Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation question 6

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In my research task I was told to look into what media institution would be interested in publishing my magazine. At first I found it extremely difficult to discover an institution which would publish my magazine and this is because, none of the well-established media institutions were responsible for the publication of any rap magazines and therefore it was a difficult task to identify one which would actually distribute my magazine. Eventually I resulted to researching individual magazines and trying to find out who it was who distributed them. I then came across the music magazine Vibe which is one that was created by Quincy Jones. He is a well-known American man who is recognised for his services in the film and music industry. More specifically he is recognised for being a record producer, conductor, arranger, composer, musician, television producer, film producer, instrumentalist, magazine founder, entertainment company executive and a humanitarian. The institution that Quincy Jones' magazine 'VIBE' is produced and distributed by is also owned by the man himself. It is called Intermedia Vibe Holdings but is also referred to as Vibe Lifestyle Network. 

The institution was founded in the year of 1993 and the magazine 'VIBE' was only founded a year before that in 1992. As a result of the fact that they already distribute a magazine of the same genre, it means that they are experienced in this area of expertise and would not have a problem with doing so once again. They would also know what the audience would want and require, therefore they would be able to address any issues with the magazine and further improve it make it even better and more successful. Due to the fact that they already have connections in the industry that I would be looking to enter, I believe that the institution Intermedia Vibe Holdings would be able to expand the clientele for 'DUPPY' and as a result of this make it even more successful because they would not require a large sum of money to create connections with those around the business area my magazine would be entering into.  

Intermedia Vibe Holdings is an institution which publishes magazines and digital content for hip-hop generation. As a company Intermedia Vibe Holdings offers news, music, movies, TV, Photos, Videos and blogs. Looking at my music magazine, these are all things which could be incorporated with the magazine because they are very closely related and they are also extra topics which could expand the audience which would be interested in purchasing my magazine. If my magazine was solely focused on music then it would mean that there would be a limited amount of people who were willing to purchase it. Due to the fact that this media institution would allow me to expand my target audience to a wider range of customers it would be a sensible idea to try and get them to be the ones to distribute my magazine. If this option was not successful I also decided to create a back-up plan, this media institution is call 'The Bauer Media Group'. This media institution is one which mainly focuses on both radio stations and magazines such as 'Kisstory, Kiss FM, Q magazine and 4 Music'. They would be my back up due to the fact that they are also experienced in the distribution of magazines of a similar nature to mine but they would not be as useful as Intermedia Vibe Holdings due to the fact that they are not used to distributing media of the same genre as my magazine. 

Evaluation Question 5

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There are several different forms of technology which I have learnt about and how to use when producing my media product, one of these being Blogger. This is the website which all of the students in my class used to present their work to our teacher and also to the people who will be assessing this work for an official grading. It is a very easy and adjustable blogging website which almost makes the blog seem as if it is your own design. As a result of this, you can really express what you wish to include in your piece of media by using this website to produce your blog. When I first went onto the website and created and designed the blog page itself, I found it ridiculously easy to achieve what I wanted to in the design aspect of the page. There were several preset options to choose from which were actually relevant to what people would make a blog about and not just random images. I didn't even know that creating something which looked so complex was so easy and this made me feel more confident in exploring the websites features some more. Eventually I managed to insert my custom designed masthead to the blog page and this meant that the blog really began to look as if it were an official website. I also managed to work out how to insert games and logos onto my blogs page to give it an even more realistic feel and therefore increase the chances of achieving the highest marks possible. 

Another form of technology I used and learnt about was Survey Monkey. This website was what I used when producing my audience research statistics and it was an easy to use website which was laid out very well and easy to use. It took me roughly 15 minutes to design my 10 question survey and produce a URL which I then sent out to my media class and friends who also attend my school of different ages so that the results I got were not biased to a singular age group. Once I had received some responses to the survey and people were beginning to complete the survey, I was notified by the website vie notifications on my smart phone and also emails and text messages. This was useful because it meant that regardless of what form of technology/media I was using I would know that people were responding to my survey. Once the notifications died down and they were coming through less regularly I decided that it was time to analyse my results and this was a lot easier than I thought it would be. This is due to the fact that the Survey Monkey website put the results from the survey into percentages between the different categories and also put them into bar graphs meaning that there several different ways of analysing the results and minimizing  the likelihood of confusion and incapability to read the data. 

