Risk Assessment and venue relsease forms

Risk Assessment form

People at risk form

Contributors release form

Contributors release form

Analysis of 2 double page spreads

Here I will analyse 2 double page spreads, in which one will be of my chosen genre.

These two images are of a double page spread of Rihanna in Q magazine, my chosen genre

These two images are of a double page spread of Arctic monkeys in NME

Analysis of 2 content's pages

Here I will be analysing 2 content's pages, which one will be of my chosen genre.



Vibe magazine content's page, my chosen genre



Kerrang's contents page











College contents page mock up

This is my mock up of the contents page for my college magazine. I have involved the house style colour scheme of blue and white font so it coincides with the logo. Features I involved was headers,a school motto, images and captions, head teach comment and a features column. 

Questionnaire results

For my questionnaire, I got 22 responses.

These results are from people who answered yes.

These answers are from people who answered no.

These are the number of daily responses

Analysis of 2 music magazine covers

I will be analysing 2 genre music magazine covers, of which one will be my chosen genre.
Click images to enlarge

Analysis of VIBe magazine, closely associated with R&B

Analysis of NME magazine, closely associated with punk rock.

Charter of values

This is the Deyes High School charter of values, it involves a set of characteristics and traits that Deyes wish for every student to obtain. These include; Commitment, kindness, a forgiving attitude, value & respect all people, trust, to be responsible for your own actions, enthusiasm, honesty, co-operation, respect all peoples property and fairness. 

This comes along with a motto of 'Our values develop good citizens', this links in with ideology of how it is a system of values, beliefs and aspirations that are aimed at a specific group.

This charter of values is important because it reflects on how other people see them as a whole school, it leads students to be a better person. 

Genre choice

The choice of my genre is contemporary r&b, artists like Beyonce, Rihanna, Usher and many more alike are seen to be under this category. In the 2000's, the influence of r&b and hip hop together started to get recognition and became more popular. R&B was based on rhythm and hip hop relied on more hardcore and soulful urban, in which both genres lacked these qualities of the opposition and together created a new sound. The rhythmic aspect descended from new jack swing which was popular from late 1980's to mid 1990's, new jack swing is a fusion genre which includes dance-pop, house, funk, R&B, swing, hip hop, motown and soul. 

Like contemporary R&B, new jack swing developed by integrating new and old styles. The main reason for genres to be involved in other categories to produce a new genre is because when a genre appears to be separate, then artists are often left out if they are influenced by two or more genres. 

For example, Rihanna has a fusion of r&b, reggae, pop, dance and urban pop.

Ne-yo has a fusion of r&b, pop, dance, soul and hip hop.
Each artist can make their own statement through what fusions they reflect in their music, making everyone individual and unique.

Examples of fusions 

Hip-hop soul= hip hop + soul (artist example, Ne-Yo)

Crunk= rap + electro (artist example, T-pain)

Alternative metal= alternative rock + heavy metal (artist example, Slipknot)

Jay-Z and Beyonce 

Beyonce is a great example for contemporary R&B. She is the third most honoured woman and is the most nominated in Grammy history, with 16 awards and 42 nominations. Overall she has received 214 nominations and won 123 worldwide. 

Her latest album 'I am... Sasha Fierce' sold six million copies worldwide and over 15 million digitally worldwide. In the 52nd Grammy awards (2010), the album received 8 nominations and won 5 including 'Best contemporary R&B album'; Beyonce has won best contemporary R&B album in 2004 and 2007 as well. Her influences for 'I am... Sasha Fierce' were husband Jay-Z and Etta James.

Ideology

Ideology is a system of value, beliefs or ideas that reflects on social needs and aspirations which is common to a specific group of people. Each magazine has an image they want the audience that read it to portray, for example 'The Elle reader is spirited, stylish and intelligent; she expects to be successful at everything she does. She takes the lead and breaks the rules.'
The ideology for Kerrang magazine is for their audience to 'Break the mould' and are seen as unique individuals. Sometimes this can influence the audience to be proud of a certain ideology or play off it like a Kerrang reader 'breaks the mould' then this can reflect on a person being rebellious and defiant and the audience wanting to strive to be like this. Ideology can change society or adherence to ideas of conformity. 

