In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
With magazines, they follow trends of what is the norm. These are called conventions. These are for example having a linear layout to suit a certain character person, thus being the older generation. Furthermore this stereotypical characterisation is rounded up into target audiences. This means that the target audience of a linear layout would be the older generation. With the idea of these stereotypical conventions, some magazines choose to go against what is expected to try and gain an audience that isn’t attracted by the normal conventions.
The genre of the magazine I created was ‘indie’. This is an abbreviated meaning from the term ‘independent rock’. Independent rock is a sub-genre of alternative rock which originated in the 80s. My influences came from three major magazines. These were ‘Kerrang’, ‘NME’ and finally ‘Vibe’. The reason for these to influence my magazine was due to the fact I wanted to create a magazine that went against the stereotypical trends. Thus meaning it would have a broader audience if it had qualities from two different sub cultures. The way I chose to do this was to have the information and content of Indie rock that was inspired by ‘Kerrang’ and also ‘NME’ combined with the style, layout and simple colour scheme of a higher class music magazine such as ‘Q’. This evidentially means that I know how existing media texts are constructed and why they become a convention.
Masthead
The masthead of my magazine follows the conventions that most famous music magazines have. This is due to it being covered just slightly by the main character of the image. Partially compromising the masthead makes you look more and also keeps a certain style so you’d only need to see half of it and recognise the style. The style of the title is individual and suited to my target audience. This is due to the rest of my magazine theme being suited to the more sophisticated reader.
Cover Lines
The cover lines follow the convention of the genre of my magazine by having indie bands with a higher class theme and layout.
1.The name of my magazine is ‘Diatonic’. This is musical terminology and therefore connotes a musical theme from the start.
2. The mise-en scene is everything that is in the shot. This consists of the layout from the perspective of a magazine. Therefore the layout of my magazine is fairly formal but still appealing to a younger audience.
3. The reason for the costumes such as leather jacket and vintage look was to attract an audience of women not just the men. As stereotypically women don’t buy magazines with women revealing their bodies it is following the convention. As for the guitar being used as a prop in the cover image, it follows the trend of the music genre.
4. The attitude of the people in the shots was casual. The age was of similar age to the target reader and the shots were chosen to make the images look professional.
5. The masthead of my magazine is strategically placed just behind the front covers main characters head. This signals that the magazine is known for its style thus resulting in it being picked out for that rather than the initial masthead. The masthead is still bold and visible enough to give the magazine a stand out masthead.
6. As the target audience was a younger target audience it is knowledgeable that they prefer to flick through a magazine rather than reading it word by word, that’s why I kept the length of text short. Also the language used was formal to not patronise the older end of the target audience.
7. The genre of my music is indie. This is depicted as the main image on the front cover is wearing indie styled clothes and an indie instrument.
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