Week 7

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

Within the preliminary task, my media product is a college magazine. In this task I have created a college magazine front cover and contents page.    

On the right is an example of a college magazine front cover. It helped me use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media products, as this magazine is a real college lifestyle magazine. The codes and conventions of this magazine cover is as follows. Firstly, from looking it is clear that this magazine has a colour scheme, and it consists of 3 colours, Black, white and yellow. The magazine background is black and have a masthead located at the top of the cover which is stretched across, big and bold in yellow clear typeface which allows it to be read clearly. The main student featured in this magazine is male, and is holding college related books to show interlect and to give the impression he is a hardworking student, and so is the college he is attending.  

By placing the model to cover some of the masthead, it shows that the magazine is well known and typeface and font is so clear that all letters of the magazine name have to be visible for readers to recognise the magazine. The price and barcode however, is located on the left hand corner of the page instead of the right like other magazine covers I have seen. The layout of this magazine is clear and organised, as the articles and phrases are located on the left and right sides of the page. On the cover, there is an advert for painballing in a pink splat. As the rest of the magazine is black, white and yellow, adding a bright colour like pink would would obviously draw readers attention away. Also the rest of the magazine seems to look quite formal and organised and this just comes in from nowhere so this shows that it is important and the was purposefully placed there to recieve an audience. They may be targetting particular students for the painballing and it seems to be a smart and high reputed college from how the magazine atmosphere is displayed.

On the right, I have placed my college front cover. It uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. My magazine is similar and uses the same codes and conventions as the college magazine cover above. This shows my magazine also is proffessionally made. My magazine includes codes and conventions such as a Masthead, selling line, date line, price, coverlines, left third and bottom banner. My magazine also has a colour scheme which revolves around Blues, Yellow, white and black. Another consistant factor about my cover is the fontface as it uses only two fonts throughout  the cover. 

On the left, I have placed an example of a contents page. This contents page only has two images, however, within my contents page, which I have placed on the right, there are 5 images. My contents page is quite similar to this proffessionally made contents page as I also have a colour scheme within my contents page. I have used Blue, White, black and yellow within my page. I have included subscription information and editors note. The layout both these pages are similar.

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

My media product is a college magazine front cover and contents page. My media products represents particular social groups such as students, teachers and parents. I have targetted these people by using images of students, both male and female, and I have also used a variety of students within the product, ranging from different ethnicity and races. The colours used will also attract the audience as I have used blue, which is represents "cool" and other relaxed vibes. The clothing is also another factor that represents social groups as there are some iniformed images, there are some school football club images, and classroom images. These represent unity, friendship, trust and equality. 

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

My magazine is a college magazine, similar genre to lifestyle magazines, as it is to do with college students lifestyles and attitude towards college, work, exams and other college lifestyle topics. In my opinion, a media institution like Bauer media might distribute my media product as this media institution distributes a whole lot of lifestyle magazines, and since my magazine is a college lifestyle magazine, it relates to their genre of distribution. 

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product is students mainly. This consists of students in the age range of 16-19, of both male and females. My magazines will target people of all races and ethnicities.