College magazine front cover

This is my mock up of the Deyes High School magazine, I stuck with the schools colour scheme of blue, red and white to make it have a recognisable house style which is what the original lacked. For example the background and text boxes are blue and the puff is red which relate to the school's logo. I combined more magazine features within the cover like puffs, motto's, tag lines etc. to make it seem interesting and have an entertaining concept.

 Changes I made in the magazine compared to the mock up was that I decided to not have a features section as it looked cluttered with information and I thought less would make it look sleek and modern. The headline, tag line and captions, in my opinion are self explanatory in telling the features of the magazine to entice the reader. The second alteration was a minor layout feature in which I had the headline and tag line to be in the same auto shape so the cover looked more composed than detached. 

I made sure that my images were all equal size and aligned together to relate to the headline and tag line as it says 'new improvements!', the audience may wonder what improvements and need the images to attract them to read on further. I used the 'rule of thirds' when taking my images as the eye is naturally drawn 2/3's up a photo and therefore I tried to make sure that my composition was balanced to be appealing. I also had to make sure the images were medium shots (waist up).

Unlike the two school magazines that I analysed, this cover's texts are the same font (Georgia), in which I think it gives a professional sense to it than being separate. I made important text features in bold to stand out like the masthead, headline, and motto whilst captions and the tag line weren't as they were just extra information that the reader may or may not need to persuade them to read. The headline I used was 'New year, New improvements!' in which I repeated the word 'new' to make it seem exciting to make the reader seem excited and the motto was 'care-courtesy-common sense' which uses the rule of three in to which is sticks in the audience's minds.

Mood board

Click on the image to enlarge

This is my mood board for my music magazine, I have included artists such as Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Rihanna and more who are seen to be included in the genre of contemporary R&B, which is a fusion of different genres put together, this includes R&B, pop, hip hop, soul and funk. Such genre doesn't have a magazine to represent them, in which I think would be popular if there was to be as it in the chart. Not all the images are to do with music artists, but mise-en-scene for my photo shoot like costumes, props, set designs and more. This mood board of artists and mise-en-scene gives a sense to be stylish and fun, in which I hope to attempt on my magazine cover.

College magazine mock up

Here is my college magazine mock up I created on Microsoft publisher, I attempted to add as many magazine features as I could so it would appeal to my audience. The magazine includes puffs, motto's, captions, images, tag lines, headlines, a masthead, date line, pugs and features. I tried to put as much in because the Deyes High School newsletter was bland and uninteresting. For my images I will be using photos as I wanted the newsletter to reflect on being modern so it appeals to everyone, which is what I think Deyes High's lacked in with the line drawing as it looked traditional. I have attempted to put enough information to entice the reader, but not too much to make it appear cluttered that the audience might think its too much in detail. If it did have too much detail, then it may not appeal to students and my target audience is intended for both parents and students.

Magazine terminology

Buzz Words: "Wow", "Exclusive", "Free" are all examples of this.
Puffs: Colourful boxes promoting features inside. 
House Style: A magazine's distinctive design that distinguishes it from its competitors.
Strap Line: A slogan
Banner: Text which stands out on a coloured background generally at the bottom of the magazine.
Copy: The Main Story in the Magazine.
Anchorage Text: The way in which text helps to pin down the meaning of a picture and vice versa.
Pugs: Placed at the top left and right corners of the paper and are known as the 'ears' of the page. The price of the paper, the logo or a promotion are often positioned there.
Motto: Memorable phrase that is recognisable to a brand
Headline: Catchy Title for the main article
Sell Lines: Text on the front cover that helps to sell the magazine to the audience.
Caption: Description of the main image
Masthead: Name of the magazine
Lead: The introductory paragraph of an article. Usually written in bold or capitals.
Drop Capitals: Really big letter that starts off an article.
Bleed: The extension of an illustration beyond the type area to the edge of the page.

