Year 9 Media Studies

For your GCSE coursework next year you will be given a brief to create a magazine targeted at a specific target audience. This is worth 30% of your GCSE grade and so you need to be ready to showcase your layout, photography and journalistic skills. This task will give you the opportunity to practise these essential Media Studies skills. This term, you have been learning about how You Tubers make a profit from their audiences and analysing their appeal to target audiences.  You are going to use this knowledge to create a magazine article about your own original You Tube star. The article needs to be an interview or feature about your imaginary star which would be read by their subscribers. Magazines are aware of the appeal to You Tube and they would include these kinds of features for their readers. It would be a selling point of their magazine. Task: Create a magazine feature article about a fictional YouTuber. Your article will be for a double page spread in a magazine t...

Research the following: Research the genre-conventions of the magazines within your chosen genre Examples of existing titles within the genre Analyse a cover, contents page and double page spread from an existing title within your genre Colour palettes-five examples of colour palettes you may use. Add examples from your genre. Fonts-five examples of the type of font you may use. Add examples from your genre. Moodboard-create two for the ideas that have inspired you. Audience research ( UK Tribes )-which tribe would buy your magazine? They are the tribe/ target audience you are aiming your magazine at. Use  SurveyMonkey  to create a Questionnaire aimed at your audience. Ask at least 5 people to answer it. Create audience profiles for a male and a female audience member. Analyse the media institution that will publish your magazine.

You need to answer the following questions in as much detail as possible. This is a very important part of this project . Add examples from your work. How effective was your research into similar magazines and relevant target audiences? What did you learn from your research into these two areas? In what ways did this shape the creation of your magazine? What creative decisions did you have to make at the different stages of your magazine production? How did your magazine change as your work progressed? How closely does your magazine follow the forms and conventions of existing magazines? Gives examples of real magazines you reference. How successful is your finished magazine? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Draw flat plans of your magazine cover.  Take photos of your flat plans and add to your research and planning. Begin to compose your front page. Try a variety of images and save each version of the cover as a jpeg.  By the end of the week you should have: drawn a flat plan of your cover added an image of it to your research and planning drawn a flat plan of your contents page added an image of it to your research and planning made a draft cover using Photoshop

Masthead – The name and logo of the magazine. The Lead – the introductory paragraph of an article. Usually written in bold or capitals. Body copy - refers to the text of your written articles, which should be produced as a printed presentation to accepted industry standards, e.g. correct use of language, font size, word limits etc. Usually written in columns. Serif font – fonts like Times New Roman, or Baskerville Old Face, which have little bars (serifs) on the end of the letters. Sans serif font – fonts like Impact, or Agency FB, which do not have little bars (serifs) on the end of the letters. Drop Capitals – Really big letter, which start off an article. Cross Head – Small sub-heading used to split up a large block of text. White Space – white parts of a page other than text or pictures. Mode Of Address – How the magazine talks to the audience. Sell Lines – Text on the cover that helps to sell the magazine to the audience. Kerrang!’s sell line is “life is loud”. Ba...

Analyse a cover, contents page and double page spread from an existing title within your chosen genre.  Use the examples below to help with your cover analysis.  This will help with the contents page.  This will help with the double page spread.