Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

My preliminary task in comparison to my final piece is completely different. With limited knowledge on magazines and how they are constructed my preliminary task was the first media product I have ever attempted to produce therefore it was poorly produced. Within the time span between my preliminary task and my final piece I have learnt how to use the software sufficiently to create a magazine which is a lot better than before.

My preliminary task was obviously my first experience in creating a media product, it was done with Microsoft Word rather than the better programmes such as Corel Draw which I decided upon later on. I did not have any knowledge of these programmes and would not of been able to construct a magazine with my little knowledge of them and what kind of audience I was trying to aim them at. The construction of my school magazine front cover and contents page was extremely clumpy and the images and writing were not anchored together nor in a place which looked nice. The magazine for my preliminary task was of little quality and unfortunately did not look very good.

By my main task I had gathered knowledge of how to construct a magazine and how to make it look put together well. For my main task I did lots of research which I had not really done before which allowed me to have a wider knowledge of my audience and what they like. I also had a better knowledge of the software I was using and the software was a lot more efficient than Microsoft word. The final three pieces were of higher quality that the previous task which highlights my development in constructing magazines. I believe the fact my work got better is down to the research I did throughout and the better understanding of the programmes I was using helped make it a lot better.

Once I had finished and began comparing the two attempts of creating the magazines I understood that throughout this time my skills in constructing a magazine have developed as I have gained more knowledge. I feel that my previous attempt was extremely clumpy and looked nothing like a professional magazine, this was largely down to my lack of knowledge about how to construct a magazine, anchorage and my lack of research. However after ensuring I completed all these tasks before starting work on my final piece the magazine comes across a lot more professional and is put together better than before. 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the time I have been constructing my music magazine I have encountered a range of different technologies and programmes which I would not of come across before. Using these programmes allowed me to develop the skills I needed to do the work and also possibly in further life. The programmes allowed me to create my final piece professionally and easily!

Blogger

One of the main programmes I used was ‘Blogger’ which allowed me to show people the stages I went through, my research, selection process and other steps I went through to create my final piece. Blogger made it easy to document what I had been doing and my final pieces.

The initial thing I had to do when starting up my blog was choosing the design on my blog. I did not want to go for anything too over the top and wanted to ensure that it was easy to read and the user did not get distracted. I also wanted the design feature to be easy to navigate through.

Another thing I had to ensure was efficient was the labelling system. I could not have the blog with just posts so ensured I labelled them. I used the labels; Preliminary task, main task, research, target audience, evaluation and planning for the labels so the user could differentiate the different sections which I had put my work into. Each piece of work has a label on it and these are visible at the side of the blog for the user to click on.

I also had to put multimedia onto my blog, such as Youtube clips and pictures which allows the user to see diversity to the blog. Luckily this was fairly simple and not hard!

Camera

For my pictures I used a Canon 7D which is a great camera and ensures my images are not blurry. The pictures were taken with this camera as I thought they would be better quality that the previous ones I took before with an iPhone therefore I felt it best to go with a high quality camera to get the best results.  

Photo shop

Photoshop was my original choice to design my magazine on, however after attempting to do so I decided to go with another programme. Although photoshop is a efficient programme I felt it was not good for me therefore I only used it to edit photos.

For my double page spread I used photo shop to edit the main photo. I used it because it a great programme for editing, therefore I felt it best to use. I found it difficult to use at first but after a while I learnt how to. I adjusted certain settings to make sure that the photo went exactly how I wanted it to go.

I also edited the photo on the front to make it black and white and also removed any marks from the background.

Corel Draw

Corel Draw was a completely new programme to me as I have never used it before ,and after decided to use it instead of photoshop, and found it quite hard to use. Corel draw has many features which are used to make a magazine and it is very professional.

Corel draw was the programme I used to design all of my coursework on and I found it very efficient to do so. I like that I could make it look like a magazine and it appeared seemingly easy to use after getting use to the software. I like Corel Draw because it gave me a vast range of things to use.

Corel Draw was efficient because it was easy to use after and while and effectively got the work done. I liked it because it made my finished product what I wanted it to be and I doubt the other software available would of done the same.

Internet

I used the internet a lot in my project as I researched a lot of different things. I also used it to see what other music magazines were writing about and what kind of thing was popular in their magazine.

The internet was an extremely useful tool to identify which kind of magazine does what and how I could form mine around this. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representations are a way of putting across an image of a particular social group, in my case the person in my magazine I chose to represent was women. No representation is completely true and people interpret them in different ways.

In my magazine I chose to show women in a sexual way, as eye candy to the men reading the magazine. Many other magazines do this such as FHM and they use many different semiotic codes to show this, just as I tried to do. Representing women this way was purely due to my audience which in many cases of media this affects who you're representing.

I used many different semiotics to create this image in my magazine...

Front Cover
The front cover was something which had to fully draw in my audience with the kind of representation they wanted. On the front cover I chose to show 'Hannah Stevens' in a highly sexual way and I used many different things to do this such as clothing, the pose and the writing addressed with her.

Clothing:

• The clothing used is pretty minimal and shows off a lot of skin which immediately
• Her bra is on show which gives connotations of sexual things
• She is very scantily clad

Her clothing is a huge signifier that the women in the magazine will be largely shown as eye candy and objectified. 

The pose

The pose Hannah was said to do was deliberate to create my representation. Her pose is seductive as in she has pose with drum sticks in her mouth which could give off different connotations. The pose she has done highly objectifies women and gives off the image that she is sexual, attractive to men and other connotations. 

The article surrounding 

The article which is anchored with the picture is "Hannah Stevens: Being a sex symbol" which immediately shows that the women on the front cover is going to have an article which largely represents the kind of female she is: sexy, objectified and seen as eye candy. 

The Contents page

The contents page is a little different from the front cover as it has no real photos of women to represent them. It does however have the outline of a female body which is a bit sexual but not as much as the front cover. The contents page is the one out of the three which actually does not have an objectified women on it, it gives more of a balanced view of music and other stories. 

Double page spread

The double page spread does not represent women physically however in the article there is a view of women from the interviewee's opinion. The interview is about someone who is seen as a player and a stud, therefore it is no doubt women will be seen in a different light to many other people's views. 

The article

The article about 'Teddy Rochester' is about how he has slept with countless women and had lots of fun by purely disbanding of them when he is done. Part of the interview he talks about how he has slept with 200 hundred girls, which straight away puts women in bad light as they are seen as easy. 

The title itself, "Girls like playing my game", which shows that he immediately views girls as 'game'. The article does objectify women and makes them seem as if they are there for one thing to him, but this is his personal view.  

Semiotics

There are two types of signs which create meanings:

• -          Signifier
• -         Signified

The signifier is the physical form of the sign which is simply seen from the audience.

The signified is the meaning from a physical sign and there are two parts:

• -         Denotation
• -         Connotation

A denotation is the obvious meaning from a sign, in which there are no hidden meanings and it is simply what it seems. The denotative meaning is it is a dove.

A connotation is a deeper meaning which is not fixed. People can come up with a connotation themselves. The connotative meaning of a dove is peace.