Evaluation

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

The elements I have chosen are nine that I think help reflect HipHop magazines in the media. All frames are typically seen in magazines. Real media products use highlighting devices as a way of showing something that will attract the reader more. I decided to feature a highlighting device as not only did it look good with my chosen colours but it showed the reader something good featured in the magazine. It is a typical convention in the media and when researching I found common shapes of circles and stars features on the cover. Another typical HipHop media convention was the hand gesture on the model. I think the hand gesture challenges some forms of other media because it's suggesting something to the readers. Its typical for some music magazines but not others. Eg) A pop magazine may have a sexy confident artist pose without hand gestures but a Rock artist may have hand gestures in. The hipster title is in a simple font which stands out which is definetly seen throughout other media magazines. I found that what is consistent within magazines is that you dont often see 'swirly' writing because its hard for he reader to read. When looking at typical DPS conventions I found that many of the letters could appear in the background .
 Another element that are featured in many magazines are the advertisements to subscribe. People often subscribe in order to either get there magazine delivered or because the magazine is cheaper. This is why real media products use them. Sell lines are one of the important things featured in the magazine. The media uses many sell lines to attract the reader into buying there magazine.  The sell lines have to be catchy and interesting.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?            The body language and posture of both of these image show similarity.Both of the shots are eye level and are at eye angle. The costumes of them both are urban including hoodies and tanktops and "bling". The expression on each of the images face shows a suggestion to the reader of being cool. The ideology of them both show that they mean business. People can see that they are young, cool , gangster and so many look up to be like them as they have a sterotypical life of having lots of money, flash cars and fun lives. The difference between my image and the Vibe Magazines image is theres is a two shot. Both are similar in the sense that they are  using hand suggestions to the reader. I think that these images represent a social group as the magazine images and my image targets the younger generation.Both magazines show connotations of confidence and gangster material.

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

 XXL magazine is produced by Harris Publications. Within the media there are more opportunities to buy and view the magazine. With the internet a global tool everyone withing the world can view the magazine for free.www.xxlmag.com/. New technologies are making viewing magazines more easier. With new antroid phones such as Samsung galaxy S apps to view magazines are becoming more popular. These might distribute my magazine because most people have access to a phone somewhere. Some magazines could be distributed by venues such as conerts where they could be handed our to many people. Advertising in this case would be very important. The type of models that will be distributed on my magazine or any HipHop will be fun, gangster, confident and sexy. XXL magazine publishes other magazines such as King

www.king-mag.com/ and Juicy www.juicymagonline.com/.

Both these magazines by Harris Publications are shown to have a similar model. Both relating to the RnB/HipHop genre. By exploring there type of genre we can see that there focus is HipHop and not any other genres.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my magazine would typically be a young, cool male or female who likes urban music. They spend there time socialising with a group of friends and enjoy having the latest gadgets. They lead a normal lifestyle but would love to typically have a flash lamborghini in the drive way with a 5 story house. They would typically listen to EMINEM, NickiMinaj and other upbeat artists. They would buy films that have gangsters and action incorparated in them or films such as 8mile which is typically about the Hiphop artist EMINEM.The image I have included is of a typical target audience of my magazine. They would buy my magazine because its upbeat and trendy.

How did you attract/address your audience?

 

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

Doing my blog and project has helped me use many different techniques and programs. I used many programs throughout my project such as Blogger, Powerpoint , Word, Photoshop, GoogleDocs and the internet. All of the programs have tought me something different. Photoshop has been a great creative and editing software which has a range of tools to creat the perfect magazine, image or posters. Using this software helped me create a gradient background, image for the cover and added effects, I've learned that without the use of this technology there would be a lot more problems occur when making magazines. We could of had many problems such as the images not going well together. Technology is very important within day to day life and I've learned that  it makes it look more professional.  Constucting my product got me used to using programs such as photoshop and it helped get to know the different tools used. I also used a camera when creating my magazine for the range of images used. The camera was an important piece of technology in my project and I learned how easy it was to take images then connect them to the PC.      

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school/college magazine task/short continuity film sequence), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from that to your full product?

More Research

Researching these front covers helped me understand what conventions make up HipHop more than I thought before. We can see that the hand gestures are typical on these front covers and so this will help me with my front cover. By looking at all these covers we can see the stern look on each face and how serious each of them look. This research has helped me when doing my magazine , contents and double page spread as the types of images I needed to use was important.The simple fonts and the urban costumes the artists wear has made me aware of what my model could wear also.