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

media products?

By Elissa Appleby-Mason

An estimated 70% of magazines are brought on impulse and with a crowded marketplace for music and entertainment magazines, competition is fierce. What does my cover of HYPE do to attract attention? Perhaps the first thing to mention is that I understand and am fully aware that my music magazine goes against quite a few of the conventional elements featured within a typical magazine. However, with this in mind, I had planned and achieved the initial look I was aiming for to portray and represent the Hip-Hop genre.My work purposely goes against the typical conventions of most music magazines. This is to enforce the 'rebellion 'theme within the Hip-Hop genre, to target the audience. It has also been created against typical conventions to create the notion of a more 'personal' magazine,.. rather than being the same as every other magazine on the shelf.

My media product Existing media product

MastheadMy music magazine follows some of the conventional codes that are commonly recognised in most music magazines. These conventional aspects of my magazine include the Masthead, which is typically positioned in the top, left third of the page, which is a common position on a magazine as it is crucial for people to establish and recognise the title and name of the magazine in which they are buying. The masthead also remains the same on each issue and forms part of the brand identity. It is in a familiar font base and placed on a red background to make the title stand out, like the XXL magazine on the left. The colour of red was specifically chosen as it connotes the notion of blood, anger and danger.

As well as the magazine title block/masthead, I also have included a date and issue number which is displayed within the barcode. This is conventional for most magazines as it informs the reader when the magazine is released and they number of issues that have been released prior to the current issue.

Along the process of developing my media product I kept referring to other Hip Hop magazines such as XXL to follow the same conventions featured on that magazine.

Another conventional code my magazine follows is the central image on the front cover, which has a direct mode of address as the artist is directly looking into the camera, which would create the effect that the artist is looking directly towards the audience. This is common in music magazines as the publisher of the magazine wants you to build an instant connection with the reader in order to help appeal to the audience to interest them into buying it.Furthermore the use of buzz words such as 'Exclusive' which have beenClearly highlighted, so that the words appeal to the reader and catch their eye and potentially influence their decision to buy the magazine.

When considering elements of the Mise-en-scene which include the costumes, make up, lighting, props etc my magazine surely follows the typical conventions of Hip-Hop magazines. For example, the images featured in my magazines all use the same artists however in a range of different styles of dress and poses.The formality of the poses are very studio staged, rather than paparazzi shots. All three photographs are specifically taken to construct the notion of intimidation and create a sense of power, as this is the typical theme throughout the Hip-Hop genre. The choice and style of photography within my magazine, follow that of typical existing magazines, being close ups.

The mise-en-scene of the magazine is crucial to how my product represents certain audience and social groups.

Mise-en-scene

Furthermore the layout of my double page spread was slightly less conventional in terms of the layout and more specific to the themes and messages being conveyed throughout this specific article as I thought this certain layout would be more appealing and would be more fitting to the theme and genre being portrayed. However despite this, throughout the magazine I kept to the typical codes and conventions of a music magazine as the target audience for my magazine is quite mainstream so as well as appealing to my target audience specifically in places I wanted to produce something that would be something conventional .

My contents page has all the common themes found within a music magazine such as pictures with text, headings and sub headings and so on, this is done so the reader gains ease of accessibility in finding the way around the magazine.

My magazine is very similar to the existing product on the left, in terms of layout and photograph. Both mine and the existing magazine contain one key image that is composed to take up the whole page. The text is all kept in an alignment