I also used Outlook during the process of creating my media product. This was to contact the people who I wanted to take part in my survey. As a result of this I discovered how to compose a formal email which can be used in future and is therefore a useful skill which I have acquired from this course. I also used Outlook to contact my model and my teachers. I made enquiries about my work to my teachers and told my model where and when the photo shoot was taking place in order to ensure they were aware how things would take place. In order to get equipment out like cameras and green screens, I had to fill out a form for hire and send it off to them so that they knew what it was that I required, when I would require it and how long I would require it for. This meant that I had to regularly check my emails and compose emails which were suitable in a formal situation so that I could get the photos taken in time and return the equipment undamaged and in the same condition that I received them in. 

Another form of technology I used was the equipment which I used for my photo shoot. These forms of technology consisted of a green screen, lighting, foldable reflector and the camera I used which was a Canon DSLR camera. The green screen was a very easy to use piece of equipment, this is because it unfolded itself and all you had to do was get two people to hold it behind your model whilst you are taking the photos of them. The other convenient thing about the use of a green screen is that they made the editing aspect of producing a large amount easier. This will be discussed in more depth when I get to the Photoshop analysis.The next item I am going to look at is the lighting used, these were LED lights which gave the model and their clothing a smoother finish in the cameras lens and as a result of this I placed three different ones down. One of the lights was used as a key light, the next one was a fill light which I learnt about in the research process of my media production. The final light was a back light which meant that there was artificial lighting coming from three angles which is what most photos taken use. The three lights were placed on tripods so that they didn't move once set in a certain position meaning my model could stay in the same position and wouldn't be required to move in aid of the lights. I also used a foldable reflector which meant that the light was directed onto the subject of the photo and wasn't straying off in a different direction. The final piece of equipment which I used on the photo shoot was the camera itself. I used a Canon DSLR which is a camera the DSLR stands for Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera and it has this name due to the fact that it combines the optics and mechanisms or a dingle-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor (as opposed to the used of photographic film). This camera was extremely easy to use due to the fact that it almost focused on the subject automatically and the zoom was a manual operation. This is because you had to twist the lense in order to zoom in or out meaning that there was no possibility of technical malfunction with this process. Overall the equipment I used for the photo shoot was very easy and effective to use which meant I could could get the shoot done fast and efficiently without having to go into overtime with my model who had a football match soon after the shoot. 

The final thing I learnt about technology during the process of producing my media product was how to use the software Photoshop for editing images. This process was made a lot easier through the use of a green screen in my photo shoot and I knew this because for my preliminary I didn't use one and I still had to edit the images which was not possible with the magic wand tool and instead I had to use the eraser tool and hold a very steady hand (which I found very difficult). When I used the green screen, I was able to use a tool on the software called the magic wand tool, this was a tool which selected all the areas which were green surrounding the model (subject) and therefore all I needed to do was press the backspace button to clear the green screen from the image leaving the subject there with nothing surrounding him. After this I needed to insert the text and boxes which would contain the text. This was also made very simple due to the fact that the Photoshop software held a plethora of fonts which respectively matched different genres and after searching for just a few minutes I managed to find a font suitable for the genre of my music magazine. The software also contained a shape creating tool which allowed you to create shapes from circles to rectangles to squares to stars etc. This also became very useful because it meant I could insert the text at the size which I wanted it to be and then make the shape around it. There was a function which was 'CTRL + T' which allowed you to edit the shape and size of any object on your work with ease and then press the 'ENTER' button once you had made it into the shape which you required it to be. The software on a whole was very easy to use and this is because it was set out in a basic layout meaning all functions had icons which represented what they were and there were tutorial and walk-through videos on YouTube and Adobe websites which made all things I didn't know how to do very easy. 

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 2

How did you attract/address your audience -

My target audience was both males and females between the ages of 16 and 25, this was quite an easy age range for me to target and this is due to the fact that I am in this age range. As a result of this, one of the things I did was ask myself what I would like to see in a rap magazine. This was a very good idea and I found this out later when I did my audience research using Survey Monkey. This is due to the fact that I was correct on what to include on most parts but the audience research was also an eye opening method. 

The first way in which I attracted/addressed my audience was by including an application to the magazine's features. This was a good idea and was addressing my target audience due to the fact that the people in my target audience are most likely to own smart phones which means that they will be able to access the application from their phone and would be able to stay up to date with what was going on in the magazine whilst a new issue was being produced and printed. The reason I did this was that the age range of people have a lack of patience meaning that if it were just a magazine which was released on a monthly basis with a large amount of content then they would not particularly want to subscribe to this and therefore there would not be a large number of consumers for my product. Therefore I decided to make it that this magazine would be released once a fortnight and the application would be updated on a daily basis meaning that there was always new information, music and gossip for the readers of 'Duppy' to delve into. Also an application means that my media product would be one which came under the cross media bracket making it more appealing to others outside the age bracket which I was targeting. Another reason to include an application in the magazine's features was that it would allow readers to never miss a bit of information. This is because if they were to forget to purchase the magazine or bring their issue of the magazine to where they were going on a commute, they would always have a way of looking at the information that they wanted to look at.