Break of the Book: The allocation of space for articles, features, and all material printed in the book.

Folio: The page number, date, and name of the periodical on each page or spread.

Newsletter analysis

Deyes High School newsletter

In our media lesson we had to annotate two different newsletters from Deyes High School and St Ambrose Barlow, using media terminology and weighing up the pros and cons.
The image of the Deyes High School newsletter is plain and bland, this is due to the lack of colour. The house style of the newsletter is black and white with a pencil line drawing of the school, the image is out dated and looks different as it is today, this gives an impression that the school isn't modern. The pencil drawing makes the newsletter look formal and traditional, reflecting on discipline of the school. The masthead is a serif font which reflects on being formal, but an unorganised feature of the newsletter is that it has three different fonts, for the masthead of 'DEYES HIGH SCHOOL' then for the 'Specialist Science College' and then in comic sans for 'NEWSLETTER 2 DECEMBER 2010', it makes the newsletter seem 'tacky' and thrown together. The newsletter looks like its trying to be traditional and modern with the mix of fonts, but overall it just looks incompetent. The anchorage of the newsletter is good as it has a logo for the specialist science text, this makes it seem like a puff as it is an academic advantage to the school. The logo of the specialist science college doesn't match with the style the school is trying to give off, as the science logo is a cartoon which looks like its from clipart and doesn't look professional. I think if the style matched with each other then the newsletter would look consistent instead of separate. I think the newsletter should have more magazine features such as puffs, mottos, such as the code of conduct, and colour to make the audience want to read it and to make it appeal to sudents. The colour of the newsletter could be the schools primary colours of blue, white and red, this way it gives the newsletter a memorable, recogniseable style.




St Ambrose Barlow newsletter


This is an image of St Ambrose Barlow's newsletter, as you can see there is a significant difference in how the layout is represented and it has more magazine cover features than Deyes High's newsletter. The images are photos and are in colour which gives it a realistic, modern approach to the school, the fact that they are in colour will appeal more to students. Assuming that the primary colours of St Ambrose Barlow is red with the logo in the corner, it gives me the impression that this is the house style. The masthead is eye-catching with the red and black clashing against each other, this arrangement makes the newsletter recognisable. Like the Deyes newsletter, the font of the text is inconsistent, the fonts are different in the motto, article and pug, in which I think it is an attempt of being modern and professional to appeal to young and older audiences. The motto 'Developing potential in a Christian Community' gives the newsletter a statement, hopefully something that becomes embedded in the audiences minds. The copy of 'Joanna's Garden' is clear of its purpose with the headline, since the article is about a student, comic sans reflects on a young audience being sans-serif. Another point about the copy is that the lead is expected to be in bold to introduce the article, but instead all of it is and this seems tedious to read as the lead is supposed to stand out to set the scene. A similarity between the two newsletters is that they both have 'A specialist science college' which acts as a puff,  along with the 'Summer Edition' which could be classified as a sell line.
I think there is room for improvement in this newsletter, I think all the text should be the same font and the lead of the article should be in bold to pull the audience in. The house style of the newsletter is better though as it has a consistent theme throughout of red and black which makes it unique and distinguished.

Cohen's Moral Panic

A moral panic is the feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order and conventions. Deviant groups were named by Stanley Cohen in 1971 as folk devils (them v.s us), moral panics in the media are divided into three sections; occurrence and signification, wilder social implications and social control.
Occurrence and signification is an event which randomly occurs and the media thinks its worthy to publish, the event is signified as worrying to people, which is how it gets its attention.
Wilder social implications are connections made between events which start as an occurrence and extend to a bigger story, the audience start to focus on the subject, for example 'knife crime is on the up'.

