My overview of the preliminary task

Hello my name is Bethany Ellis and this is my first AS media blog post. 

The  blog posts that I will post on this blog will be the work that I will have to do for my as media for year 12.  

Over the past few lessons in media I have been analysing three school magazines, I have been doing this because I will be producing my own school magazine. Analysing the three school magazines has helped me and has gave me some good ideas for when I start to produce my own one. Also after I have made my school magazine I will then have to produce a music magazine which will be part of my AS media coursework which will be graded.

Research into existing media

My first task that I had to do was to analyse three school magazines which I prodcuded on microsoft powerpoint. I found this task fairly easy but it was quite hard to find three school magazines that I wanted to anaylse because there are not many professional school magazines because they have all been produced by media studies. Also there are not many school magazines because less people are starting to read them and they are becoming less popular. This is because there are other easier ways to inform people on infomation, for example infomation about an upcoming school trip would now be sent through an email or a letter to parents instead of it being included in a school magazine. There is also less school magazines being produced because of the pricing, they can be expensive when producing and can also take up a lot of time. When analysing the three school magazines I learnt about the different magazine conventions such as the masthead, cover line, sky line, cover images, main images, slogan, strap lines and more. The masthead is usually placed at the top in the left corner this is because its where people would look first, they would need to see this first because they would want to know what the magazine title is called. The masthead is also normally large and bold so it would stand out. Another convention of a magazine is the main image this is important because it could show what the magazine is about. For example if a magazine had an image of child dressed in a school uniform you would know that it is a school magazine. Vouge magazine would have one main image of probably a celebrity for example Katy Perry, her image would be spread across the whole front cover this is effective because it shows that there would proabably be a 2-3 page spread of Katy Perry inside of the magazine with other pictures and an article about her. The cover lines are normally spread across the magazine front cover, they tell the reader infomation about what is included in the magazine which would make the reader want to buy the magazine. Pull out quotes are also used on the front of the magazine, they are normally quotes by what people have said like celebrities, they are important becuase it could shock or advise the reader and also it would want them to read the magazine to find out more. A selling line could also be used, this is normally in small text and is placed underneath the masthead because the masthead is what is seen first so then the selling line would also be seen shorlty after. The selling line could include a website because the main prioirty is to sell the magazine. The colour of the selling line could change according to the theme of the magazine or even the season, for example if the magazine was released in July the colour would be a yellow or any bright colour. The strapline is normally placed above the masthead in smaller writing, the strapline normally has text that stands out so it would be in bold capital letters, they normally include words such as 'EXCLUSIVE', and also the language that is used tries to convince the reader to buy the magazine and to find out more on the story.
Analysing the three school magazines has helped me for when I create and produce my own school magazine and music magazine. I understand what all of the conventions are used for so I would be able to use them in my magazine.  

Below are the three school magazines that I edited in my media studies lessons.