Another way I managed to attract/address my target audience was through the use of the images I took. This is for several reasons, one of these reasons being that the brand of clothing that my model was wearing was one which is well known and recognised in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. This brand is 'Nike Jordan' which is a very well liked brand which was created by the famous basketball player Michael Jordan. The reason I asked for my model to wear this brand of clothing was that it was one several people in my target audience would be fond of and as a result of this it would appeal to them. There is also a song by American artists Future and Drake called 'Jumpman' which was based on the brand. Another way the images would have enticed my target audience into reading my magazine was through the poses which they used. This is because I got my model to make aggressive poses which is heavily related to the genre of rap music. Hand signs and facial expressions such as trigger fingers, scowls and screws were the three I selected to use for my articles but other images were taken using dance moves such as the 'whip', the 'nae nae' and the 'dab'. These are all recognised movements and gestures to this age range which would also appeal to them meaning that they would be more likely to look further into the magazine and consider purchasing it. 

A final way in which I have attracted and addressed my target audience through the aspects of my magazine was through the use of names and articles in the magazines. By this I mean which names of artists featuring in the magazine I have used, for example one of the artists I decided to include in my magazine's feature section was well known American rap artist 'Drake'. My reasoning behind this was that artists well-known and liked such as Drake are likely to attract a wider variety of people from my target audience because his music submerges genres into one and means that there would be a wider range of people interested in purchasing the magazine. The article on my double page spread in my magazine was based on an upbringing around poverty and racism. These two topics are two very sensitive ones but at the same time part of everyday life all over the world. As a result of this it meant that more people could relate to it and would want to read on and find out how the fictional artist went from the bottom of the ranking and being a victim of racism to becoming a well-known, globally loved artist. A large number of people in my target audience have aspirations of following in the footsteps of rappers who they idolise (Such as Krept and Konan) who went from being in a gang in South London to travelling the world and making music with the likes of Rick Ross and Wiz Khalifa who are highly rated rap artists in the US with very large fan bases. There are people who are involved in gang related activity as a result of their upbringing but if they could choose I doubt that they would pick that life over one where they could be successful and rich. 

Evaluation Question 1

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine is one which focuses solely on rap and hip-hop music which is a genre of music which developed and began in the streets. The main group of people who listen to this type of music are young people from the age of 12/13 up to the age of 25. There will obviously be a small minority of people out of the age range who also listen to this genre of music but the majority of the people who would be reading the magazine and acknowleging it's features would be those in that age range. This was an audience which stood out to me due to the fact that, before the "Duppy" magazine which I created, there was not a magazine which covered music from the grime, hip-hop and rap genre in depth (especially UK music). This meant that I would have a large audience who would only have one option when it came to buying a magazine which suited their needs. 

In order to be certain of who my audience for this media product would be, I decided it would be sensible to conduct a survey related to my magazine and including questions revolving around the music genre of the magazine and also some of the content it would hold. I used Survey Monkey to conduct this survey which is a quick and easy website to use. All I was required to do was to input my questions and the multiple choice options of my selection. After this all that I needed to do was to advertise and publicise my survey so that it would get answers and come back with successful and accurate results. In order to publicise the survey I used my school email and asked if my fellow students would be willing to fill out my survey, this was a success and I ended up with 13 replies to my survey. This, in my opinion, is more than enough replies to gather accurate information for the magazine. 

The result:

There was a series of ten questions in the survey and these varied from "how often do you read music magazines?" to "how do you listen to music?". 

1 - This was question one of my survey and this question was designed to see what gender were more excited of the prospect magazine which I was going to create. Over 60% of the survey participators were male meaning more than half of them were. The other half were obviously female but there was not a large difference between the number of males and the number of females who took part in this survey. This showed me that this magazine had the capability of being one of a gender neutral nature. 

2 - The second question that I asked in my survey was, "how old are you?". This question was designed so that I could create a rough idea of who would be in my target audience for my piece of media in order to ensure that the content of my music magazine was suitable for those who would be interested in actually purchasing and reading it. Looking at my results, around 70% of my survey's participators were between the ages of 16 and 25 meaning that this sort of age range would be a suitable target for my piece of media. Also the fact that the content I was already planning to incorporate to my magazine was suitable for this age range was very convenient. 

