Participatory Online News Task

For this task, I chose to comment on a news about 'slavery' by The Daily Telegraph. Slavery is a very controversial human rights topic and I believe everyone should have their voices heard regarding their opinions over this inhumane topic. This article discusses how African people are being forced to move out of their countries illegally in order to run away from being held slaves and to survive. This is not just an issue for Africa but a global crises. Slavery is a way of limiting the human progression and this should not be left unseen.

Maybelline New York's Marketing Campaign(s)

Maybelline has adopted several promotional plans for its products in the beauty industry. In 2014, Maybelline collaborated with 13 influential YouTube beauty vloggers to promote the Nudes Palette.

"Dare to Go Nude" was Maybelline's video campaign to encourage women around the world to consider nude eyeshadow shades as a bold new way to express their true selves. It was the brand's unique way of bringing its newest product to the market and was successful in creating excitement within its target audience as well as raising consumer awareness about the product.

Maybelline realises the impact of star power on common masses. This was seen in its YouTube campaign as it approached beauty vloggers who had pre-existing followers, which made it easier for Maybelline to persuade its audience about the product's worth. Furthermore, it took over the YouTube homepage on product launch day and executed multiple high-impact site takeovers on the same day, leading to a rise in consumer awareness as well as 'desire to buy'.

The campaign succeeded by getting the right content in front of the right YouTube audiences. It resulted in 140 million impressions and 1.46 million clicks via the YouTube Masthead takeover as well as 15 million impressions via Google Preferred.

Technological Convergence and Branding

A brand is a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name e.g. Disney, Apple, Google etc. Brand is not just about a logo, marketing, advertising or a corporate identity. It is about confidence, passion, belonging, action and security; a set of unique values. Many things can be branded such as products, services, people, places, religions etc. Branding guarantees quality and evokes desires. Branding leads to an interaction between prosumers and consumers as prosumers try to satisfy their customers' demands by coming up with technological convergence. Technological convergence can be defined as the coming together of media technologies. An example of this would be the invention of Web 2.0. Web 1.0 was created in 1996 and there were only 250,000 websites with 90% of published content, however, majority of Web 2.0's content is user generated and it operates more than 80,000,000 websites. 

Furthermore, technological conventions have been profitable for the film industry because it is an accessible platform for almost everyone, everywhere. It has led to an easier and quicker way of advertising films, and it also allows consumers to watch films at cheaper prices. 

PRELIM TASK- Target Audience Consent Form

PRELIM TASK- My Final Product!!!!!

PRELIM TASK- Overview by Me!

Hey,
In this post I will be overviewing the final product of my preliminary task and talk about the choices I made for my magazine cover.
First of all, my masthead is called 'Blue Tunes' and as I mentioned in my previous posts that my magazine theme is R&B with soul music hence, I chose 'blue' which represents purity and innocence; resembles soul. And I chose 'tunes' for R&B.
I would now like to talk about the coverlines. Before starting my prelim task, I deconstructed a magazine cover which had Adele as its main feature. Adele music form is mainly R&B and soul and that's where my inspiration for magazine theme actually came from. Thus, I wanted to have something about Adele on my magazine cover. Moving on to Pink Floyd who are not at all linked to soul music as they are/were a rock band, however they still have an element of R&B in their music.
I, then, mentioned Rihanna and Drake who are huge R&B stars.
Talking bout my plug, I chose Justin Bieber for that because his previous album, Purpose, mainly focuses on R&B and he has also sung soul songs back in the day e.g. heartbreaker or change me.
The main reason I mentioned him is because my target audience perfectly matches the audience he targets. And what teenager would not ant a discount on JB's concert tickets?
I also talked about One Direction, mainly because of the same reason as Justin Bieber; similar target audience.

PRELIM TASK- Target Audience Feedback

PRELIM TASK- Flat Plan VS. Final Product

Overall, my final product does resemble my flat plan to a great extent. There have been very few changes to my final product in terms of the use of arrows, size of font & photograph. A change in the photograph angle can also be seen; on my flat plan the face is directly facing the front whereas for my final product I used a side angle to represent power over ego.

PRELIM TASK- Final Ideas

This is how my final product looks like. I have made quite a lot of changes to my magazine cover's initial ideas. Initially, I wanted to keep my model's outfit plain black however, I changed my mind and used a red check top. The reason behind this change is the change of my target audience. My initial target audience included almost all age groups but I later changed it to teenagers and young adults. This led me to present my model's character as a complexed one as most teenagers in today's generation fight with their inner voices and they rely on music to make themselves feel better. This can be seen in my model's pull quote.
Furthermore, I changed my magazine's feature colours to blue, white and black. My magazine's theme is a fusion of R&B with soul music. I used blue and white to represent soul music because they are usually seen as representing innocence and purity, which links to soul. Whilst, black represents power and strength, hence R&B.
The reason why I kept "tunes" in red/orange colour is because of the colour theory where blue's complementary colour is red/orange.

