Media Studies

5177 Creative Critical Reflection

How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware, and online- in this project? To take photos, I used my Iphone XS which has a dual camera with 12 megapixels each. To edit these photos, I used Photoshop to enhance the colors to make them pop on the pages and I cropped them as well to fit well in the magazine. To write my article, I used Microsoft Word and then used Microsoft Publisher to construct and create my magazine.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project? My camera skills developed throughout this project. I learned how to create new shots such as over-the-shoulder shots and taking pictures at night. For some pictures I used my phone, but I also learned how to use a camera my mom lent me. My social skills also developed greatly in that I learned how to coordinate interviews with local workers as well as create meetings with my partner to make sure our magazine issues were similar in design. I also learned how to use Microsoft Publisher to edit and create my magazine. Before this project, I had never used this program before and now I can for future purposes. Overall, I developed many skills throughout this project.

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?           To market our magazine, we decided to take ideas from other well-known magazines and implement them into our plan. We will have a range of active social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to interact with the younger populations as well as give sneak peeks into new issues like National Geographic does. This is one reason why they are still relevant after over 100 years of being in business. We also took ideas from the Smithsonian magazine to create a website and have a subscription button to subscribe and another to sign up for emails on new topics, special offers, and looks on the new issue as well. As soon as the website loads, we took the idea from Scientific American in that the subscription button would pop up right away at the reader for quick and easy access as well as to show persistence on subscribing. They also sponsor an...

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?           On the title page, some conventional methods I used were the large, stand-out title on the top of the page to grasp the audience's view, a few of the featured articles listed on the side so the reader can see what the issue is mostly about, and an image that takes up the entire page from the most featured article. Another small convention I used and found on almost all magazines I researched was the small print on the cover showing what issue it was with the month and year.           On the table of contents page, I found that it is usually located around or on page 3, so this is where I put it. I then wrote my featured articles of the issue with short descriptions underneath each listed like the magazines I have researched before. I also added a few photos to describe the main articles even further for the reader.   ...