3 - The third question in the survey for my media product was "what type of music do you enjoy?". This question only gave my candidates (the people taking part in my survey) to pick one genre of those that they were allowed to choose meaning that they would have to pick the one which they liked the very most. When I analysed the results it came to my attention that the most popular genre of music (in the survey) was rap music. This then further strengthened my point that rap music is a very popular genre of music in the age range which I was targetting. Six of the thirteen who took part in my survey chose rap music as their favourite genre to listen to, there were a further three people who selected the other category. These three people also specified different types of rap meaning that nine of the thirteen people who took part in the survey would put rap music as their favourite genre of music. 

4 - The fourth question in the survey concerning my music magazine was "what do you like about music magazines?". This question produced several anomalous results because they were all very even and there was only one of the options which came in front of all of the others which was that a music magazine was what kept them up to date. Four people chose this option where as the other three options (easy to read, snippets of information & other) were selected by three people respectively. This means that all four are equally as important as there was not an option which was not selected meaning that they are all relevant to take into consideration. 

5 - In my survey, the fifth question was asking participators what it was that they didn't like about music magazines. There were four options for those who took part, to choose from. Apart from the category 'other', the most popular choice was that there was too much opinion inside a magazine. Five people selected this as their reason, the other two options ('lack of important information' & 'lack of statistics') were only selected once meaning that they were not quite as important as the other two options. When i looked at the specified responses for what people didn't like about music magazines in the 'other' category, there was a mixed bag of feedback. One thing that was said was "sometimes there is too much information meaning that I skip past things that I need to see due to the fact that they are in the middle of a large bulk of text surrounding it which is less relevant to me". This response was in depth and gave me a lot to think about as did the others and they were really useful. This then further provided me with proof that creating a survey was a very sensible idea. 

6 - Question six posed a crucial question to the participants, this is what would make or break the idea of a rap music magazine. The question was as follows "how often do you read music magazines?". The multiple choice options that were provided were; daily, weekly, monthly, annually or do not read them. The majority of people picked monthly and this is due to the fact that most music magazines in the present day will not release issues more frequently than once a month and this is because it allows more important and eye catching information to be combined into one issue. There were a few people who chose the weekly option and the rest said that they don't read them. After looking at the previous questions in the survey, something appealed to me, this was that some people may not be reading music magazines due to the fact that there isn't one which meets the demands that they have. As a result of this, although a large number of people said that they do not read music magazines I was determined to be the one who put a change to that and actually bought back this form of media publicity. 

7 - The seventh question was a general enquiry as to how the people taking part in my survey listened to the music that they liked, in other words what software or application or device did they use. Several responses emerged but there was a particular trend in the results, this was that every single one of the formats (apart from illegal download) was a smartphone application (or had a smart phone application). This triggered an idea in my mind and that was to create a fictional smartphone application for the magazine which made the media product seem even more realistic. 

8 - For the eighth question in my survey, I decided to enquire as to whether those taking part in the survey would be interested in a music magazine which had a sole focus on the genre of rap. Nine of the thirteen people who took part said that they would be interested, the other three people said that they wouldn't but overall this meant that 69.23% of the thirteen people were fond of the idea. This meant that my idea of producing a rap magazine in the UK (which is where it would originally be distributed) would be a good idea. This is because rap music is a very meaningful and cultural genre of music and in the UK it is highly popular meaning that people are interested in any thing new which arises related to the topic. 

9 - I then asked the thirteen people who took part in my survey to inform me of how much they would be willing to spend on a rap magazine. This question was another make or break one because a lot of news can be accessed for free in the present day thanks to the use of online news bulletins and websites. On the other hand, some magazines still have exclusive content which can only be accessed inside their pages. It was made clear to me that others felt the same way because the most popular price range was from £2 to £2.99 which meant that people were willing to pay this much to get their hands on a rap music magazine which was produced in the UK and is all about the UK rap scene. Some suggested that between £1 and £1.99 was a suitable price range so i decided that the best price for the magazine would be somewhere in the middle and I made that £2 which is what the magazine was consequently priced at. 

10- The final question of the survey, question ten, was just a question to see which of the contemporary UK rappers were the most popular and there was a plethora of different responses which gave me a lot of names to work with and to incorporate into my magazine. Some people decided to put pop and soul singers down (probably due to the fact that they didn't enjoy rap music) but the majority stuck to the questions origin and picked the rap artist/group of their choice. 

In conclusion to this, I believe that  my use of survey monkey was extremely effective I was able to learn several things about the UK public and how they would react to a rap magazine and what they would expect from it. On the other hand I feel that, due to the fact that I am in the age bracket that I am targeting, and the music which I appreciate most is also rap I had a strong knowledge of what people would demand before taking to the public to ensure that these predictions were facts and not fiction. 

Double Page Spread of my Magazine

Contents Page of my Magazine

Front Cover of my Magazine