Evaluation

At the end of my Pre-lim task i have to do an evaluation, I chose to do it on my blog instead of recording myself.
I was asked to answer these following questions.

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

• The key conventions of a student magazine are that on the front cover they should have a masthead, a background of some sort, usually a picture, cover lines and captions if there are any graphics. A typical contents page has headlines for the stories and maybe a lure, going into a little bit more detail about the story to interest people, images also are used to interest readers. Also, a contents page must have page references. I used theses typical conventions in my magazine, except on the front cover I had more smaller pictures instead of just one large one that takes up the whole page. With this prelim task I feel that I haven't really pushed any boundaries, however, now that I am practiced and know what I'm doing I will try to do something very original with the music magazine.

I looked at both my cover and one of the magazines I analysed I realised they quite similar, but the First Car seems to be aimed at a slightly older audience. However, the main aspects are the same.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• In my magazine I have represented students and teenagers, through using pictures and showing college life. The images are all of students, mainly of them looking like they are having fun. They are laughing. Also, I have a picture of a young author to try to interest people into reading about their fellow students.



• For example, my cover line said about 'The Bash!' which would appeal to teenagers as they mainly like parties.
  

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

• In this case it will be the college and maybe the student council that would distribute the magazine as this is who it is aimed at. Although the college at the moment already have a magazine they could either have two or merge the magazines.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• My magazine is aimed at both male and females around the ages between 18 and 19. Inside there are articles about university, which only these ages think about, and also about the college, which only the college students will be interested in.

How did you attract/address your audience?

• I learnt from my questionnaire that students wanted to read about other students and also celebrities. They did not want a serious magazine but more a light hearted one with fun things to do, but also some informative things. Therefore I included information about universities, but before that in the magazine an interview with 'Muse', and an interview with 'Jeanne Hunneyball' as she is a college student, which people said they would be interesting to read about. i think the front cover is interesting to students, one of the cover lines is about the Bash, which students will find interesting as it is about something they really enjoy, partying. Also, they said they wanted to read about students, which is why all the photos on the cover are of students. Also, the colours are purples and blues and quite bright, which is what they liked and will draw people in.

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

• For my prelim task I used a digital camera to create my own photo shoot, I used Publisher to create my front cover and contents page which I am pleased with, it was the first time I had used Publisher for something like this, therefore, for my next part of my coursework I will be a better designer on Publisher. Also, it was the first time I had used a blog, so I learnt to use this.