Task 3: Magazines & Audiences

Part 1: Glossary

• Target Audience - the people the magazine is aimed to attract
•  Niche- specific audience, smaller than target audience
• Code- Things we read e.g. red = blood
• Convention - what we expect
• Masthead - the main title 
• Plug/puff- adverts and design 
• Coverline - text on font page
• San Serif/ serif font - bold/ modern & older/ handwriting
• Genre - type of style e.g. horror, comedy 
• Representation - the media represents different groups of people 
• Ideologies - powerful ideas 
• Pull quotes - quote pulled from an interview
• Anchor - a caption that fixes the meaning of an image
• Left third - magazines put more captions on the left hand side
• Archetype- a character that is instantly recognisable to the audience 

Part 2: 500 word analysis on a magazine front cover. 
                                                                                                
This is LOOK magazine, it is a weekly magazine for £1.80 with a target audience of 16-30 year olds, it is a fashion magazine with celebrity and news stories. This is the September issue and was a huge fashion collectors edition but this does not show in the colour theme or with the amount on the front page. 'LOOK' have gone for a pink colour scheme that week but the this changes every week, they have used it on the masthead, main cover line and spine. Pink is associated most with girls so more of the target audience will be attracted to it, it is also bright and bold so you notice it straight away. The masthead is in a San serif font but the cover line is in Serif font to make the main feature seem more feminine. The photograph that they have used is of Cara Delevingne who is the super model right now. They haven't dressed her up provocatively or added any props to distract from her only a gorgeous dress and ring, this gives a strong modern image that no woman could fault. Surrounding the picture are a few plugs and puffs such as 'the £30 skirt storming the shows' and 'YAY its London fashion week' they are advertising products and using eye-catching designs. Also there is a pull quote from an interview with a beauty guru using a bold number. The left third tends to be busier but in LOOK they surround the entire magazine this makes me think that there is a lot in it and its worth the money. As well as using Cara to promote London's fashion week they have also linked a gossip article which attracts two types of viewers. This magazine is quite stereotypical from the front cover with the pink and white colour scheme, fashion references and dieting adverts; you would know if you bought it that they always have at least one news story as well. On the front they have three articles about dieting which, along with a model on the front cover, suggests that the perfect girl is this size zero exercising freak. I wouldn't normally mind this as I can ignore it but I know that younger girl's maybe 12/13 will start reading and think that this is acceptable and that worries me. Even though young girls can pick up this magazine I think it is more aimed at the older teens because younger ones have pictures of boy bands on with young clothes and music plastered on the front. This is sophisticated with a grey background and only one additional picture which is small enough to be overlooked. The cover line starts with 'Yes! It's your...' this makes the customer feel like the magazine is especially there's and no one else's and that 'LOOK' have done you a favour or listened to you by giving you this special new magazine. This magazine has all the conventions of a traditional female magazine but is maybe built for a slightly more upper class because of the simplicity or it.                                                                                                                                       

Task 2: Getting to know Blogger

Things you can do with blogger

• Blogger provides you with your own personal writing space in which you can express your yourself
• You can write what you like how often you like.
• Using blogger enhances your literacy and ICT skills. 
• You can write a diary/journal/newsletter
• You can use blogger as a website.
• Customise your design
• Publishing your voice is easy and free
• Simple-to-use interface
• Add photos and videos to your post
• Develop your community
• Feedback from your readers
• Languages of the world
• One simple ID
• Posting on the go

I went on to www.blogger.com/features to find out some more.
They say "We created Blogger to give you an easy way to share your thoughts — about current events, what's going on in your life, or anything else you'd care to discuss — with the world. We've developed a host of features to make blogging as simple and effective as possible."
They also have a New feature called Earn money with blogger where you can earn money just by posting high-quality original content on your favourite topics. And it has dedicated Monetise tab that allows you to easily place AdSense ads on your blog.

How I think blogger will be useful in my coursework

I think that blogger will be useful for my coursework because it's like one big online folder; you can keep all of your work in one place. You can update it whenever you want and it will always look professional and neat plus you are not forever printing stuff out and loosing sheets. All you have to do is log in and its all there on your blog, another bonus with this is that you can edit it from wherever you are in the world whereas before you would need to print it out, save on a memory stick or email it to yourself. Also this means that your work can be viewed by the whole world. In terms of coursework we can do tasks at college and at home, our teachers can check up on us whenever they want to see if we are doing it right and it teaches us about another part of the media by us actually using it.

Extra

You can embed a video in to blogger by going up to the little film sign next to the picture sign and clicking on it. It will give you options to upload, get from YouTube, your phone or your webcam then just click select. It is that easy.
You can also embed PowerPoint's into your blog http://www.wikihow.com/Add-a-PowerPoint-to-Blogger

Task1 Skills Audit

For our first task we had to test our computer skills with a skills audit, most of mine were ticks as I have had a lot of experience with macs in another class. I had one tick in the middle because I have uploaded photos to a mac but forget every time, I have used a scanner once before in school but not since so I will need to practice using them. I have never burnt data on to a disk but will google it to find out how. As well as this I will search for a short youtube tutorial about InDesign.

This is my skills audit. I took a photo of it on my phone and emailed it to myself.