Here's my magazine cover before I made major changes to it. After receiving feedback from my peers and teachers, I decided to keep my model's eyes in their original colour because the colour I chose for them (green) did not seem very appealing. Furthermore, I got rid of the arrows which were there to tell my readers about the other stories inside my magazine. In this version of my magazine cover, it can be seen that I used colour red instead of white. The reason why I changed it to white is because of my model's top which is also red and having red font kept on mixing up with the top.

PRELIM TASK- Masthead Font Choice

PRELIM TASK- Photoshop

 I changed the levels of my magazine photograph in order to make my model's face features stand out.

 Due to my model's top being printed, it was hard to see her name clearly, hence I added a box in the background which looks way better than prior to adding the box.

 Furthermore, I thought to change my model's eye colour from hazel brown to something which should come across as a symbol of power.

PRELIM TASK- Choice of Photograph

I went against my initial ideas and chose a red printed top instead of a plain black top for my model because I wanted my model to portray a complexed character fraught with pain yet power. I chose a photograph where my model is able to show power in her eyes.

PRELIM TASK- Model's Consent

Here is my model's consent form. She is under 16 hence, her parent/guardian's consent is on there too.

Represenation & Reception Theory

Representation is a key concept in Media Studies. It refers to the 'construction' of media texts; what we see is re-presentation of events, people or ideas. This is also known as mediation.
Representation comes in many forms e.g. radio, newspapers etc. It may seem realistic but is constructed.

Stuart Hall

• People interpret media texts in different ways, depending on their background, economic standings and personal experiences.
• Audience members can play an active role in decoding messages of the text which has been encoded by the producer.

Dominant – The hegemonic response, people share the code and preferred meaning

Negotiated – they accept what the text is saying and adapt it according to their social background

Oppositional – They understand, but reject the message.

• Meaning is established by representation, by what is present, absent or different.
• A representation implicates the audience is creating its meaning.
• Power – through ideology or by stereotyping – tries to fix the meaning of a representation in a ‘preferred meaning’.

PRELIM TASK- Reader's Profile

Grace Millington

Likes: food and parties

Dislikes: dogs and exams

Hobbies: badminton and singing

Favourite Artists: Sia, Rihanna and Adele

My name is Grace and I am 16 years old. I recently started college and I do A-level music, media & business studies. Transition from KS4 to KS5 is so far very stressful, but I've found a way to keep myself relaxed by listening to R&B music. 

My mum is a primary school music teacher, hence I believe music is in my genes. Due to hectic schedules, we both dont get to spend much time with each other but I believe music keeps us connected. Our music styles are totally different; she likes to keep herself calm by listening to soul music whereas I am a typical teenager who loves R&B or Hip-hop. I think this is the main reason why I find the fusion of R&B with soul music amazing; it related to all age groups.

PRELIM TASK- Flat Plan

Here is the initial layout idea for my magazine cover page. Nonetheless, this is just a layout thus I might make some changes to the real magazine cover.

PRELIM TASK- Shot List

Here is a list of shots/angles the model on my magazine could portray. My shot list includes a range of camera angles and shots as well as mise-en-scene. I kept my target audience in mind whilst coming up with these shots/angles.

PRELIM TASK- Initial Ideas

Hey! My name is Alizeh and I am an AS Media student. Recently I have been assigned a preliminary task where I have to make a music magazine cover within two weeks.

Here are my initial magazine cover ideas:

Plan

• I am planning on doing a fusion of R&B with soul music as I believe it is a very rare mixture in today's music industry.
• My target audience is designed for teenagers and young adults. Nevertheless, I am aiming to keep my magazine cover simple and natural which might attract middle and late adults as well.
• I have chosen teenagers as my target audience because I am also a teenager hence, it is easier for me to relate to them.
• I have shortlisted quite a few masthead ideas for my magazine but I am not fully sure which one to finalise yet.

The shortlist of my magazine masthead ideas is as following:

1. Soul Rhythmz- the use of word 'soul' gives this title a unique effect. This
2. Blue Tunes- it is basic and simple. It also links with music (tunes). Because of its simplicity, it stands out and may attract my target audience.
3. Fire Soul Beats- this name represents R&B perfectly as it sounds pretty clear. It can be shortened to FSB to be used for shorter reference.

Layout

• For my feature colours, I am planning to use colours which may enhance the beauty of my model's face features. My plan for the model's clothes is something which is in black colour and does not have any designs on it. The reason why I want to keep it plain black is because I want my audience to focus on the model's face features rather than what outfit she is wearing.
• For the photograph, I plan to take a close-up shot of my model, however this might change in future as I have few other ideas in my mind too.
• As I mentioned earlier as well, I am intending to keep my magazine cover simple therefore I might not add a lot of text on it which can lead to subverted conventions.

