Evaluation and Reflection

My school magazine uses conventions used in other real media products by using a similar layout as many famous and iconic magazines. I have also done this by using distinct and essential parts of a magazine, like headline, tagline and footers for example.

One of the biggest challenges I have used is by including childish drawings and images on the front cover. In my target audience profile, I stated that my target audience is middle-aged parents of children and the school, who most people assume would not be fond of the use of childish drawings. You have to remember that it is a school magazine, which means that students of the school will also read the magazine and as well as appealing to the parents, it needs to appeal to the children. Also, childish drawings never hurt anyone, in the sense that parents may find these cartoons humorous.

One way my product represents particular social groups by using unconventional tactics in my magazine, like the use of cartoons or the humour used in the headlines/page descriptions. It is the stereotype that people within the A-B higher earning social grades have little sense of humour and care very much about their child's education and do not want to be given any sort of 'riff-raff.' As we saw whilst analysing the school magazines of existing schools, the front covers and contents pages of private and boarding schools were very plain and regimented. In contrast, parents in the C grades and stereotyped as being as having a much more 'laid-back' approach to parenting, and don't sensor their child's lives and make the world seem a lot easier and better than it is. This is why my magazine contains bright colours, pictures and drawings and humour. The parents of the students of the school aren't the most wealthy of people, which is why I believe my magazine would appeal to them.

I think the only institution able to distribute my product would be the school itself. Taking inspiration from what my school does with their termly magazine which is send out the magazine to the houses of the students, I think this is a act i would consider. Another option would to be to supply the local newsagents of the town with the magazine, so local parents or even students can go and pick up a copy from their local convenience store.

I attracted my audience by using headlines such as 'win tickets to alton towers.' In this currently struggling economic climate, money is scarce, so a free trip to alton towers would certainly have the parents of students picking up a copy for a chance to win.

During the construction of this product, I have learnt how to work and run a blog, a skill which might come in handy when I go to university or if I ever decide to just create a blog. I have also learnt how to convert a word document into a JPEG, which will also be very handy when creating documents in the future.

If I were to redo this project again, I would change my target audience. Although I still believe parents lack an understanding of what exactly goes on in their child's school, I think I should have made the target audience children at the school. My magazine as it is, with all the vibrant colours and cartoons and such, is already more suited for a minor audience.

Also, I would manage my time a lot better and make sure I got tasks finished in the weeks they were supposed to be. I found myself not being able to complete tasks on time and finding I was completing tasks that should have been finished up to 2 weeks ago. Next time, I would be determined to finish each weeks work/tasks in the week they were agreed to be finished.