Taylor Momsen, age 7, in The Grinch

Social control is when a moral panic has a resolution, this normally involves in changing the law, this therefore satisfies the audience who feel empowered by the media.
Features of a moral panic are:
Concern- When a certain group or subject causes negativity on society.
Consensus- Acceptance that the group in question of moral panic will pose a threat to society.
Disproportionality- Inconsistent action by the accused group to the moral panic.
Hostility- Division in society, between the accused group (folk devils) and the rest of the population.
Volatility- When a moral panic is unpredictable and disappears due to a decline in the media.

Taylor Momsen now age 17

Taylor Momsen is seen as a social threat to mothers who think Momsen is a negative example for children and teenagers. She stars in the younger audience's programmes and films, such as The Grinch and Gossip girl. Yet only at age 17, Momsen smokes, dresses provocatively and admitted in an interview that she carries a knife around with her. The link for the interview is here. The feature for moral panic in this case in my opinion is consensus as Momsen does state in the interview, "I didn't get into this to be a role model for seven-year-olds. I have no interest in doing that.". Therefore the population has to accept this and face the consequences if young females choose to follow her. Even though she can smoke and dress the way she wants to, it is only natural for young females to want to aspire to be like her, in which she doesn't wish for. 

Feminism

Pixie Lott in FHM's music issue

Laura Mulvey created the theory called the male gaze in 1975. The gaze is how an audience views the people presented on a magazine. For feminists it can be looked at in three different ways; how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women see other women. Mulvey thought that women played a passive part and men played an active part in any advertisement, women were seen as objects, Mulvey distinguishes between two modes of looking for the film spectator: voyeuristic and fetishistic. 
Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze and Mulvey argues that this has has associations with sadism: ‘pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt', turning someone into an object to make them beautiful. 
Fetishistic looking, in contrast, involves the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. Women are often treated as an object, an example of this was Marilyn Monroe who was celebrated for her looks but got pressured by the media to becoming the perfect icon.

Nicole Scherzinger in Blender

In 2010, Lady Gaga's Q magazine photo shoot was deemed too racy and was banned in the US and in 2009 Lily Allens Q photo shoot was also seen as too provocative. When NME saw this they thought to challenge the attention and chose feminist and music artist Beth Ditto to model, this went against the social conventions and people were shocked and this was the reaction wanted. 

'Men don't know what it feels like to be a woman and be expected to look a particular way,' the Gossip star tells NME.
 Unlike these pictures of Nicole Schersinger and Pixie Lott which are expected nowadays from 'skinny' role models, Ditto's photo shoot was a statement, an objectification masquerading as empowerment. Ditto carries on by saying "I popped into my local Co-Op this morning to buy a loaf and I couldn't help notice that all the copies of this week's NME were turned backwards. I asked the manager if this was a matter of policy and he confirmed it was. "There's been a dozen complaints already," he said. 

Beth Ditto in NME in 2009 and in LOVE in 2010

Semiotic theory

Semiotic theory was invented by Ferdinand De Saussre, Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of: a 'signifier' - the form which the sign takes; and the 'signified' - the concept it represents. It is how a person responds when seeing a certain imag, colour, pattern or even hearing a sound. Saussure quotes "The connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary." 

Semiotics are usually divided into three catergories:

Semantics- The relation between signs and things to which they refer their meaning.

Syntactics- The relation among signs in formal structures.

Pragmatics- Relation between signs and the effects they have on people who use them.

The process is:

Sign > Signifier > Signified

For example:

The rain > Melancholic music > Depressing

For my music magazine I will be using semiotics, probably not refering to pragmatics as I want the signs and effects of my magazine to be positive. Using images, colour of background, text to be appealing to my intended audience. My magazine will be R&B based as there isn't a magazine aimed at this particular genre, I think more people would buy music magazines if there was a range in genres, the colour scheme will be bold, I am undecided of what colours I will be using on my magazine as it will probably change as the magazine processes.