My magazine was inspired by KERRANG magazine which was all about heavy metal music. A lot of magazine was based on that but for my magazine to be original I had include my own take on things. Like I stated in my initial planning I explained that there were a lot of sub genres of rock and that I would be going down the grunge route opposed to the KERRANG route which was metal/emo music, so that I would be doing an original magazine. Indeed my magazine would follow similar codes and conventions of KERRANG magazine such as the colours which are very masculine; the red, black and white would typical of these types of magazines. I included a masthead featuring all the artist within the magazine; I also add the Unique Selling Point (USP) which was the prize give away of a pair of head phones and a bar code in the bottom left corner of the front page. So I certainly follow all the codes and conventions any magazine would, without them it would look like a magazine. My magazine would most likely fit into stores such as HMV due to the fact that the variety of genres they advertise is important, also the age range for HMV is also the close to the target audience age range for my magazine which would be 17 to 23 years. They also advertise KERRANG within these shops which would have a similar target audience which the chart shows. This is a good indication that my target audience will be able to find where it is being sold and would be suitable place in there.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine represents teenagers as what they are usually stereotyped as, aggressive, loud and out of control. I drew from this stereotype to create a magazine which looked aggressive with the central image which was also a 17 year old male with an angry look on his face. Even though a lot of teenagers aren't like this it is the only view i can go by. With this issue i feel that it would appeal more to college students with the same type of views as the main article. It explores their aggressive nature of music and exploited it by drawing on what the think, the main article essentially was design to provoke readers into arguing on whether it is right or not. I made sure that the image on the front reflected the genre of the music which is rock (which the reputation they built up though smashing drum kits and breaking guitars) by making the glare look menacing.
The target audience I aimed it at was 17 to 23 year old because the language used in this is quite advanced, and the subject matter is for older students. The article music is war was designed for those kind of the educated sort of people. I mention Blumer and Katz in my preparation power point and took note of what would this article do in terms of the needs and gratification theory, The magazine entertains the reader with interesting disputes, and it definitely creates a sense of identity, whether they agree with the article or not.
The choice of language was entirely my own, I didn't copy any other magazines tone I just created the magazine which i would read it like, basically the main article was all about my views of R&B and how there is no point to it, so really it is a teenager complaining about something which conveniently is what the stereotypical teenager would do. The language is very masculine because it is all about violence and war, I enphasised the word war by writing it in red among other pieces of text which I felt emphasizing.
Like my last magazine I used photoshop to create it, but this time I did every aspect of my magazine in photoshop opposed to what id did last and make the text sections in word and then transfer it onto the page. The advantages of doing this is that you can do a lot more creative and therefore more professional articles with it. I had two designs for my front cover, one looking through the broken glass and the other (which as chosen to be on the front cover) with the cracks layed across the face. It was actually a very simple process. I download a series of brushes for photoshop which were broken glass brushes, the first image (the one i didn't use) was done by adding a layer which i then place the paint brush over the selected area of the face. I then changed the contrast of the original image so that the picture look as though light was shining through the broken bit. The image i use was done in a similar way apart from the face which looks as though it had been scratch was done with the same brush tool but instead of using the paint brush i used the dodge tool (it lightens areas when used). with this I place the tool over areas of the face and applied it to them making it look like scratches to the face.
I feel that i have develop a lot since my first attempt at this task, the main reason was because i look a lot more into what makes a magazine look like a magazine, because last time my double page spread was to bland and boring to make anyone want to read it, this time however I made it look more professional and visual enticing. My ability to use photoshop also improved to the point that it look like it was actually a magazine opposed to a poster.