Ashleigh Hoey AS Media Studies: October 2009

Main Task - Genre and Target audience.

The type of music magazine i am going to create is an indie magazine. I chose this genre because i believe there is a place in the market for and indie magazine which is all about indie music. NME will be my biggest competition because it is a very popular indie magazine which is the same genre as me and also in my target audience which i between the age of 16- 30. I chose this target audience because i want my magazine to informal so then people of the age of 16 would read it, however not that informal adults wouldnt read it.

Main Task - Codes and Conventions of music magazine double page spread.

Main image on one page - on the left
Writing on one page
Stand first - always by headline ,before the start of the article it is used to engage to reader. for example an interview with Jay-Z ' Four years and two albums into his retirement hip hop's chief tycoon'
Drop capital
Who its written by - By lines
Quotes on the pictures
Subsidiary images
Website
Columns 2/4
3 colours
Relates the genre
Masthead
Name of band/artist
Target audience 16+
Magazine name at the bottom of page/page number/issue date/number/website
Name of interviewer is highlighted
Infromal mode of address
Headlines - short and snappy
Code and conventions can be broke to make the layout more interesting, stylist and different e.g. Mojo writing in the middle picture on the side, title across the top and no subsidiary images.

Main Task - Codes and Conventions of music magazine contents page.

Issue numbers
Main image of the band/artist/to do with music (main story)
Letter from the editor - right mode of address
Page numbers by stories
Date
Subsidiary images
Masthead
Website
Image of front cover
Columns - easy to follow 3/4 columns
Band information
Look of a music magazine
relates to whats on the front cover
Cover lines from front cover included

Codes and conventions are sometimes there to be broken to make the contents page, for example mojo. It has a more simple layout and only has 2 columns of the main stories. Also it doesnt have any subsidiary image only one main image, the main image is of two men and neither are them are looking at the camera and connecting with the audience. Moreover contents pages are very useful because they are seperated in subheadings e.g. regular content, features and news.

Main Task - Codes and Conventions of music magazine front covers.

NME:

Main image of band/artist
2/3 colours
Price
6 Cover lines
Dark colours
Barcode
Cover story
Tag lines

Top of the Pops:

Main image of band/artist
6 cover lines
Price
Barcode

Preliminary Task - Evaluation.

As prepartion to creat my new school or college magazine, I looked at numerous front covers and contents pages and found the code and convention to help me to determine what I should feature in my own school or college magazine. I used my list of codes and conventions of magazine front covers and contents pages to help me develop my own magazine. By following my list of codes conventions it made it easier to create my own magazine, it helped me to make it recognisable as a school magazine.