AS Media Students 2012-13: October 2012

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Links to students' AS Media blogs - Music Magazines

http://emilytownsendsmusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk - Emily Townsend

http://emilyaugustmusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/ - Emily August
www.megansmusicmagazine.blogspot.com - Megan Lee

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Research music magazines: Media Packs

Remember, you should not be making sweeping generalisations about existing media and their target audiences based on personal hunches.

Publishers spend a great deal of time putting together media packs, which can be a useful starting point for finding out about magazines and their audiences - so make the most of them!

Here are some links to get you started - and then it's over to you to find out more information about your chosen magazines...

http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/kerrang

http://www.vibelifestylenetwork.com/VLN-Media-Kit-2012.pdf

http://www.ipcmedia.com/nme

http://www.ipcmedia.com/uncut

http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/Q

A case study of NME's advertising campaign for Dell

A case study of the relationship between Shockwaves and NME

A case study of the relationship between River Island and NME

Why not really impress the examiner and produce a Media Pack for your own music magazine and upload it on to your blog as part of your planning phase? Or if you really want to show off, you could film yourself pitching advertising space in your magazine to a key advertiser for a product that would appeal to your target audience...

Music magazines: Getting started

You should have already read this post from 14th September, to start you thinking about the music industry and the magazines are already on the market and the issues and challenges they face.

Using the magazines you brought in for homework, your next step is to analyse the contents of at least three different magazines and from this, begin to draw conclusions about genre, target audience and the mode of address that your chosen magazine adopts.

Click here for the powerpoint for Monday's lesson (22nd October 2012) and here for a blank content analysis grid

Click here for a useful list of UK Music magazines, recommended by The British Council

Click here for a guide to existing media (grouped by genre) that another AS Media student has published via Slideshare

New blog address for music magazines - Deadline this Thursday

- Click on the Blogger icon in the top left section of your blog to go to your dashboard.
- Click on 'New Blog'
- Call your new blog something like 'Name's AS Music Magazine Coursework' and choose an appropriate blog address
- Please email your new address to beaverwoodmedia@gmail.com
- Your first post should be entitled: 'Link to School Magazine Blog' and you should copy and paste a hyperlink to your school magazine blog (even if this blog is still in progress)

Monday, 15 October 2012

Rethinking Research

As promised, this post include lots of links to useful resources to help you with your research for your music magazine.

Here's the powerpoint from Monday's lesson, which outlines the key points we discussed:
Reflecting on research lesson - Monday 15th October

Audience research

What are focus groups and how to run them
Conducting a focus group
A guide to using focus groups for research
An example of a student's analysis of her focus group findings (it would be better to include a video link as well, though)

A few examples of mood boards - useful prompts for focus groups

http://catherinebaker-as.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/moodboard.html
http://brianair.wordpress.com/as-film-studies/moodboard/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTY8vueiYSM - a multimedia example!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajzeu8cgj-0&feature=related - a student talking about her mood board and how it will influence her new music magazine

Using your blog to gather information

Check out these very simple instructions which explain how to include a survey using blogger. The drawback is, you can only ask one question, so choose carefully! But remember you could update it at different points in your research. E.g. Which of these music magazines do you read? Then, later in your coursework, you could upload your magazine and ask your audience questions such as whether they think you have successfully followed the conventions of your chosen genre; would they buy the magazine; do they think it represents the star image in 'X' way, etc. etc.

Alternatively, if you'd like to be able to ask more questions, you can sign up for a free Survey Monkey account to create a whole survey online.

Research into existing media

Click here for the powerpoint for Monday's lesson (22nd October 2012) and here for a blank content analysis grid

Click here for a useful list of UK Music magazines, recommended by The British Council

Click here for a guide to existing media (grouped by genre) that another AS Media student has published via Slideshare

Media packs and target audiences of existing media

Thursday, 11 October 2012

Link to Photoshop tutorials

Need to crop, edit or manipulate your photographs?
Need to produce a CD digipak or a front cover of a magazine?
Then use Photoshop!

Click here for video tutorials on every aspect of Adobe Photoshop CS4. This program is installed on all PCs in S13.

Link to Indesign tutorials - for your page layouts

You should NOT be using MS Word or MS Publisher to lay out your magazines or newspapers!

Click for video tutorials on every aspect of Adobe Indesign CS4. This program is installed on all PCs in S13.