forms and conventions

Evaluation

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

By deconstructing media, for example analysing a music magazine, you would look for conventions. Conventions are very important in media productions because it notice's what structure has been used before. A convention can also be described as a common denotation. Music magazines with different genre have specific conventions. Some magazines have more conventions than other due to genre and structure. Genre describes what audience is being targeted while producing a magazine. Genre is similar to a stereotype- they both want to express their lifestyle. My magazine has an Indie/Rock genre. This genre is conventional for a magazine because it is basic in expressing its content. Take for instance NME uses many conventions but is always differing between them, for example NME’s cover with Carl Barat is very basic and has typical conventions like large headlines that connote awareness which is good for target audiences. It does its job in sucking viewers in and making them attached to the magazine. Also an objective image of the person the main content is about and the iconic NME title at the top.

Most cover pages are expected to have Masthead at the top of the page. Cover lines around the page. The main cover line somewhere visible, the placement of this text depends on the background image/colour. A main image that often takes up all of the background and lastly a bar code.

All these conventions have a particular placement on the cover to either make them stand out, or to make other conventions stand out. For example the bar code is usually hidden in one of the bottom corners of the page because it is not exactly important and it spoils the look of images.

It is not only cover pages which have conventions, contents pages and double page spreads also have aspects which have particular placements; of course these conventions may differ depending on the magazine style, audience and depending on the article.

 Most double page spreads are expected to have kickers at the start of the article to interest the reader and to help them find out if they actually want to read the article if it interests them. Article titles are usually based at the top of the page(s) in large font that interests the reader and draws their attention. Drop caps at the beginning of the first paragraph of the article, drop caps look nice; they help to improve the aesthetics of the article. Gutters (large enough to be able to read paragraphs without problems) Pull quotes placed somewhere in the text to draw attention to the most interesting parts of the article. Captions linked to images to help the reader understand what is going on and why things in the pictures are happening. Main image to draw the reader’s attention and to allow readers of that genre to find out what this article is about if they recognise the person in the photo. Perhaps bonus text or images to interest the reader or to advertise other, big articles or magazines (this usually happens with magazines who are owned by big publishing companies who new to boost the popularity of a different magazine.)

My final cover features all the conventions of a real magazine cover page. The purpose of the cover page is to make a magazine stand out from those displayed around it so the key to its success is a really strong image of someone the audience recognises and likes. Cover pages also need a strong masthead. Other conventional details include a cover story, usually in large text, cover lines to promote the magazine's contents, a bar code and dateline. Some also include additional features.