My media product challenges conventions by using pink writing aimed at both males and females. It copies the monochrome color scheme of Q magazine using red, black, and white. The target audience is pleasure seekers and rebels aged 17-21 interested in indie rock music. Imagery of a woman with a blindfold signals taking risks and inner strength appealing to this core audience. The magazine may be distributed by IPC, a large UK media company reaching many adults, benefiting the magazine's reach among young music fans.

1. EvaluationBy Madeleine Ward Year 12

3. My media product challenges the forms and conventions of other media products as I have included bright pink/red writing but I am still aiming at my original target audience of males and females. Other magazines I have researched such as Q magazine, NME and Rolling Stones, they don’t challenge their audiences and experiment with controversial colours, such as pink is stereotypically meant and like by girls. With my magazine I have challenged this. I have copied the monochrome scheme of Q magazine which three main colours are, Red, Black and White ,I liked this style as it was simple and didn’t distract the reader from the information on the magazine. I also liked the masthead of Q magazine as it dominates it against all the other text on the page.

4. My media product represents particular social groups as the genre of music is indie-rock, this therefore appeals to a younger generation of people. The questionnaire I did for my magazine supports this as I asked 25 girls and 25 boys from the ages of 12-30 years, the age group I have identified that would most likely to read my magazine is 17-21 year olds. The social group my magazine could appeal to might be materialists as it involves fashion and photo shoots of Cheryl Cole. It might also appeal to a rebellious social group as it has and edgy style as the colours I have used connotates an edgy style, the bright colours against the black and white background. The image I have used as a background, with the girl having a blindfold around her eyes connotes a willingness to take risks, to trust in others, to have the power and inner strength to ‘let go.’ This is a powerful signifier that I wanted to make sure reached my core target audience. My core target audience is, in terms of lifestyle demographics, pleasure seekers, materialists and ‘rebels.’ Other ways I have targeted my core target audience include the imagery used throughout the product, but in this case especially the double page spread. Here I have used both text and imagery to connote meaning. The dialogue she uses connotes that she is a individual, strong, independent and young girls might read this and are able to relate to this. ‘I am comfortable and happy with my body and I wouldn’t change it because someone doesn’t like it! I am passionate about being a good role model and if girls are looking up to me then I want them to be looking up to me for the right reasons.’ The main image is of her in a attractive pose but without demeaning herself or flaunting her body for male attention.

5. The media institutions that may distribute my magazine may be IPC, they are a large company and produce many media brands in the UK and America. IPC is involved in different magazines, such as fashion ones, music, gardening etc. ‘IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands, with our print brands alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men – almost 27 million UK adults – while our online brands collectively reach 20 million users every month., (IPC website). This will benefit my magazine as it will get my magazine know, ad IPC is a successful distributor and men and women read their magazines they distribute.

6. My audience for my magazine would be young people as the genre of music I have based my magazine around is indie-rock, the questionnaire I did for my magazine supports this as I asked 25 girls and 25 boys from the ages of 12-30 years, the age group I have identified that would most likely to read my magazine is 17-21 year olds. It would also be readers who are interested in music and who like the artists featured in my magazine.

7. I have learnt how to use photoshop and create my first ever blog, it took a while to grasp the editing of my images and the text, but I eventually learnt how to use it. The blog site has been down for a few weeks which made it difficult to edit and blog.

8. I feel I have learnt a developed a different style to what I was aiming at in my preliminary task. In my preliminary task I wasn’t focusing on my audience, I based it around my taste. However I feel now, once doing the questionnaire and doing some research on the magazine and audience I have improved on it and I believe that this is evident in my new magazine. As the preliminary was aimed at school students it looks quite childish however I kept the title as I thought it was simple but ‘catchy’ enough to remember.