Contents Page

Now we have finished the front cover for our magazine, we now have to do the contents page. But the first part we had to do towards doing the contents page was to look at two magazines, aimed at a similar target audience to our own mag, and just see what simerlarities and differences they both have.

The two magazines I looked at were Music and FHM. There are many things you would expect to find on a contents page in a magazine. Including whats in the magazine, like articles, free competitions etc... Pictures of the bands in the magazine, Bold capital lettering in the title and many mastheads. The layout in both of the magazine is pretty much the same, the colour of the background is bland with it just being black and white. Maybe theres a bit more colour in the FHM magazine than the music mag, in like the mastheads, the title and what the people in the band are wearing, but there isnt much difference between the two.

In both of the magazine, they both have simerlarities and differences in the language that they use and also their mode in address in the contents page. They both show in their pictures good dress sense, which perhaps shows the class of there job and the magazine. But you can tell the difference of the language in both magazines from the FHM magazine, where in one of the pictures of the contents page shows he is kind of an individualist, as he wants to do what he wants. He also shows hes a bit of a lombard, as he shows he has lots of money by what hes wearing and his stance, but by whats hes doing and his act towards the people who buy this magazine, hes a bit of a idiot.

In the contents pages, you can see how they appeal to their audience. One appealment for people is the attitude thats the people in the pictures or what the writer has written in the magazine. Some people find bad language funny, so humor is a massive appeal in the magazine.

Another appealment in the magazines are like extras, including talks about the new fashion of clothing for the new season, jokes, attractive pictures like in the FHM magazine. The opera music charts etc...

01In both of the magazines, you can see there is many simerlarities in the house style. The colour of the backgrounds are pretty much the same in the front cover and the contents page. The titles have the same colouring and also the mastheads etc...

Title

For the magazine, our title will be focus on kind of young rock music people who like listening to music all day. So for our target audience, the age group for this magazine is between the age of 16-21, male or female cause everyone really likes rock, I hope. In the jicnar scale, it would be around a c1 and in the psychographic profile I put it with individualists and aspirers, cause most rockers are pretty relaxed and like to do what they want to do in there music videos.

For my audience, I have defined what I believe what type of people my audience are and I have written them into statements.
-Rather go out to clubs and pubs than stay in at home.
-Rather buy a mobile home than a porsche
-Rather buy a takeaway than cook
-Drink beer than water
-Shop at asda than sainsburys
-Rather go to america than spain
-Rather wear there clothes untidy than neat
-Rather smoke than be healthy

"Five things I need to do to target my audience effectively"
-Use basic colouring
-Put extra's in the mag e.g. Posters
-Use simple fonts e.g. sans serif or arial
-maybe use humor in the magaizne
-use quotes from students or put in students views about the college

Research

For the second part of our prelimirary task we had to research into the forms and conventions of similar products to the one Iam going to produce. To do this we had to find 3 covers of magazines which were aimed at the same audience as we have identified and then see if the 3 magazine covers have a similarity between one another.

In subject matter for this type of magazine, it would have to be for people who like the music world and for students who like to do music in school or college etc... The colours used in this magazine are pretty bland. The background are always either black or white. But there is a bit of colour involved in the forground, for example the flames coming off the person guitar and always the logo for the magazine. The layout is always more or less the same aswell. The logo in the corner, the same coloured background, the model people always pretty much in the middle of the magaizne and then the different key conventions around them or on top of them.

The font used in the magazine are simple, just normal Arial or sans serif text. Always bold and in capital letters.

Preliminary Task

Our next task in media studies was a preliminary task. The preliminary task is to produce a front page of a school/college magazine with many photos, some appropriate text and many other key conventions, using DTP and image programming. The first thing we did to get towards this, is look at last years examples of magazines that students did to give us an idea on how to go about doing our own magazine.
One of the magazines we were given was called squash and we had answer many questions about the magazines including how we are able to recognise its a magazine front cover, who we thought the audience was for the magazine and also how the magazine targets the audience effectively.
We are able to recognise its a magazine front cover by how similar it is compared to other magazines which are around today. The many type of key conventions which are on the magazine like the puff, the masthead and the coverlines etc...
For the audience of the magazine, I believed the gender is both male and female, the age is between 16-20. In the jicnar scale i believe for this type of magazine, its between a c1 and a b. The psychographic for the person who did the magazine would probably go under an aspirer or a succeeder as the magazine looks like a student magazine and he has succeeded everything they were asking for in a magazine.
The magazine targets the audience effectively by the bold colours and the font. And by also what is inside the magazine, which the person has shown this by using different key conventions like the screamers and the coverlines etc...

Initial Analysis

For my second task in media studies, I had to undertake an analysis of a magazine front cover I used to show you my understanding of the key conventions. To the left hand side of this paragraph shows this.

Magazine Front Cover: Key Conventions

In media studies, the first task of the year was to learn the different key conventions of the front cover of a magazine. On the left hand side shows me labeling a front cover of a magazine to show what I have learnt.

Introduction

Hi my name is Dan and iam 17 years old. The purpose i created a blog is to record my research and planning for my As coursework in media studies. Also to show you the different key skills I have learnt in this subject.