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

Magazine

Title of the magazine: For my magazine, I chose the name Amplified because his relates to live music, and using amplifiers to make the music louder. Live music is a big part of rock music and its culture, so it was a fitting name for a magazine of this genre.

Amplifier definition

In electronics, a device that takes a small electric signal and converts it into a large one. Amplifiers are used in stereo systems, electric guitars, and loudspeakers.

For rock music, playing live shows is a very big part of the culture and is something most people who like this type of music will be familiar with. And although it is not something very specific to this genre, amplifiers make the music played by instuments louder and rock music is a genre that is known for being loud.

 
Background/Colours: The background of my magazine cover is white, this is very conventional of rock music magazines, many of these magazines choose one block background colour and then use 2 or 3 other accent colours. I complied with the convention because it is used so there aren’t too many colours that pull focus from the cover star(s). Another way in which I have followed conventions is by using a bold masthead. It is a simple font (name of font) and is the colour black . Various existing music magazines such as Kerrang’s masthead (see below)  is also black on a white background.

Kerrang! logo

People: However, I challenged conventions of this genre putting a band with 2 females and only one male on the front cover. Rock music, and therefore rock music magazines, is a male-dominated industry and rarely feature bands with more females then males.  I decided to challenge the conventions in this aspect to make my magazine unique and different from the others on the market. But the models are slightly younger than many in real bands, I made the decision to challenge this convention because it will appeal more to my target audience as they can relate more to those who are of the same age as them.

Costume and props: The costumes that I have used throughout my magazine are conventional. This is because the band used in my magazine arewearing jeans, trainers, eyeliner and t-shirts.These items could be found in professional music magazines as well as on people who enjoy this type of music.

Written content: I followed the codes and conventions of music magazine articles. Although some magazines do publish simple question/answer articles, many others publish articles with quotes embedded in them. I decided to do this because from the magazines I analysed, as of late, this style of article has become more popular. The style of language used is a mix of formal and conversational. I chose this style because it is a style that the target audience would find easy to read without getting bored. Also, the mode of address used in the editor's letter is very conversational, similar to all of the music magazines that I analysed. So in that respect I have followed the codes and conventions of the magazine genre.

"We make casual chit-chat after I enter the room, the band and I bonded over music (Vampire Weekend to be precise), and I began to ask them about the year they’ve had. Bassist Natalya Urie is quick to answer, ‘It’s been amazing. We didn’t expect any of it, it’s crazy. I mean, we wrote these songs in my garage two summers ago and now we’re playing on the Main Stage at Reading [and Leeds Festival].’” - Extract from my features article