College Magazine Photos

I will not be using this photo as even though the quality is acceptable the shot is very bare and boring. There isn't many things associated with education. these would be books or paper.

I am not going to use this photo as there are people in the background and the shot itself is too casual and sociable rather than hardworking.

I will be using this photo as connotes college life of doing your work on your own. It looks smart and formal. This photo is a medium shot which is perfectly suited for a magazine cover. It is also a high angle shot.

This is not going to be used as it is blurry and too informal.

I am not using this last shot as although it has the connotations of education I feel as if a photo with writing on paper would be better suited

College Magazine Cover Analysis

This college magazine is simply called college guide. The title of the magazine is, 'College Preparation: Navigating The Maze' This is noticeable due to it being the first text below the masthead. It is also in the same colours as the masthead. This suggests you should pay attention to this first. The main image is of a student working on a bench with students in the background reading. This is clearly relevant to the contents of the magazine as it is a college magazine. It is a guide so this suggests it will be helping you with work. The target audience is of students of the college. These would be 16-20 year olds both male and female. The magazine is aimed at these as the magazine is to help its students get through successfully as the title suggests.

Codes And Conventions
The magazine uses the MASTHEAD, 'College Guide'
The magazine also uses SELL LINES for example, 'Special Insert Section' 'Special' could also be seen as a BUZZWORD. The magazine has used a MAIN HEADLINE of, 'College Preparation: Navigating The Maze' The magazine uses HOUSE STYLE in its masthead and sell line. This is because it uses the same colours which is traditional to the magazine. The magazine does not use many of the codes and conventions of a typical magazine such as:
SLOGAN
ANCHORAGE TEXT
BANNER
STRAP LINE
Images and Camera Shots/Angles
There is a medium shot of a girl working at a bench. A focus pull is used to blur the background of otherstudents working. This relates to the audience as it is what they should be doing at college.

Mise-en-scene
There is a girl with pen and paper on a bench working. The girl is smiling. This relates to the readers and the magazine content. The readers will go to the college and the magazine is about easily doing your work and should be happy while doing it.

Cover - Audience Engagement
The magazine cover engages the audience using a variety of text and its main image. The girl in the image is looking directly at the camera as if she is looking at you. She is also doing school work which speaks to what the target audience will be familiar with within the college. 
An example of the text used is, 'Local Students Share Test Taking Tips' this is also familiar with the target audience. This is because they will all be going through similar struggles and makes the magazine more personal.
Target Audience
The target audience would be students of the college. These people will be both male and female of the age 16-20. You know this is the target audience as the magazine is a guide to the college. These people will be going to the college. the cover also features a girl of this age. This also makes the magazine more personal, as you can relate to this as they could easily be your friends.
Ideology
The ideology of the magazine would be to get through to its students to promote good work and dedication. The main goal of the magazine would be to be extra help to the students so that they can get through college with the best grades. The contents of the magazine will most likely promote extra curricular activities such as revision to help with exams. This is suggested with the 'Online Resources For College Planning' text on the cover.
Helping With My Final Production
This will help me with the production of my own magazine as i can take some of the ideas from this magazine and use it on my own. Examples of this would be that I will create house style and use a personal image that would connect with the audience. This magazine does not contain many of the codes and conventions of a typical magazine. 
This could be seen as a drawback as it will not have done the most it can to make people want to have it, this maybe makes it less professional. However it could be that it has adopted a more simplistic approach as it is a college magazine, it would not want to overload the student audience. From this i'll take for my final product to make sure i use the typical codes and conventions, but also try to make it simplistic.

Using Photoshop

To begin using Photoshop I first of all made sure that the preset was 'International Paper'

 Next I made sure to use the colour mode 'RGB Color'

 I then started with the image of the artist, 'Jay Z'

 I manipulated the image by using the 'Magic Wand Tool' after selecting 'Rasterize Layer' so i was able to work on the image. I used the magic wand tool to delete the background of the image by selecting colours.

 I then used an image of a dark alley to place behind the artist. Originally the artist was covered by the background but i dragged the layer the artist was on to the top so it was in front.

 I then used a different background to create contrast.

 For the next one I used the 'Healing brush tool' to remove the spots of the models forehead to make her look better. The last one is an image of Scarlett Johansson I adjusted the layer to black and white. Be fore that I had selected her mouth and made it a different layer. Again I used the magic wand tool to remove the background skin. After these processes I placed the red lip layer in front of the black and white image.

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire Outcome

These screenshots are of the charts showing the results of my questionnaire. Each chart represents a different question.

These questions are:

State your Gender:

Your age range

These results say most of the people were male: 16/20.

45% of people were aged between 15 and 17, this being the highest. 

Do you read Music Magazines?

65% of people surveyed did read music magazines, and 35% didn't.

What is your favourite genre of music

How often do you buy Music Magazines?

How much money do you spend on music magazines per month?

Would you buy a magazine based on free items or exclusives?

Do you buy music magazines to learn about new bands?

Do you expect to discover new genres when buying music magazines?

What is your favourite music magazine? 

What makes you buy this particular magazine?

What is your favourite form of viewing a music magazine?

What do you expect from free items?

What other reasons do you buy music magazines for?

The most popular favourite genre was 'Rock' with 30%
Most people bought a music magazine once per month with 30%
Most peoples favourite magazine is Kerrang with 30%
People said that an attractive cover made them buy the magazine most.
35% of people preferred the hard copy over other forms of viewing

These questions are for people who do read music magazines and the questions below are for people who do not.

