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

The genre for my magazine is rock music for the youth who are generally aged between 13 and 17. The magazine ‘Rebel’ is targeted at the youth who are trying to be individualists and stick out from the crowd and who want to feel different from everyone else.

The picture on the front cover of my magazine is a medium close up of the artist. She is looking directly at the camera and looks of a similar age to the reader of the magazine. I tried to make her look as similar in age to the reader as possible and maybe chose a person who did look slightly younger to be on the front page so that the reader can relate to the artist. The artist is traditionally good looking to appeal to the audience and want the audience to look more like her which represents the aspirational lifestyle which some of the audience will want. She also represents the slight radical’s lifestyle that some of the readers may have but in a soft way where she may have brightly coloured eye make up on but she is still not completely radical.

I think that my magazine fits the rock/indie music genre because it includes lots of bands of this similar genre and the magazine is mainly about the music which fits the typical stereotype. The thing that I did to make it less like a magazine such as NME and more tailored for the youth is that I included a quiz titled ‘What stereotype are you?’ this is to try and make it more fun for the younger readers of the magazine and they will often enjoy reading about how they are perceived by others as this is important to them. You would not find this in a magazine like NME because the audience will find it demeaning and are solely interested in the music not about little quizzes.
Another way in which I have used this is by including lots of artist’s names on the front cover which is my pull to get readers to buy the magazine. This is typical of the genre of music which I have based my magazine on.

However the genre which I have based my magazine on is always changing over time as the genre of rock has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. Whereas before rock would be bands such as Queen or Guns n Roses now this genre is wider than ever and has bands such as Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance are called rock bands even some soft rock/pop bands can now be labelled in the rock genre such as Metro Station. This genre is changing so dramatically due to it becoming more and more popular with youth and then the media such as radio or TV stations make the songs more publicised and therefore they become more ‘mainstream’ and popular with the youth.


The fonts which I use on the front page are large and bold so that they stick out to the reader they are a sans serif font so that it is bold.The title ‘Rebel’ is used to try and get the reader’s attention again by making them feel like by buying this magazine they will be rebellious against the norms of life. The brightly coloured blue background is to go with the theme of the bright electric bold colours shown on the front cover.

My magazine follows the traditional conventions of a typical magazine as I have put the title at the top of the page in large bold letters with the main image underneath and then writing to explain what is going to be included inside the magazine. I did this as I thought it was a good layout and would appeal to people as they could clearly understand where everything was.
My double page spread also follows the conventions of a typical magazine as it has an introduction explaining about the article, images down the side to co operate with this text, and quote marks picking out small chunks from the text which the reader may find interesting.
However although my magazine is mainly conventional with my approach to layouts of the magazine there are aspects of each which are unconventional. For example on my front cover the title is at the top in bold, in many magazines this title is placed behind the picture on the front cover so the image sticks out more than the title. Also in the double page spread interview I have not used columns to write all the information in so this is also unconventional. I did try to create a little difference in my work however by using colours such as reds and yellows on the front page and contents page but changed this to a more girlie colours of pinks and purples in the interview, these pink and purples go more with the stereotypical gender patterns.

Although I think that my magazine is for the mainstream audience of people ages between 13-17 I think that it challenges many of the real conventions for a magazine of this type. I have a young girl on the front which is not particularly rebellious despite the name of my magazine called 'Rebel'. With such a title I think that many people would expect me to have produced a magazine for the minority who are extremely different for example people who have lots of piercings and tattoos and wear different clothes etc. I did this because my magazine is for the youth who are starting to feel part of this radicals and aspirers psychographic at a young age. It is a magazine for them to start to understand this difference and show them a slight insight to what it would be about in this lifestlye. I still portray some innocence about it by making the girl on the front cover look more approachable with no tattoos or piercings and she is wearing a pink bow in her hair which also makes her look more innocent.