In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Form: Music MagazineGenre: Indie Rock

• Red masthead at the top left of the page with a tagline below – red connotes danger which connotes the convention of rebelling against society’s expectations and will stand out to the reader. It is also always short and catchy.

• I stuck to the idea of having a red masthead, but I challenged this slightly by making the red my background and the title in white which I found made it stand out more brightly, and I also placed the tagline within the masthead which is conventional. In addition, RIFT is short and catchy which sticks to that convention.

• Bright colours are used on the whole to create a statement which connotes the Indie convention of standing out. Some Indie magazines such as Indie and Clash use more understated, pastel colours with contrasting bolder colours for the masthead which depicts the modern interest in the vintage and retro style, and looks back to the 1980s when the term ‘Indie’ first became a term used to describe music.

• I stuck to the convention of bright colours for the masthead, footer, splash and house style, but challenged this convention in terms of the editing of the photo. In hindsight I could have had Katie wearing a bright item of clothing to make the image stand out more, however then it would have clashed with the splash. The shades of blue and red which I chose for the cover lines have a vintage edge to them, as does the glow on the splash, so I adhered to this convention in some terms.

Conventions of an Indie/Rock magazine

• Contents usually include information about upcoming gigs and critical reviews, because in this genre there is not the pretence that there is in more mainstream genres like pop, and autonomy is prioritised so the music critics do not hold back of what they really think. An example of this is Steven Wells who once said that NIN managed to make the Adam and the Ants song Physical ‘sound even crapper and even more ridiculous than the original’.

• My magazine stuck to the convention of featuring a variety of album reviews, and although I did not produce any of the pages with these reviews on, they would have been based on the writing styles of critics such as Robert Christgau and Steven Wells, neither of whom were bothered about who they were offending. Furthermore, on my flat plan there were 2 double page spreads dedicated to upcoming gigs, which show the importance of raw, live music in this genre.

• For the double page spread, the picture often covers both pages, with the article layered on top, often in a box.

• I stuck to this convention with my magazine, adding shadow to the text and boxes to make them stand out more.

Conventions of an Indie/Rock magazine

Conventions of an Indie/Rock magazine

• The facial expressions of the artists in any photo-shoot photos featured tend to be neutral to convey their indifference to the fame which is a convention.

• I stuck to this on all of my photos which I used, as there is no sign of any emotion on the faces of any of them.

• Instruments are very important in this genre to convey the rawness of their music and lack of manufacturing. The instruments tend to feature more on the contents page and double page spread than the front cover.

• I stuck to this convention by featuring the main cover image on my contents page as a picture of Tom playing guitar. The image is very stripped back which depicts the rawness. To improve it, I could have added in a location background.

• Cover lines on a magazine tend to list some of the bands which will be featured within the magazine, as this genre is very band orientated, and readers will be interested in what content they are paying for.

• I stuck to this convention by making the top cover line on my magazine a list of bands, and also having a band index on the contents page which is also very conventional of magazines of this genre.

• The layout of an Indie/Rock magazine is usually quite sophisticated as it targets a sophisticated audience.

• I feel like I adhered to this convention mostly, because the layout of my contents page especially is quite regimented. However I challenged this convention by making the front cover splash to be in a sporadic font, which makes it in a more scrapbook style which is another way in which magazines which lend themselves more closely to the rock side of the spectrum use.

• The front cover of Indie magazines are packed with information about featured stories.

• I challenged this convention as I felt that the more sophisticated audience which I am aiming my product to would appreciate quality over quantity; something which I discovered in my focus group, and I also found that a lot of NME magazine covers did not feature a huge amount of content, which my magazine was based on.

Conventions of an Indie/Rock magazine

Conventions of Indie/Rock artists…

• Clothing worn by the featured artists is usually smart-casual, although often crosses over gender roles which adheres to Judith Butler’s Gender Performance, for instance a male artists might wear a low cut top or they often wear jewellery, which again connotes their refusal to follow expectations set by social constructs.

• I stuck to this convention, as my artists are wearing smart/ casual clothes without losing the slight edginess which comes from being part of the genre created in opposition to mainstream culture and music, hence challenging hegemonic ideologies.

• Another way in which many artists of this genre adhere to Butler’s Gender Performance is how many male artists have long hair.

