Evaluation Question 1

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Originally uploaded by Robert Brown enorf

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

The eight elements selected above demonstrate how I have used, developed and challenged forms of real media products in many ways.

Title

The title of the magazine “Title” demonstrates that I have challenged the titles of real media products in that the name of the magazine is not important – content is. Granted, numerous people will buy a magazine simply because of its title, but with such a bland, non-intuitive title, readers are made to look at the features and articles as opposed to the name.

Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene of the images relates to the conventional media images by using one specific background for all images. They are all clearly taken in the same place, as is the case with typical media products in studios.
Costumes and props use the same, and similar, conventions to typical magazines. Mainly we see what we need to and nothing more. In the example images given, all we see is a person on a laptop. We don’t need to see any more as everything relevant is in the shot. Another example is the blonde male with the headphones, which only features his face and the headphones implying that is what the article is being based on. It de-clutters the image and lets the reader know exactly what will be contained within the article.
People used follow the conventions by picking people with the appearance, or a renowned name, of rock musicians or fans. The image of the purple haired girl is a decent example of this – She has a lip piercing, dyed purple hair, sitting on the floor, squinting and demonstrating a commonly known rock symbol. All of which capture the rock “image” in some way. The piercing symbolises the “pain and anguish” of rock music, the purple hair and sitting on the floor imply “rebellion”, the squinting reflects the “alcohol, drugs, up-all-night-having-fun” appearance and the rock symbol demonstrating the love and passion of rock music.

Font

The title font and style have a graffiti-rough sketch like quality to them, which reflects the rock genre and the thought that the genre is angry and rough. It is still easily readable despite having small areas of colour missing (most noticeable in the I) and scattered (most noticeable in the H).
The written content decides to make the audience think what they feel, and no have their opinion swayed by what the magazine thinks. A proven statistic demonstrates that the majority of teens listen to rock music, and that the majority of these teens will typically decide against a lot of what they are told. To counteract this, the magazine gives very little of its own opinion and forces the reader to come up with their own conclusion based on what they read. I have also used the typical form of making the interviewed say more than the interviewer, since it’s the celebrity (or celebrities0 they are interested in.
The music genre is rock music, which is clear in the dark colours, the “angry and rough” font, and the names of the bands mentioned, who are well-known rock musicians. An article name on the front page also says “100 greatest rock guitarists”, which indefinitely demonstrates that the magazine focuses on the rock music genre. The main image also supports the “immaturity” of the genre using humorous (and possibly creepy) facial expressions.

Layout

The layout of the magazine both challenges and uses typical conventions of media products. Examples of challenging include the barcode being placed in the top right as opposed to the conventional bottom left, the combination of images as the main image, instead of one large image, black and white images which do not stand out at all (which as a result would stand out). It follows the conventional rock magazine conventions by tantalising the reader with quizzes, competitions and posters as well as very blunt information about articles – the magazine only offers the band’s name and makes the reader read on.
The contents page offers the article names and some slight insight into the articles without giving too much away. In the example given “Who are ya?” the audience are told of the article, but not who is in it. This resembles conventions used in various other magazines. The images without text also follow these conventions.