the cover star portrays herself in the interview (on the DPS). In terms of ethnicity, people have stated that the buyers of my magazine will probably be a diverse group. Reason being, there are people of many ethnicities starring in my magazine and therefore it may reflect the people who will be purchasing the magazine.

3) Which elements of the magazine does the audience like?

Fortunately the feedback reflects that the simplicity and boldness of magazine went down well as I feared it could be mistaken for lack of detail when it was in fact intentional. Another thing my audience liked was the colour scheme, which was black and yellow.

4) What could be improved?

Having said all that, there’s still a vast amount that could’ve been done better. Most of the suggestions for improvement were based around my contents page and I’ll be the first to admit it isn’t the best. This was because the photography wasn’t up to scratch and it didn’t appear to be very professional. To conclude my contents page is definitely an aspect of my magazine that I could improve on.

5) Looking back at feedback you received from the college magazine, how do you feel your technical and creative skills have developed?

Although it could have been better it is also evident that I’ve made vast improvements when compared back to my college magazine. The photography is much better for starters as now I’m familiar with how to use the cameras and photographic techniques such as lighting and whatnot. Also, my editng skills are considerable better as my photoshop and indesign skills have improved greatly.

Task 7 (Audience research task)

Task 7

Audience research task

I pitched my magazine proposal infront of my class and received feedback. The majority of my classmates approved of the target audience and the aims of the magazine. I'm glad that they did because they fit in, in terms of the target age group. Therefore, it was necessary that they approved of the genre and felt as that means tha it does have a place in the market. They also liked the colour scheme and the layout as it resembles one of a professional magazine. On the downside I was told that I could've gave more possible mastheads as I was guilty of making my mind up beforehand on which one I'd be using, rather than letting my class vote/choose. However, it was clear that quite a bit was missing from my proposal, such as I didn’t include the price of the magazine. In conclusion my pitch was rather successful in that I received a good insight as to what is good about the concept of my magazine as well as things I should consider before producing the actual thing.

Task 4 (Audience feedback and evaluation (preliminary task)

Task 4

Audience feedback and evaluation (preliminary task)

What went well?

I presented my magazine in front of my class and as expected received pretty mixed reviews. Firstly I shall talk about what people liked about my student magazine. Quite a few people appreciated the simplicity of it. They said they liked how I didn't try to go over the top and try to cram so much in, unlike others, and rather I kept it neat and professional. Another thing which went down well in general was the title of my magazine which was 'The Weekly Student'. I believe that this sounds very much like a student magazine and according to the group feedback, my target market agree.

What do I need to improve on?

As I said my magazine received mixed reviews during the group feedback session which means there are also a few aspects which I can improve on. Firstly, the colour scheme didn't work as well as I initially thought, furthermore it isn't consistent throughout the magazine. Also the image on the front cover which I had to manipulate last minute didn't go down very well. Initially the picture was two students talking to each other and smiling on a bench in the college and it looked very much like a image you'd find in a student magazine. However, the picture had to be a mid shot and therefore I had to zoom in and crop out a lot of the original image which I agree didn't look very good.

Three key points for development when producing the main task (music magazine)

With a combination of my own opinions and the feedback received I shall state three points which I would like to better when making my music magazine. They are as follows;

· A more eye catching colour scheme

· Better journalism

· More professional photographs