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

  For my media product or music magazine I used other magazines aimed at similar target audiences and social groups as inspiration for the development, design and production of my music magazine. I took things from a selection of other magazines such as colour schemes and page layout and brought them togethert as one for my music magazine.

  While I have used ideas from other magazines and developed them to my advantage in order to challenge conventions, I am aware that there are areas where perhaps I have relied too heavily on other magazines and should have developed those ideas further to make my magazine one hundred percent unique. An example of this is the design of my contents page.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

  The following Prezi link will take you to a prezi presentation that I have produced to answer/explain my response to the above question

http://prezi.com/x4yxgjkdfvc8/how-does-your-media-product-represent-particular-social-grou/

Who would be the audience for your media product?

  Before making my music magazine, I ensured that I had a strong target audience that I could aim at by carrying out market research, but at the same time I  needed to find a gap in the market for my product. To do this I looked at other magazines aimed at the same age range as my target audience and then decided to apply these features to my music magazine because this would mean that m magazine can offer all of the features of the other magazines and I could also include the fact that mine is also a music magazine, therefore appealing to a wider target audience.

                  

  I also feel now looking at my magazine as a finished product, in comparison to its audience I am confident to say my magazine targets, young people between the ages of 8-14. I feel that it is aspiring for the younger side of my audience in terms of style of the models and such like, and at the same time i feel that the fashion and content would also appeal to the higher age range of my target audience who are interested in main-stream pop music. 

  The following are images that I have sourced which i feel represent my target audience either from the style and appearance of the people, or the poses or surrounding settings.

How did you attract/address your audience?

  The first step that I made concerning my target audience was to create a reader profile. This consisted of what sex the typical reader would be, their age range and their likes/interests. Once I had created this reader profile I researched into what this type of audience liked to read and what was popular among this age range. I looked at other music magazines and the colours, themes, designs and imagery that they used in order to help me produce a magazine that would appeal to my audience.

 

  From this research I noticed that this particular, young, girl orientated audience were attracted to very bold and colourful magazines as oppose to more discrete and minimalist magazines that slightly older women are attracted to for example: 

  I addressed my audience in an informal manner, to ensure that the reader feels at level with what they are reading and entices them to read on. I did this as more of a formal tone could make the reader feel inferior and not appeal to them.

 For the title of the magazine I have used something that is simple yet effective to engage the readers as it is not too complex for my young target audience. I selected my colour scheme so that it would appeal to the whole of my 8-14 year old audiences and at the same time my main-stream pop audiences. Such as pastel’s and splash colours. Furthermore I used young models for my magazine to appeal to younger girls because for example if i used a woman in her sixties as the model for my front cover this would not appeal to my young target audience. 

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

The following Slideshare presentation is one which I have produced as research into an additional media institution and the magazine that inspired me in producing my own music magazine.

http://www.slideshare.net/jessicalennon96/emont-magazines

  Out of the four media institutions that I have researched I feel that the most appropriate one to distribute my product would be EGMONT. I feel this way because they currently have no music based magazines for young teenage girls, but they do have a gossip based magazine (We Love Pop) which is aimed at the same sort of target audience as mine. Therefore they will have the necessary contacts for the production ,marketing and distribution of my product. 

Furthermore EGMONT only publish for children who are their main focus not a sideline unlike IPC, for example, who focus predominantly on an adult audience.

EMAP

 For further research into the question "What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?" I have also researched into the media institution EMAP. Below is a slideshare presentation demonstrating my findings.

http://www.slideshare.net/jessicalennon96/emap-31821771

  From this research i don't think that EMAP would be a suitable institution to distribute my product as trey do not offer anything aimed at an audience anywhere near the specifications of my target audience. for this reason i feel that a magazine such as mine would be too far away from their comfort zone.

For more information on EMAP and EMAP values please visit:

http://www.emap.com/about-us

IPC Media

I have created the following slideshare presentation as research for the question "what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"

http://www.slideshare.net/jessicalennon96/ipc-media-31753641

For more background visit:

http://www.ipcmedia.com/about

And for history about the company visit:

http://www.ipcmedia.com/about/companyhistory