Mazen's media blog: 2015

Evaluation 7

7. What have I learnt from the process of the preliminary task up to my full product.

Throughout the process of the preliminary task up to now my full product, I have learnt reasonably a lot in terms of media the technicality. Everything I learn was due to my research and the help of my colleagues. Firstly I learnt how to handle and analyse data much better than I knew before this process. The reason for this was that I managed to come to conclusions much easier and sharper conclusions after analyzing my data. Moving on, the technical part of producing my products where improved by an impressive length. Again, this was due to the support of my colleagues and the fact that I played around several times with any tools on publisher in order to get my front cover into shape. I learnt how to easily and quickly get rid of backgrounds and sharpen images in terms of the brightness, In contrast to my preliminary ask where some of my images were dark. In the 3 final products I learnt how to sharply successfully insert various color text boxes and write in them whatever I want to. I also learnt how to move the text boxes in order to align them in a suitable way to the images.

Last but certainly never least I learnt a lot about the media within itself. For E.g. I learnt that parent owned companies have a much discontinued amount of authority in terms of publishing and advertising. I also learnt that being owned by a parent company allows you large amounts of funding but again they have very small authority in terms of what they do with the money in terms of advertising and uploading and what not.

Evaluation 4&5&6

Evaluation 3

What mind of media institution might distribute your magazine and why?

My music magazine I have decided to keep as an independent music magazine. This decision not only ups but also downs. Starting with the downs, being an independent music magazine means that you will need to pay in order to advertise on other subsidiary companies website however a parent company magazine can advertise for free. Another down turn for being independent is that the funding would essentially be very low compared to a magazine with a parent company. This leads to the independent magazine not being able to afford interviews with big named rappers such as chief Eminem being featured in the magazine, unless there are willing potential investors.

Moving on, the ups are very broad I terms of the freedom and respect of the magazine if it chooses to be independent. One of the reasons for this being that there is no control over the magazine like there would be if a parent company owns the magazine, therefore the magazine can publish and advertise absolutely anything they like in absolutely any way they like.

Furthermore in the music industry now days, independent music magazines earn more respect than magazines which are owned by parent companies which are normally manipulated and controlled and cannot speak what’s on their mind.

An example of this whole scenario between independent magazines and parent owned company magazines are the fact that kiss and kerrang are owned by Bauer therefore they a small bit of authority in terms of what they can publish and advertise on their website.

Evaluation 2 (continuing)

The title of my front cover of my magazine is called ‘Yolo Baby’ this already implies that a hood social group. The main image of the front cover has Starz standing state and holding up ‘0161’ sign with his right hand. This sign is only done by hood characters representing a certain gang in America however many people in London do it. One of the cover lines on the front cover is ‘Youngers inda cuts’ this is again mostly used by hood characters and slang speakers. Now a day that cover line means that Younger boys are getting to the top in terms of many things but mainly music.

Evaluation 2

How does your magazine represent a particular social group?

Using my double page spread audiences can identify that my social group is represented as a young hood type group. This is evident because of many ways, one of which the cap that is called ‘snapback’ now a days which is worn by the character called ‘Starz’. Another reason is because of his name in the magazine, only young hood characters and professional actors/musicians would essentially call themselves a different name to their birth name which is known by the term tag.

Moving on to Starz’s quote and the image, it includes more ways of my magazine representing my particular social group, this is because even though not only young hood characters use the words “day 1 homie” it is still very reflective of the young hood social group because of the backing up of the image. The image shows Starz with his hand around the female character called “Lady Noisy” which is also a very hood way of broadcasting a character especially if she is a female. The female character is using an action called a ‘Pout’ with her lips this is a very informal pose which also can be used as evidence for the young hood social group.

Evaluation 1

In what ways does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real magazines?

Throughout the process of my research and planning I analyzed magazine covers, contents pages and double page spreads that I found online that had typically appealing features that fitted the conventional grime/RnB magazine house style. I found the layouts and structural designs of several magazines very attractive and appealing, though they were all well-ordered and smooth, for this reason I decided that I wanted mine to use gritty textures to challenge the form of real magazines and also to reflect the nature and themes of today’s grime.

After all my research and planning I decided I wanted my front cover to look like a musical mess in terms of the layout of the cover lines all around the page and the main large character on the page this is because it reflects that my magazine has a lot to give.

Whilst developing my front cover I decided that I wanted my magazine to be a mixed genre magazine mostly focusing on grime. I have already briefly given my reason as to why I have produced my magazine like this and different to others. The reason being that the characters in my magazine have a free role to attract who they attract not like other magazines that focus on certain ways to attract certain audiences therefore in conclusion the developing of my magazine is majorly contradicting to modern magazines now a days .