Media Studies Blog

My class reviewed my 3rd Quarter Submission and gave some solid feedback. For my cover, everyone seemed to like it, I received nothing but positive comments. There were suggestions on the TOC though, as my text was a little hard to see on the board. I plan on making it a tad bigger, and making the borders more defined. Throughout the article, I plan to change a few pictures, and define my page numbers more with some branding.

Q: How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project? A:     In this project, I integrated multiple technologies, such as many different platforms. For my original draft, I used Adobe InDesign. It was fairly hard to navigate, so when it was time to revise my magazine with help from my classmates constructive criticism, I switched over to Microsoft Publisher. This was much easier to use and navigate, since I am used to Microsoft software such as Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. I also used many sources to research target audiences, and distribution.

Q: How did your production skills develop throughout the project? A:     Throughout the project, I learned a lot of useful skills and tricks. I learned how magazines get distributed, and how they get created, now having first hand experience creating my own. I know how to manage my time as well, especially when trying to tackle a big task, such as maintaining  a steady blog of work, and producing a magazine to the best of my ability. Overall, I believe my production skills have increased and been sharpened very much throughout the creation of this project as a whole.

Q: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? A:     My product engages with audiences in a number of ways. It gives people what they want to hear, and the news they want to see from schools around the area. Children and adults that are playing or used to play, can check the news from their old school in their respective sport. Audiences can connect with a household friendly name. If I were to distribute my magazine, I would try to get them at grocery stores to have them distribute them. I would also have a subscription based service, so people in neighboring counties could check out the news as well.

Q: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? A:     The conventional sports magazine has the following: a big picture on the front cover, with a big title across the top, and the main article's title across the front. The TOC is usually the same, just with the articles listed next to page numbers. My product  does not challenge conventions, but puts them into the magazine as best as possible. I wanted to incorporate things that the best in the business use, so I could emulate them and slowly become a household name. My product also represents social groups such as anyone who does a sport, and people interested in high school sports around the area. It does not really target any issues unless there is an article about troubles such as coaches, players, etc. 

Overall since the midterm, I added page numbers, reorganized pictures, changed title fonts on multiple pages, and made my columns more defined.  

     Digital Distribution for different companies varies. Companies such as the New York Times charge 25 dollars a month for people to subscribe to their magazine. Sports Illustrated on the other hand charges $39 a year, which is roughly 1 dollar per issue. They can do this because they go through a different distributor, and they cover very different things. The New York Times covers everything going on in the world, when Sports Illustrated is focused on sports. Many magazines of different genres can charge different prices for their subscriptions. 

     As far as digital distribution goes for magazines in my genre, most have an online website where they post articles, and news for their audience. The website www.si.com is fairly easy to navigate, and easy to find any news you want to see. The website has information from high school sports, all the way up to professional. There is also a subscription service, similar to the New York Times and Huffington Post. 

The top picture is the old one, and the bottom is my new Article (Page 2). For the most part it is the same content, but I had to re-interview because I lost the writing I had from the original. I tried to keep it somewhat similar as much as I could and also changed the "Interview" font. I also defined my columns more. I took the pictures from the original first page and added them here. I also added a page number at the bottom to go along with the article page before. The main thing I changed is that on all original pages I used Adobe InDesign, but on the revisions I used Microsoft Publisher.

The top picture is the old one, and the bottom is my new Article (Page 1). For the most part it is the same content, but I added the picture of the school across the top, and changed the title font. I also added a page number to the bottom, and defined my columns more. I took the pictures from the original and moved them to the second page of my article.

The top picture is the old one, and the bottom is my new TOC. I kept the same background picture, but I changed the font and how close the page numbers are to the titles. The numbers were too big and the font size changed throughout on the original, so I evened it out on the revision.The text is also italicized to give a little more "flavor" to the page.

The top picture is the old one, and the bottom is my new cover. I kept the same background picture, but I changed the font, and style of it, as well as making my page numbers more defined and closer to the titles they go with. I also made the text bigger in some places, so it's easier to read for older audiences.