EVALUATION

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
In my research I studied two different types of magazines that target
different audiences. In Focus magazine the target audience was the
parents of the school children, I wanted to challenge this convention
because I wanted a wider target audience which would be both parents
and children. I used bright colours blue and yellow, which contrasts each
other. This was to make my article look more like an actual magazine. I
used these colours to attract viewers and make my magazine eye catching,
which challenged both of my research magazines because they both stuck
to dull colours, which did represent a school magazine, but it did not
attract viewers. I decided to use one main image for my front cover
because I wanted to make the image stand out. By using one main image
contradicted the norm of a school magazine, which is supposed to give the
reader an idea of the variety of lessons in school. I gave the model a prop
which was a book to look studious. I wanted to represent my magazine as
scholarly to give the audience an idea of what a role model student is like.
The model does not look at the camera because I wanted to create the idea
that she is more study focus than camera focus. I challenged the
convention of my models wearing school uniform; however they did wear
business wear. I wanted to let students have an idea of what uniform they
could wear in sixth form. I wanted to take a risk and have a sixth form
student on the front cover because younger years look up to them. For my
font I decided to give a mixture of formal and informal. This challenged the
norms of having one type of font, which attracted a certain type of
audience. I wanted to give a mixture of font to allow different types of
audiences to be magnetized to the magazine. It also gave an idea of what
would be in my school magazine, theyll be something for the students and
something for the parents. In the chosen hill magazine they used a weekly
magazine, however I decided to oppose this and do a monthly magazine, I
wanted to do this because in a monthly magazine there would be more to
talk about and it would mean people would only have to pay 1 for a
month, instead of every week.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine addresses a social group who wants to aspirer and do well in
school. All aspects I want inside the magazine will be to encourage
students to do better and give those tips and tricks on how to do well in
school. I want to cover aspects of bullying, and social status and how to get

better grades in subjects. On the other hand, the parents will need to be
engaged with their childs education. My magazine represents these target
audiences because on the front cover it has text about how to do
successful in school, what a student thinks of school and a variety of
subjects which have done well in the month. All of these aspects I covered
in the magazine were educational and I didnt want my school magazine to
be anything but academic. For parents my magazine represented them
because it showed interest in students opinion and answered questions
they were worried about. On my contents page I added numbers next to
images and texts so it would be easier for parents to make their way round
the magazine.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
I wanted my magazine to have a mass audience and have parents and
students as the target audience. However, I did want my main target
audience to be the students because I feel they lack educational ambition.
My target audience will be for both genders. Because of the hidden
curriculum of genders, which associated with colours; I wanted the colour
scheme to have a mixture of feminine and masculine colours. Therefore, I
used blue for boys and yellow for girls. However, it could be seen as my
magazine targeted girls more because most images were of girls, but I
wanted to aim for all gender types to be anti-sexist. My demographics
group would be D to C1 because the average student in Moulsham High
School does not come from the demographics group A and B. My
psychographics group is aspirers which would be the students. Nearly all
teenagers seek status from peers and they want to orientate a certain
image, therefore they are most likely to buy a magazine if it comes across
as cool. To do this I will need to get role models who are idolized by
teenagers.
How did you attract/address your audience?
My colour scheme had to be bright to attract the younger audience, which
would be students; however I added some aspects for adults, which was
the formal font, I wanted my magazine to have certain aspects for both
students and their parents. My main target audience however, was the
students I wanted them to be involved and engaged with school more,
therefore I added bright colours, images and quizzes. The images I took
were of a sixth former, I did this because in the education system sixth
formers are people who are looked up to by younger peers. The model is
wearing smart uniform to give the audience an idea of what they can wear
and what sixth formers do wear when they are not given a uniform. I used
bright bold font to attract the younger view, however I continued to use a
serif font for all texts for the adults because I didnt want them to feel that

the magazine was just targeted at students. It was important to focus on

adults because they were the ones more likely to buy and read the
magazine.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
One thing I struggled with at first was how to use a dslr camera. This was
the first time I used a DSLR camera and I didnt realise that it functioned
differently to an average cheaper camera, which I am used to using. The
first thing I struggled with was how to see what the picture I was going to
take would look like. I was confused as to why the picture I was about to
take would not come up on the LCD display. Therefore, I asked for help
from my peers and they gave me a tutorial of how to use the camera. They
told me that the image would be shown through the view finder. The
second task I struggled with was trying to get the camera lens to focus on
the model. Some of my pictures I first took came out blurry or there was no
distribution of the model and the background. However, instead of asking
for help I wanted to be more independent and started to play around with
the camera and tried to spin the les until I was happy with the focus. After
getting my pictures I struggled with setting out my writing, I didnt realise
that you could align the text right, centred and left. I had all my text right
aligned and it didnt look right. Luckily for me my friend showed me how to
do it and it started to look professional.