Rachel Milner AS media: 2012

Overall, summing up my whole experience of creating a coursework piece I would say that I have enjoyed creating it and having the preliminary task to complete before producing my music magazine helped me a lot more, especially when gaining experience with Photoshop and the different tools you can use. I also believe getting audience feedback helped me gain more knowledge from my target market/audience gathering constructive criticism on how to improve what I’ve done/did. One thing I didn’t really like about creating my music magazine was how time consuming it was and how many drafts I had to make too, it became tedious and even boring to an extent, although I believe this is because I just wanted to get it finished.

I believe that my final outcome does represent the ‘unique’ and ‘alternative’ stereotype quite well. The interview upon my double page spread with Annabelle expresses how she doesn’t care about the fame and merely only cares about the ‘music she’s making’; she sets a good stereotype of teens and young adults (especially 16-30 year olds who I specified previously that that’s who my magazine is aimed at) who are sometimes seen imperfectly as ‘reckless’ and ‘out of control’. My front cover sets the house style well and with it being red, black, grey and white it proves how simple can sometimes be best, therefore the positive stereotype in which I initially wanted to create works really quite well.

My target audience for my magazine was initially based upon the S.E.G scale (social economic groups) and I concluded to provide for the C1, C2, D & E bands as they take up 82% of the UK’s population, I believe that they will be able to afford the monthly price of £2.50 even if they are only studying or acquiring the minimum wage. I think that based upon the interview with ‘Annabelle’ my target audience can side with her interview because it may reflect parts of their lives such as her school life and her relationships with her family members. The reason why I decided not to represent the A&B bands from the SEG scale is because I believe that they would not be that interested in the music industry and reading a music magazine would not be one of their main priorities, especially because they are the top wage earners and would probably not be able to justify buying an ‘irrelevant’ magazine for £2.50 a month, whereas people from C1-E bands would see buying ‘Harmony’ as a break from reality and get fixated in a ‘dream world’ for half an hour of lives. I’d like to believe my aim has been achieved well.

Looking at my initial research for my music magazine’s target audience I believe I have stuck to just about everything I wanted to, for example the age grouping (demographics) of my magazine 16-30 year olds who are both males and females, I believe I have represented them well as the majority of teenagers and young adults are still discovering who they are and what ‘group’ they are part of is essential to their everyday life’s, so as I decided to make my magazine ‘indie’ my audience can relate to it well. As well as targeting the S.E.G scale’s C1, C2, D and E bands by looking at the price of my magazine as well as what’s featured within it too. The VAL scale, in which I initially proposed I would target everyone’s opinions and outlooks on life for example the ‘innovators’ of life who according to Maslow are the ‘outgoing’, ‘experimenters’ in life, there are also the ‘strivers’ who are all about the image and meaning behind what they do, my example reaches out to these people because I’d like to think that they can feel like part of a huge ‘family’ when reading it, there are also the ‘disconnected’ people of society who tend to live each day as it comes, hopefully this has been achieved by the interview with ‘Annabelle’ but also with the ‘splash’ convention and teasing contents to make the reader think that if they don’t do what they’re told then the opportunity may pass them by! I believe this has been achieved well and hopefully to the extent that whatever psycho graphic background you class yourself as you will want to buy the next issue. The only part of my initial planning for my target audience that has changed, is the fact that I wanted to have a more ‘scattered’ house style and layout for my magazine and make it look less consistent but still looking professional at the same time, on completion this has altered and it now looks more ‘boxy’ and ‘square’ as well as following a consistent house style equalling a professional layout.

Looking at my front cover and its conventional features, to make it more attractive to my demographic C1-E band group buyer I have tried to promote it with the use of the ‘Free CD’ splash, therefore making them feel as if they have bought more for their money in such hard times; it will then make them feel as if they are part of the ’group’ and ‘scene’ as everyone else buying the magazine too. Also the fact they can have the opportunity subscribe to the magazine would make the ‘conformers’ in life feel more secure comfortable with the decision they’re making.