Slide 02 - In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before creating my media product, I took part in extensive research in order to develop an understand of how to create my media product in a way which would suffice the needs of my target market. I looked at magazine of a similar genre and target market as inspiration. This allowed me to divulge the secrets of how to capture my audience and present and constract my magazine. A lot of my ideas were orginally spiraled from what I had found from existing magazine structures.
Here are the ways in which my media product uses forms and conventions of real media products:
Main Story Heading On both magazine covers you can see that the main heading has become the focal point for the magazine to pinpoint its enthusiasm. For my media product, I wanted to create a very busy style, however I felt it necessary to have a central point which grabs your attention and claims the magazine. Top of The Pops (TOTP) magazine is a well established magazine publication which has a similar genre and target market to mine. TOTP magazine has also used this as an inducement to attract audience. On both magazines it is clear, noticeable and eye catching and I feel this is a necessary element to include on any front cover. I chose to do this as I feel that my specific target market of a younger audience would be attracted by this and would feel drawn in by its impact.
Real life Stories For a music magazine this may seem rare; however as you can see both my magazine and TOTP magazine have included this as a prominent feature on the cover. This type of magazine is primarily based on celebrities and fame plays a big part in selling the magazine nevertheless, including real life stories allows the magazine to seem diverse and less specific. Although the magazine is still very much musically based, it still possesses aspects of other relevant issues. It also allows the reader to relate to the magazine.
Captions/Extracts/Quotes My media product and TOTP have used these three conventions as beneficial characteristics in order persuade and encourage the target market to buy the magazine. It allows the magazine to sell what is inside by exposing snippets of what you will find. It creates an illusion of divulging a secret. One which I and TOTP did this was to use speech bubbles. It gave a clear indication of who was saying it and this allowed the message to be sent out clearly. This was necessary as my magazine was structured with a very busy/messy style and so elements and features needed to be shown as clearly as possible.
Busy Style This was another feature which was present on both magazines. I felt this was necessary for my target market. In order to gratify them, I felt my magazine cover needed to represent a magazine which was packed with gossip. I also felt this all tied in very well with my genre. Pop music is generally known as fast paced and upbeat. I wanted my magazine to portray this so as to reflect popular music culture.
Colour Bright colours are featured on both magazines. It allows the magazine to reflect its genre by exposing its fun, lively and upbeat side. It is important to do this as it is also eye catching and attention grabbing. It makes the magazine stand out and become noticeable.

When carrying out this research, I was also able to discover ways in which I would prefer my media product to differ from existing magazines. Here are some ways in which I feel my magazine differs by challenging the forms and conventions used in real life media products:

Main Images Although my magazine cover does use a main story heading which is accompanied by an image, I do not feel my magazine has quite used this to the magnitude that TOTP have. As you can see on the cover of TOTP the main image is almost the only element which you notice when looking at the magazine and I felt this was just too overpowering and did not weigh up with what the magazine was styling itself as. The rest of the cover looks very busy and images are small and I felt there was no real balance. This is why, for my product I decided to size the image at a standard measurement which allowed the reader to associate it with the main story heading but also allowed them to notice the other features of the magazine. I felt this reached a wider audience as my product offered something for everyone within my target market, with its eclectic variety a mixture of stories.