Media Studies
Friday, 22 March 2013
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Evaluation (#2)
How does
your media product represent particular social groups?
The print media industry uses stereotypes in order to plan
and design their magazine to suit the needs of the readers. However stereotypes
usually do come along within the actual band/artist themselves. For many people
music and media is a form of identity and defines who they are as a person,
what there likes and dislikes are, and quite commonly without even realising
it, many people can fall in to a particular stereotype.
Justin Beiber, quite commonly Justin Beiber is described as
the new teenage heart throb. And this is not surprising; the reason for this is
that he became an established pop artist when he was just fourteen. He is
especially popular young girls mainly ages 7-18 and this is because of his age,
looks and popular music. This makes him a key icon in many pop music magazines. It is clear from this copy of Top of the Pops
magazine that he is commonly associated with the ‘pop girl’/’pop princess’
stereotype, because of his ‘cheeky’ pose and the bright pink colours based
around him.
However…
A group such as Foals are more likely to appear in a magazine
such as NME, this is because of their grungy and darker look. NME is a weekly
music magazine that has a specific niche and genre of music, just as Top of the
Pops does. In order to covey this indie/rock genre, the artists and the
magazine must appear a certain way and this again falls into the stereotypes of
the music industry.
The main question in which I intend to answer is; how does
your media product represent particular social groups? And I think it is clear
that my pop magazine appeals to young girls ages 7-14 and therefore would have
to portray a strong role model to the younger generation. I think it is
important that the bands and artists chosen on a pop magazine do not portray an
explicit image or a negative image so not to be inappropriate for the younger
generation.
In order to appeal to the pop music social group I have had
to design my magazine around that stereotype. When I think of the pop music
style I assume the colours to be used are light (pinks, greens, blues, whites
etc.) and that the font used is very rounded and bubbly. For example;
(http://www.fontspace.com/)
These
two fonts are rounded, think and bold and are showing a feminine apearence
also. Although it is nessiserry to steryotype, a media publisher has to ba
careful not to be too asuming. It is one thing to find the genre of your target
audience however it is another to be too powerful within an assumption.
The
font I chose I received from dafont.com however in order to make it my own I
also edited it by overlapping the letters and adding colour. This is what the
origional font looked like:
And
this is what my mathead looked like once I had finished:
As
you can see from the images above I have clearly edited the images size, colour
and style. I think this makes my masthead look a lot more astetically pleasing
as it is brighter and more vibrant and this definatly makes my magazine apeal
to a younger famale target audience.
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Evaluation (#3)
What kind
of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media institution that I chose to represent my Cheri
Magazine label would be BBC publications. Not only because they represent Top
of the Pops magazine, but also because they have a legal contract to their
readers to inform, educate and entertain which is perfect for my target
audience. The factor of globalization is also clear as the BBC work worldwide,
promoting their brand and building up connections. This can only mean good
things for Cheri as with globalization opportunities comes greater success and
therefore more profits worldwide.
Because Cheri magazine would be a new and upcoming magazine,
we would need a publishing company who has good contacts and has been running
for a long time, therefore BBC Magazines is perfect because their brand is extremely
well established within the media industry.
However once I have fully researched the BBC Magazines
company I have found that in fact many of the magazines published have extremely
strong links towards TV shows released on BBC television. Therefore my company
would have to be a conglomerate, however this is not particularly a bad thing
because if it was to expand to a Cheri music channel for example, this would defiantly
draw in more profits for the magazine. Just as Top of the Pops has done before.
There are many important things to consider when choosing a
magazine publisher;
- Why should they be your publisher?
I believe
that the BBC publications should be my publisher as they already have extremely
beneficial information on the pop industry and its print media (for example top
of the pops) and without this expertise a new and upcoming product such as
Cheri may collapse almost instantly.
- What benefits can you get from them being your publisher?
The benefits
Cheri will receive from the joint partnership with BBC magazines is globalization and conglomerate opportunities. These are all extremely good as
they don’t only expand the business but also the profits.
- How will this affect business and sales?
BBC have a
well known reputation of expanding sales. Because of this strong and concrete
reputation the sales will increase as the trust barrier is made stronger
between, Cheri – Publisher – Distributor – Store owner. I am confident that
whilst working with the BBC Cheri’s reputation and sales with increase
dramatically.
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