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

The basis of this question surrounds genre. Genre refers to a category within the media business that can easily be recognised through repetition of key elements such as characters, settings and dialect. For my magazine to a success, I have to incorporate a specific genre that can relate to my target audience and their surroundings.

With regards to manufacturing a genre, including conventions and forms which have made magazines successful is an important aspect to the everyday consumer. If they feel their not getting specific elements that they already know and effectively love, e.g. – reviews, interviews, they will not be intrigued by the magazine and will in actual fact not purchase it.

Example of a key element in a traditional magazine. These

are features or to many snippets.



Furthermore, including these key elements are very important, and without them will not bring success. However allowing these elements decoder and allows them to treat vCity like they would ‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang’. Examples of what I included in vCity are;

·         Masthead

·         Plug Line

·         Snippets / Features

·         Issue Date

·         Price

·         Barcode

·         Images

·         Colour

In conjunction with this, layout within the magazine is also important. Displaying pieces like exclusive reports and features is imperative when advertising the magazine, as it’s this which makes it feel like a ‘real media product’. From here, it’s up to me as the encoder to make vCity develop these elements, and therefore challenge other magazines for consumer approval. This was done through offering feature outside the music genre, again aiming for the target markets approval.

In relation the forming a ‘real media product’, iconography is another important aspect that has to be incorporated to make my magazine successful. Choosing the right type of image is a vital as it allows the consumer to decode the text with an easy denotative interpretation rather having to deeply analyse it to understand. To choose the correct images, I looked at various music magazines to see ways in which I could layout these images when physically taking them. Knowing exactly what responds well with consumers will only benefit the article and the magazine. This allows me to make vCity look more like a ‘real media product’ and effectively be successful.

It showed that images involving the person in everyday life is more appealing as it connotates the person as someone on the reader’s level, and someone they can therefore relate with.