Overall, I believe I am quite confident in doing this Prelim Task. Initially, I was slightly scared about how things would turn out because I was not sure about anything, whether it was to do with my masthead or the style of music magazine. However, after talking to last year's students and carrying out some research myself, I now believe I can bring my imaginary magazine cover to life.

PRELIM TASK- Magazine Deconstruction

I have annotated the key features of a music magazine front cover. I personally find this cover very intriguing because of its simplicity and the way its features have been organised.

Journalism

5Ws of Journalism

1. Who is the story about?
2. What is the story about?
3. Where did the story happen?
4. When did the story take place?
5. Why did it happen?

Structure of a News Story

The 5 Ws

Further Details

Quotes

Background

Opinion

Future

Newspaper Front Cover Conventions

1. Masthead- Title of the newspaper 
2. Caption- Brief text underneath an image describing the photograph or graphic
3. Headline- A phrase that summarises the main point of the article
4. Main Image- Dominant picture 
5. Stand First- Block of text that introduces the story
6. Byline- Where the name of the reporter is included
7. Standalone- Picture story that can exist on its own 
8. Splash- The main story
9. Cross-head- Subheadings
10. Plug- Displays promotions, special offers or price of newspapers

Newspaper Front Cover Functions

• attract readers
• reinforce the newspaper's identity through easily recognisable style
• demonstrate the attitude of newspaper clearly

Analytical Toolkit

• Technical Codes- layout, design, positioning, house style, font, cropping
• Visual Codes- images, mise-en-scene, costume, masthead, colours
• Genre- what type of newspaper it is, narrative, mode of address, headlines
• House Style- a company's preferred manner of presenation and layout of written material.

Mode of Address

The way a media product communicates with an audience.

1. Direct
2. Indirect
3. Fomal- presentable
4. Informal- contains a little bit of slang
5. Colloquia- slangs
6. Inclusive- applies to everyone
7. Exclusive- applies to certain groups

Tabloids Vs Broadsheets- Language/ Techniques

Tabloid

• Informal
• Use of puns
• Alliteration
• Exaggeration
• Slangs
• Colloquial language
• Short and snappy
• Heightened language
• Brand names
• Sexual overtones
• Focus upon appearance

Broadsheets

• Formal
• Metaphors
• Complexed sentences
• Quotes
• Rhetorical questions
• Statistics
• Descriptions of people tends to relate to personality or position in society

Tabloids Vs Broadsheets

Newspaper is a publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It may be general or special, most often published daily or weekly.

There are two types of Newspapers;

• Tabloids- targets lower-class and less educated people, e.g. The Sun, Daily Mirror, Metro, Evening Standard.                                                
• Broadsheets- targets high class and more educated people, e.g. The Times, Guardian, The Economist, The Daily Telegraph.

Camera Shots & Positions

In our last lesson with Mrs Collins we learnt about different camera shots and position which allow the director(s) to express their views about the topic.

We also learnt how close-ups are good for detail and features.

Colours Connotation

Different colours in Media text carry connotations which audience may associate certain ideas with.

Blue- water, angel, sky, peace, health (NHS)
Red- love, devil. happiness, passion, danger, important
Black- antagonist, death, professional, power
Green- nature, life, universe
Yellow- sun, happy, optimism, hazards, warning
Orange- food, warm, spices, Autumn
Pink- Disney, Barbie, feminine
Purple- flowers, royalty, luxurious
White- peace, purity, innocence, cleanliness
Brown- comfort, colour to promote security
Grey- neautral

Features of a Magazine

Magazine features include;

• photograph
• masthead (title)
• cover-lines
• anchor
• puff
• angle of gaze
• barcode
• teaser
• graphic

In lesson, we were told to choose a magazine cover of our choice and annotate its features:

Introduction to Media Studies

Introduction to Media Studies

9 Media Forms

Film

Radio

Music

Television

Newspapers

Magazines

Online

Video Games

Marketing

The Media Theoretical Framework

The Media Theoretical Framework

It can be defined as a structure which supports the theory of Media Studies.

Media Theoretical Framework is divided into five main sections; contexts, language, representations, audience and industries.

Media Contexts

• Media Contexts focus on the depth of a media form's social, cultural, historical and political background.
• It allows the audience to understand how it reflects the society, arts and culture of a specific time period, historical events and the political viewpoints.

Media Language

• This represents the choices a director or producer makes and how they make meaning to reach their audience.
• Examples of Media Language include; setting, location, character, weather, lighting etc.

Media Representations

• The easiest way to describe this section of the Media Framework is "Stereotypes". Now a days, media usually focuses on particular groups in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, social status, sexuality or ability/disability.

Media Audience

• This focuses on how media forms target and address their audiences, and how audience interpret as well as respond to them.
• Furthermore, it also shows how members of audiences become producers themselves- Prosumers e.g. YouTubers.

Media Industries

• This allows us to learn how the media industries' processes of production, distribution an circulation affect media forms and platforms.
• For example, how the director(s) and producer(s) of a film plan the promotions of their film upon its release.