• One of my male artists has long hair so I have adhered to this convention.• The genre is a white dominated race, conventionally featuring artists in their 20s.• I mostly adhered to this convention; all of the artists featured, although the

models were teenagers, were supposed to represent artists in their 20s. All except one of my artists were white. I challenged this idea with one artist because I felt that a key fact about Indie music is that it is about challenging stereotypes and hegemony, and the audience are socially aware, hence why I felt it important to feature this other audience as ‘Louis Del Grido’ on the contents page.

Conventions of Indie/Rock artists…

• Many artists of this genre have tattoos which act as a form of expressing themselves, and link to the conventional creativity which is present among artists of this genre, as the music prioritises Maslow’s highest need which features creativity.

• I have challenged this convention because the models which I used did not have tattoos themselves as I used teenage models who are too young legally to have their own tattoos. However had I had more time and access to a wider range of people to use, I would have picked a couple of models with tattoos.

• There is an intense concern for authenticity surrounding this genre and so it is difficult to place the artists into boxes and call them ‘conventions’ – each artist is very different, contrasting pop in which many artists look and sound similar, as Adorno, the Marxist theorist said that repetition distracts from true creativity, leading them to reproduce the ideologies of pop as part of a homogenous group.

• In my article on the double page spread, I have tried to portray each member of the group to have a different personality to depict this authenticity through what they say in the article, aswell as how they are dressed in the images on the front cover and double page spread.

Conventions of Indie/Rock artists

• Indie artists are often portrayed as the rebels of the music industry, and they do not succumb to the monopolisation of this industry – there is a focus on the ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude which was so influential in the initial coining of the phrase ‘Indie-Rock’.

• While I adhered to this convention in some terms, I also steered away from it and challenged it by mentioning that my band played to a sold out Wembley crowd, which would earn them a lot of money, and getting to the point that they have to be able to do that clearly means that they have earned a lot of money. I did this to show the disappearance of the true underground roots of the genre due to the evolution of the internet, in particular Web 2.0; that it is impossible to stay hidden with everything now available at the press of a button, showing the newly mainstream element to the Indie/Rock genre.

• Indie artists are completely separate from pop ideologies as the audience is more sophisticated, and there is minimal repetition in the industry despite the amount of bands which have been influenced by others, and each have their own style due to their autonomy which is a primary concern of these artists.

• I tried to retain the convention through the quote in the article; ‘we have a lot more awareness of who we are as a band now and what our sound is’ as this portrays the band to have their own individual sound. I also incorporate the convention of the band being influenced by other bands as so many Indie bands are through mentioning The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Black Keys in the article.

Conventions of Indie/Rock artists

• Many artists of the Indie/Rock genre smoke/drink excessively /do drugs, contrasting artists of the pop genre because they have retained their autonomy and own image, and therefore are not expected to retain a squeaky clean image by their management.

• I have tried to portray this in the article inn the quote when asked what their music is about; ‘money, relationships, drinking’ which shows the fact that they do drink however also challenges the assumption that indie artists are always on drugs/smoke a lot/drink excessively as there is no mention of this. I did this to make the band seem more likeable and relatable to the sophisticated audience, who are either still in school or have a good job and a good income, so therefore are unlikely to want to ruin their opportunities with these things.

• Despite the artists and audience of indie/rock music often being socially aware, it is still male dominated. I challenged this stereotype by using Katie as part of the band to show Gauntlett’s Empowered female. To improve the magazine and reinforce this notion, I would have used more females as models, however at the time I was limited to time and who could make the shoots. I would have kept the band as 2 males and a female, because I think depicted Katie as the lead singer reinforces her Empowered Female status, but I might have changed Josh for a female. Despite this, using a female fronted band was conventional as in Wolf Alice, Paramore etc.

Institutional conventions of

Indie/Rock Magazines• Indie magazines often take on a scrapbook theme which embraces

their independent roots but contrasts their conglomerate ownership.

• I challenged this theme by using a more sophisticated layout for my front cover and contents page in particular, although it could be said that the use of the two boxes on my double page spread represent the scrapbook style, but I did this because I found it conventional to have an image covering both pages of the double page spread, with text over the top, and because of the nature of the brick background, it was hard to make the text stand out otherwise.

• Indie artists and magazines were traditionally owned by independent institutions, but with the evolution of Indie into the more mainstream market due to the extinction of underground music and the progression of the internet, they are now more conglomerate owned.

• I have adhered to the convention that Indie magazines are now more conglomerate owned, because the institution which I chose in my research which I thought would be best to own my magazine was IPC Media which has now disappeared under TimeWarner, because they publish NME, which is the magazine most alike mine and therefore I feel it would best cope with any issues and marketing necessary.

