Evaluation

Evaluation question 1 from tara96

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

3. What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute your Media Product and Why?
I am aiming for a mainstream audience of 12-17 year olds who are female and love pop music. Unfortunately however, there are many other magazines who also have this aim, most notably Top of the Pops Magazine produced by the BBC, another institution that publishes magazines similar to mine is  Egmont, publishers of We Love Pop. Therefore I would chose Egmont to publish my magazine as it has a lot of experience in publishing this genre additionally many of their magazines are aimed towards younger audience so I think my magazine would fit in nicely.
This I what Egmont have to say - 'Egmont is one of the UK’s largest magazine publishers for children, selling a million a month – provide fun through reading. They open up the imaginations of children through favourite characters and they engage their interests through topics and attitudes that really appeal to them – from 3 years old through to early teens.'
Reading this I feel my magazine would fit in well as their aim is to provide fun reading and I also think that there is a small gap in the market for mid teens with slightly more sophisticated reading yet still in a fun girly way. Therefore although Egmont do have We Love Pop, my magazine could tie in nicely with it as a twin publication and could possibly be aimed at a slightly older audience of teens. Alternatively IPC a famous American distributor that produces NME could also distribute my magazine as there is a very big gap not only for teen magazines but also for the pop genre, yet as the distribute NME they do have some experience.
Once my magazine is published it could extend to other parts of the media, for example an interactive website with games and competitions etc. or even have its own radio station airing all the new pop hits. This could advertise the magazine as well as developing the brand to create profit.

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



5. How did you attract/address your audience?
To make my magazine as appealing as possible to my target audience I had to take many things into consideration. First and foremost I had to outline my target audience which I did in my treatment sheet from here I could do research and assess what would be the bet way to attract and appeal to said target audience. I knew from the off that one of the most important aspects of my magazine would be the front cover as 70% of people buy their magazine on the spur of the moment therefore I needed to hook my audience. After researching and comparing magazines I came to the conclusion from my questionnaire especially that teenage girls love things like celebrities mostly boy bands, competitions, gossip and exclusive interviews with well known people. Another thing I noticed was that bright colours and familiar faces attracted my target audience towards a magazine therefore bearing all this in mind I began working on my front cover. Whilst bearing this all in mind and doing as much audience research as I could in planned in advance to create the perfect teen pop magazine.
Throughout the magazine the mode of address is considerably laidback and colloquial to appeal and relate to the young generation, slang words are used and vocabulary is fairly basic allowing the younger readers to feel comfortable and enjoy the magazine.The font is big, bright and bold plus I used different shapes to present a visually pleasing image to my target audience. I also tried to include as many photos as I could as this entices my target audience more than lots of text (as I found out through my questionnaire). Other research techniques such as pool and comments helped me form an idea of how my magazine should be constructed. Plus with my photos I took some in public places to relate to the readers and portray the image that celebrities are just people like you and me, however I also tried to make some photos look more professional to create an impressive vibe like the magazines currently on the shelves. My contents page also consisted of bright colours like the cover keeping the younger readers hooked in. However the young readers will probably not buy their own magazines therefore I had to remember throughout that I must also appeal to the parents and guardians who buy their children these magazines. Considering this I used a young fresh faced celebrity who sets a good example to her fans. Plus throughout Pop-In we very much encourage readers to look up to people like Daisy Meadows, to be confident and follow their dreams. Additionally, the price is relatively low in comparison to other music magazines out on the market at the moment further appealing to parents especially those in the C1/C2 socioeconomic grouping.

Evaluation question 6 from tara96

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Personally I feel like I have learnt a lot of new skills since beginning my preliminary task and this is shown through the quality difference in the two pieces of work that I have managed to produce. I have learnt how to use many new pieces of software as I have explained above or learnt new ways in which to use more familiar pieces of software I.e. Microsoft Publisher to better my work. I have definitely learnt more about print media and the magazine industry in general, I have additionally learnt how to target an audience as well as take professional photos, gain audience feedback and use different types of technology to arrive at the best outcome. This development of practical skills has aided my understanding of the industry and helped me to appreciate the difficulty of producing such a product. As you can see I have spent a lot of time attempting to get this product right from research to development to editing and through this process I have gained many new skills that I hope to further develop in the future not only in my media studies but also in later life. I believe that through this process I have really engaged my practical skills and enjoyed the challenged that faced me, learning new skills along the way and finally managing to produce my own music magazine.