Magazine Audience and Content

Audience

As the magazine being produced is a school magazine, my audience will be school students aged 11-16 (quite a wide range) as that is who my magazine will have relevance to. To show that my magazine audience is clearly teenagers I will use different features, layouts and colours that are suitable for the target audience.

Contents

As the contents of the magazine has to be relevant to the target audience (students) the articles and features of my magazine will have different stories, pictures, point of views that all target the teenage audience. The content of the magazine will be about school (as it is a school magazine) so it will talk about subjects and significant events happening in school at the time.

Articles and Contents could include:

• Exam results
• Events in school
• Students stories and opinions on situations
• Problem pages
• School council votes 

Media definitions

Media

Media Audiences

- The specific individuals who read, watch or listen to the specific media

- Example = Sky sports has a mass audience for people with sporting interest 

Media Institution

- Cultural and political conventions within media products production (way it's constructed)

- People who take part in the process

- Media productions - examples = BBC, ITV, Espn Universal 

Media Language

- Media format, symbols and narrative structure that shows audience the meaning - symbolic meaning specific to media 

- Words to catch audience attention - example = " The Real Truth" Slogans/ headlines 

Media Representation

- Ways in which media portrays groups, ideas, topics, experiences

- Could be stereotypes 

-Example = "Facebook and Twitter make us bad people"

Ideas for Mastheads and Names of the Magazine using Fireworks

I have used fireworks to create these Mastheads which allowed me to use a number of techniques

Preliminary Activity

Preliminary Activity

As part of the Foundation Portfolio Coursework you must construct the front cover and contents page for a Plantsbrook School magazine.

• You must identify the conventions of these media products.
• You will identify who the audience will be.
• You must identify the type of content that would be included in this magazine.
• You must develop ideas for names for the magazine.
• You will develop ideas for the masthead for the magazine using Fireworks. 
• You will develop rough ideas for the products.
• You will plan a photo shoot.
• You will produce the products.

The deadline for this activity work is 4th October

Contents and Front Cover Conventions

Conventions

Front cover

• Masthead – Name or logo of magazine (largest font)
• Headlines – The most significant content (2^nd largest font)
• Cover lines – Text indicating content of the magazine (smaller font than headline)
• Articles – photos and texts indicating features and articles
• Pugs/starbursts – Shape with text to promote something in magazine
• Images – Showing relevance to the contents
• Colour ( house style) – layout and representation
• Pull quotes – quotes pulled from articles that feature in the magazine
• Straplines – Headlines in smaller fonts under the headline
• Puff – Self promoting
• Banner – Coloured banner with text on

Detailed labelling of Magazine cover

This NME cover shows a lot of media features. The masthead (NME) has a big sans-serif font which makes the writing bold and emphasises it, also with the colour being red it attracts peoples eyes to it first. We’re then lead to read the headline “Disclosure” as it still has a bold, big font in a darker colour(smaller than the masthead) it is too in a san-serif font. The visual syntax guides the reader through the cover using media features. The main image (graphics) in the cover is a studio shot as it is a very much set up shot.
On the cover there are also articles/features in the top right hand corner in a smaller font this is for the reader to eventually read and see the contents of the magazine. The cover line under the headline is showing the contents of the magazines main article and is also pulling the reader in to wanting to read it more. On the cover of the magazine there is a pug/starburst in the yellow circle, which draws people in as it is in a separate shape and in a bold yellow colour, the meaning of the pug is to promote something which is to do with the contents.

       The layout in this magazine is quite a simple  layout which is well spaced so it focuses on the important elements of the cover, although the magazine is well structured in the way there is a visual syntax. The house style is the presentation on how it is recognised which the colours do well, the red, black and white are very contrasting colours which makes different parts of the cover stand out.

The connotations of the cover is what is associated and suggested by it. The graphics in the text is suggesting that the duo (Disclosure) are a young, fresh faced duo and it is suggested by their picture they are quite upbeat. The media text used in this type of production is a magazine.

 

Labelling of Adele's Magazine Cover

 Labelled version of the magazine cover