Evaluation of my Product

I think that this part is a strength – it is conventional to list bands featured inside of the magazine, and I have done so in a sophisticated way which appeals to my target audience.

If I had had more time, I would have fine tuned my photoshop skills and tried to make Billy’s hair better cut out. I also think this was down to the lighting which I used as the right of Billy has a glare on him. While this looks effective, it made it difficult to distinguish between Billy and the background at times, therefore meaning that some of his hair has not been cut out as well as it might have.

I think the way that this text is wrapped around the picture is effective and more conventional than if it was just in a straight line. It also allowed me to make the main focal image bigger, removing some of the blank space.

Despite dedicating a large amount of time to working on this part of the splash, I am still not entirely happy with it. I feel like it doesn’t really fit into the rest of the cover. To improve it, I could have changed the font, or made the whole splash bigger meaning that the ‘How three… Wembley’ part could also be bigger.

I probably could still have done with more content on this page as parts of it still look quite empty. My reasoning for not was because a focus group member said that they preferred quality over quantity, although the content on Indie/Rock magazines varies on whether they are going for the more rocky edge or more understated, reflecting different artists.

Evaluation of my Product

The band index title is not completely centred which could be disorientating to the reader and is not sophisticated enough for my target audience, who prioritise quality.

I think the boarder around the page is quite effective as it adds a sophisticated edge which appeals to my audience.

However this part of the boarder is not even as I had some technical difficulties with layers joining together and therefore not being able to edit individual lines – if I had had more time to perfect my product I would have hopefully been able to change this.

Although not visible here, the lines around the social media sites don’t quite match up and overlap – this should have been perfected as it is unconventional to have simple mistakes.

In hindsight, I would make this title smaller and add more content to the contents page, as a convention of Indie magazines is the amount of content within the magazine.

Some of these rectangles for the titles are slightly different sizes, and again it is unconventional to have simple mistakes, and does not appeal to a sophisticated target audience. It also undermines the regimental layout of the rest of the magazine.

Evaluation of my Product

I still think that this pull quote could take more work as I am not sure that it quite fits in with the spread – I could have perhaps incorporated the pull quote into one of the boxes.

Were I to redo this spread, I would stretch this font, as I think that it needs more precedence on the page.

Although I edited the picture to make it less exposed, the lighting still seems quite unnatural, in particular Katie’s face, which makes me think that I could have added more yellow into the photo.

Billy’s phone was still in his pocket for the shoot which is unconventional, and I should have made sure he had removed this before.

Theoretical ResearchIn my theoretical research, I focussed on the audience theories of: Identification (passive) Uses and Gratifications (active) Two Step Flow (active) Hierarchy of Needs (active)

…and the representation theories of: Hegemony and stereotypes (subverted) Gauntlett’s Empowered Female Butler’s Gender Performance

Audience TheoriesThese can all still be applied to my production…• Identification – Rift can provide my target audience with stress relief as

the specific indie/rock genre of music is likely to be something which they are passionate about and enjoy.

• Uses and Gratifications – My audience receive entertainment through the amount of exciting content, information through the interviews and news pages, personal identity through the features of artists similar age to my target audience, and social interaction through some of the potentially shocking articles and reviews.

• Two Step Flow – My audience will be confident in presenting their musical views to other people as they are musically experienced, aswell as acting as the passive end of this theory in taking on board what is said in the reviews about certain artists in the magazine.

• Hierarchy of Needs – My magazine will be prioritising Maslow’s highest need of self actualisation, so as a sophisticated audience who have managed to fulfil all of the other levels of needs in their own lives, my magazine will satisfy the highest need.

Representation Theories

I can still apply all of these to my production…• Hegemony and stereotypes (subverted) – One of the

conventions of indie/rock music is subverting stereotypes and living on the edge, therefore not conforming to hegemonic ideologies which I have demonstrated in my production in various ways, such as the main feature band becoming successful without a proper education.

• Gauntlett’s Empowered Female – As the only female featured in my magazine, Katie, lead singer of the band, embodies Gauntlett’s empowered female through her attitude and lack of care for other’s opinions of her.

• Judith Butler’s Gender Performance – Harry, who features in the main feature band particularly adheres to Judith Butler’s Gender Performance as he has his ears pierced, is wearing a low cut top, has long hair, nails painted and a slight heel on his boot – all things conventionally associated with females.