Media studies Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
Look at your front cover, contents and double page spread then compare them
to other magazines and evaluate the codes and conventions.
From my music magazine I can see that it meets some of the codes and
conventions of Hip Hop music magazines.
Firstly, my magazine clearly challenges Hip hop music stereotypes because I
have a female rapper as the main image on the front cover of my magazine. This
is not typical of hip hop magazines as the female is usually used as a sex object
for the male gaze. I have used a female because in todays societies there are
many famous female rappers such as Nicki Minaj that are very successful and
popular. Also my magazine clearly challenges the conventions of a music
magazine because my Masthead is at the bottom of the magazines front cover
and typically it is at the top. I have gone against the conventions for this because
I am portraying the rebellious nature of the music genre and standing out from
competing magazines so consumers purchase my magazine instead as it is
different.
However my magazine mainly supports the codes and conventions of a Hip hop
music magazine. To start I use dark and rebellious colours to connote the danger
and power around Hip hop artists which is important as it is what draws the
specific target audience to the magazine. Secondly, my magazine supports the
Hip hop genre conventions as all of my articles relate to the genre and I dont go
off topic which is important as the audience I am targeting would only be
interested in Hip hop genre based articles. Thirdly, my magazine meets the
codes and conventions of a hip hop magazine because I have used a mid-shot of
the artist and to show their power and dominance over the magazines front
cover. My double page spread meets the codes and conventions for Hip hop
music magazines as I have used one side for the image of the artist and the
other for the article which is typical of hip hop magazines. I also used a shot of
the artist holding a prop which was a microphone to suit the rap genre of music
and also fit the conventions of a hip hop magazine. In addition to this my double
page spreads article is a Q&A with the artist and this is typical when new
upcoming artists release music and start their journey to greatness this style has
also been used in other magazines such as VIBE . My contents page fits the
codes and conventions of the hip hop music magazine as I have used images
that relate to the appropriate pages this is just like in the famous hip hop
magazine known as XXL.