EVALUATION :)

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

My Magazines conforms to the usual componants of a magazine. On my title page:  I have a medium close up photograph in the background that is relevent to the magazine or issue, I have a masthead, cover lines, a strap line, issue number, price, other photos on the title page. My contents page has the page numbers and page information, the actual contents is sectioned to help the reader, and there are photos and text to let the reader know what they're going to be reading. This is typical of magazines.



Here is an example of a student magazine compared to mine, you can see they have very similar componants. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine presents and represents students in the topics within the magazine; the photo is of a student so that is immediately relative.  The language used is more informal and chatty and some of the lexis used is generally used more by young people, for example 'what's hot'.

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

I think that there is a gap in the market for student magazines, in shops and newsagents it's mainly music, or lifestyle, or motor, or hobbies, or girls or boys but no students. I think that Zest could be sold in newsagents or promoted to sell at colleges. It could possibly be sold as an online magazine. 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience was originally supposed to be males and females aged between about 16 and 18, however it looks a bit feminine, so would appeal to females of this age more. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

70% of people buy magazines on spur of the moment and its proven that the front cover is mainly the componant that decides whether they buy it or not, and so the title page had to be catchy, bright and appeal to students. I have tried to do this by putting an eye catching fun photo of a student on the front, with lots of bright colours and bold titles to make a statement. I think people would like to buy my magazine because it looks appealing, informative, topical and interesting, and they can also win things inside. 

I chose the name 'Zest' because it is quite onomatopaeic and to me says fun, it seems quite a fruity, colourful word that is no where near boring!

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

I used a digital camera and my phone to take the photos, I used Word, Publisher, Paint and editing programmes to create my pages. I used the internet for fonts and the barcode. I have learnt that a lot more time and effort goes into each little thing than i thought there was, and it takes a lot of technology to do so, however the technology doesn't need to be big and expensive.

Overall I am really pleased with how my student magazine turned out because i think it looks really cool and met the objectives well :) plus people seem to like it!