Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Through plenty of research and planning, I discovered that to create a successful and memorable media product, the use of forms and conventions is essential. Whether you follow the typical conventions, or challenge them- it all contributes to the outcome of your final product. For my magazine, I decided to generally follow the typical conventions of other magazines- this is where my extensive research helped me. Throughout my whole project I included the use of very bright, fun and eye-catching colours, as I found evidence that this would attract my target audience. During my research, I also found out that the majority of people thought that a music magazine aimed at females aged 16-25 should be very fun and quite informal as it suggests a ‘friendly’ atmosphere when reading the content of the magazine. I really liked the idea of my magazine having a companionable and sociable feel to it, so that people would actually enjoy reading it, and feel that they could interact with it. The use of a ‘hashtag’ in my masthead reinforces the idea of an interactive media product, as readers could get involved with the social networking side of my magazine, but this actually challenges the typical forms and conventions of most magazines, as social networking sites such as twitter are relatively new and exciting, therefore not many magazines include conventions that appear on websites like that. In addition to this, the hashtag masthead is my unique selling point, as there isn’t anything else like that in the magazine industry at the moment.

          The actual layout of my front cover uses the typical forms and conventions of a magazine to its  advantage- the bright colours, eye-catching images and busy lay out all contribute to attracting the target audience.