Have you ever bought a music magazine in the past?

What directs you away from buying music magazines?

If you were to buy a music magazine, how much would you spend?

Would you be interested in buying a music magazine in the future?
What would make you start reading music magazines?

25% of people had bought a music magazine in the past
People said most that a lack of interest makes them not buy music magazines with 20%
30% said they would spend less than £5 on a music magazine
Again 30% would be interested in buying a music magazine in the future

Cohen's Moral Panic

The term Moral Panic was first introduced by sociologist, Stanley Cohen. He said moral panics were created by the media. He said they would amplify situations to make for better news. Essentially they would make 'mountains out of mole hills.' This was to make for better news to report. Amplified news reports made certain people or groups of people out to be 'Folk devils.' These people would be scared of.

Celebrities who have been turned into folk devils are, Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse and Marilyn Manson.

Pete Doherty:

Media amplified stories of his drug abuse.

Amy Winehouse:

Drug abuse, alcohol.

Marilyn Manson:

Was blamed for influencing violent acts with his music.

NME Institution Research

NME Story Video
NME Story part 1
NME Story part 2
NME Story part 3
NME Story part 4

In todays lesson we watched a video on the NME Story, I also made some further research on the internet, here is what I found out:

New Musical Express(NME) started out as a music newspaper as of March 1952 and eventually turned to a magazine style in the 80s. NME was created by Theodore Smythson. NME is currently owned by IPC Media.

The magazines main goal was to tell their audience about music in anyway. They would use pictures and interviews along with gig dates and band reviews.NME was also the first music magazine to incorporate a chart list.

With over 300,000 sales in the space of 6 months, NME's sales peaked with Andy Gray as editor.






NME used simple techniques to attract its audience. This involved simple covers with direct text to what to expect in the magazine. They also put big artists on the front cover such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. These two bands were regularly featured on the cover throughout the 60s

NME also had to keep up with the times and adapt to the nations favourite music. For example they would go from focusing on rock to pop. Another artist they had regularly on the cover to attract an audience was, Morrissey.

Through all of NME's success at times they weren't the 'top dog' all of the time. They had unique things about their magazines that kept readers coming back but still a rival. NME lost out to Melody Maker when it came to the development of rock music to psychedelia and progressive rock.

To combat NME's plummet in sales Alan Smith took over as editor in the early 70s to rethink it's attitude and approach. He was given a short time, by the owners, IPC, to turn things around. He managed to turn the sales around from 60,000 to nearly 300,000. He done this by making the magazine more cynical, funny and smarter, and more critically based. To do this he hired some new writers and some underground writers. Some if the most influential were Tom Wolfe and Lester Bangs. NME were now outselling their mainstream rivals, Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Sounds.

NME - 90s

In the 90s NME took slowly to the grunge movement, with bands mainly coming from Seattle. The most popular bands being, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. NME took to grunge only after 'Nevermind' became popular. This gave NME's rivals such as Sounds and Melody Maker a chance to outdo them.

In 92 NME had a dispute with one of their Heros, Morrissey. This caused Morrissey to not speak to NME for over a decade. The dispute regarded allegations that he had used racist lyrics and imagery. This began when at a concert Morrissey draped himself in a union flag.
Morrissey spoke to NME again as the writers concerned had long gone.

In 94 the death of Cobain not only had a big effect on his fans but also the magazine. This saw a big change in British music replacing Grunge with Britpop. 
Britpop exploded with the success of Oasis and Blur, as a result of this NME's sales increased.



Now the magazine was left directionless again and saw a sales decrease through the attempted recreation of their 80s style. They insulted Tony Blair. This gave them more media attention but ultimately saw them reach a record low in sales by the turn of the millennium.





2000s:
From 1998 NME had full glossy colour covers.
With the closure of Melody Maker when the merged with NME, and Select also closing with in a week of this, it looked like NME could be next. Due to this, NME tried to broaden their reach again by featuring hip hop artists such as Jay-Z and R&B acts such as Destiny's Child.
However like before, it proved unpopular with their readership and was soon dropped.
NME later picked up trying to promote new bands again and had a big influence on the rise of, The Vines, The Strokes and The White Stripes.
In 2002 Conor McNicholas was appointed new editor, which brought about new photographers.
NME then focused on indie bands such as The Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party.
In October 2006 NME launched NME Ireland. The first issue featured Dublin band, Humanzi. However due to competition from Hot Press and free magazine the magazine saw it'd demise in the November of the same year.
In May 2008 the magazine was redesigned to be aimed at older people. With the first issue of the new design readers received a received a free 7-inch Coldplay vinyl.
Since 2003 NME has continuously fallen in sales. The second of of 2011 saw figures at 23,924. This was 66% down of 2003 figure, 72,442.

Feminism

Feminism in the Media

Feminism is a series of movements in the aim for women to achieve equal rights. Women are seen as stay at home wives. Women are supposed to stay at home, look after the children and clean.
Women are also seen as sexual objects from the media. On this cover of 'Rolling Stone' the picture of Katy Perry is there for men to look at. This type of picture has been used to attract the male audience. This is because men will literally be attracted to the front cover image.
Katy Perry is not wearing many clothes. She is dressed very provocatively and revealing. This drives sales and supports the claim that men see women as objects. She is also directly addressing the audience by looking at the camera.

However this magazine cover goes against the way women are portrayed. Here Amy Winehouse is portrayed to be more masculine than most women, with her tattoos and less provocative dress style.