Q U E S T I O N N A I R E - A N S W E R S

I have received some feedback from the questionnaires that I gave out. These answers are put in the format of tallying. Feedback with various answers shows what each person put, and if someone has put the same as another pserson, I have  tallied it.

E.G. What font would you like to have in the magazine?

            Times New Roman, Calibri | |, Arial | | | |

This indicates that one person waned ‘Times New Roman’, 3 wanted ‘Calibri’ and 5 people wanted ‘Arial’.

The answers are as follows:

Questionnaire Answers:

1. Interesting subjects: |||| Tagline: |Colours/pictures: |||| People: |, free || availability, discount vouchers
2. No: |||||| Yes: |||||||
3. 50p: |||||| £1: ||| £2: | £3: |
4. Week: Month: |||||||||| Term: |||
5. Your Mag, SCHOOL, FSG Monthly, Term Times, AGRADE*, anything, girls together, state of the nation, WOW, school stream
6. Blue: ||| | |White: ||||| Black: ||| ||  Green: | Orange: ||Yellow,| | || Pink: | Red: ||
7. Century gothic|, Calibri, Arial |||||, big: |, times new roman, Tahoma, wingdings
8. 8, 10 |||, 20 | 30, 12, 6, 5, 16, 18
9. A5: |||||||| A4: ||||
10. Female: |||||| Male: |||| ||
11. Both: ||||||||| Girls: ||
12. Light: | ||| Formal:| | Mix||||||
13. Puzzles: || | School Advice: |||||||
14. Yes: ||||||| No: ||||
15. Music: ||||||Comic: ||||News: ||||||| Relations:| || | || School: |||||| Film: |||||
16. Age targeted|, celebs|, detentions|, boring|, rude things| |, personal things||, politics|, men|,
17. No: | Yes: |||||||||||
18. Students: |||| Mix: |||||Teacher:  |||
19. Yes: |||| No: ||||||||

Most common question answers for question:

1= People would be attracted by interesting subjects and pictures.

3= 50p

4= Issued Monthly

6= Black, White and Blue colour scheme

7= Arial font

8= 10 Pages long

9= Paper size A5

10= Either gender on front cover

11= Both genders as target audience

12= Mixture of light hearted and formal text

13= Contain School Advice

14= Yes, people would like a main article every week

15= The main topics should be school, News and Reviews

16= Personal/Rude things

17= Yes

18= Mix

19= No

S T U D E N T - R E A D E R - P R O F I L E

 Before giving out the questionnaire, I have to assign a desired audience for my school magazine. I would like the magazine to be informative and intillectual with advice and skills shared with readers. This is the reader profile that I have designed for my school magazine:

Reader Profile

Name:  ?

Age: Between 17 and 19. Maybe at a stretch 21 if they’re immature.

Gender: Female

Subject: Studying the more academic subjects in university, such as a science or English. Not maths.

Likes & Dislikes: She likes to be alone when she is studying, and believes that other people and university roommates can be a total distraction her important work, yet still likes to relax and watch at least a few hours of television or be on the internet for a while every day. The slightly quiet but friendly person you can go and talk to if you have no one else to got to. She’s that girl who sits outside Starbucks having a coffee with her laptop right in front of her nose on her lunch breaks. She likes to read and surf the internet on her trusty laptop. She dislikes people who are loud and inconsiderate, which can distract her from working in school or be rude to her. Even though she may seem a loner, a few days a week she would hang out with other people like her, who are relaxed, and like to chill with each other rather than rant about who slept with who last weekend. She also dislikes Chick-Flick movies, dogs and broccoli.

Local to Shepway: Living on campus of her small University or maybe with her parents at home on weekends with both younger and older brothers and sisters that she doesn’t spend much time with.

Music taste: No particular taste in music but prefers rock and likes bands such as ‘Paramour’ and ‘Bullet for my Valentine’. She will listen to anything except ‘Eminem’. For most people, this is a social advantage because the wide range of music that she listens to make similarities in taste between most people. For example, she could be friends with a rocker and someone that loved club music.

Clothing: She can be seen lounging around her room most of the time in a slightly baggy jumper or tee-shirt wearing jeans and slippers. In class and when going out on weekends, she would swap the jumper for a nicer, but not too flashy top and the slippers for casual trainers.

Attitude to learning : Enjoys school and learning, finding science (or English) fascinating. She is focussed in school and knows that her education is key for success in the future. However, sometimes workloads can be too big and she can just want to give up and relax on the sofa when she has a long essay due in the very next day.

Career choices: No real career in mind and is attending university and studying a basic subject to hide away from the working world, seeing as she’s a little too lazy to go get a job, and there are none around anyway.

Hangout: Her main hangout would be her room or her bedroom on the University campus.  When she goes out, which is usually in the day time on weekends, she will go to town, wither on her own if she has something to do or to hang out with her few girlfriends looking around shops.

Sandwidges or school dinners: Sandwidges, she knows what’s in them, and can always have seconds if she want them, seeing as she’d be making them herself.

Travel: When she’s not living at school, she likes to walk there and when she goes out to town she would walk there form her University or house. But if she has to go really far then she will take the bus, which she hates doing alone in case she is confronted by a strange old lady telling her that she looks like her grand daughter… again.

Weekend activities: Going into town to do some shopping for a new item of clothing to replace another broken one, or go out with her other friends and go to the cinema or a day out like visit the zoo. If there’s nothing else to do and no homework, she’ll watch TV all day.

Find and label the person that you are looking for to develop a profile for the person who is in your target audience. Label everything about them, interests, age, star sign etc…

I am now going to target a female audiencer who are students in their late teens are are thinking about going to a University or are possibly in their first year of studying there. These sort of girs will be who I shall hand out my questionnaire to.

S C H O O L - M A G A Z I N E - Q U E S T I O N N A I R E

From the codes and conventions that I have recognised, I've devised a questionnaire that I am going to give to students to answer about what they would like to see in a school magazine. The questionnaire is 19 questions long,with some open explanitary answers and some multiple choice questions to ensure I get precise answers and feedback from the students. Below is a copy of the questionnaire:

School Magazine Questionnaire

·         What would encourage you to buy a school magazine?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Would you read a school / college magazine for a small cost?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Roughly state what price would you be willing to pay.

o >50p    o  >£1    o >2    o >3

·         How often would you like the magazine to be published?

 o Once a fortnight    o Once a month    o Once a term

·         What would you like the magazine to be called?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         What colour scheme would you like the magazine to have? Please list two or three colours for the scheme.

_____________________________________________________________________

·         What sort of font would you like in the magazine? Describe or name one.

_____________________________________________________________________

·         How many pages would you like the magazine to be?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         How large would you like the magazine?

 oA4     oA5

·         What gender would you prefer to see on the front cover?

o Male     o Female?

·         Would you prefer to have a target audience of both genders or just one?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Would you prefer the sell lines to be light-hearted, formal or a mix?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         In what way would you like the magazine to help your studies/learning?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Would you like the magazine to have a main focus article every week?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Would genre articles would you like in the magazine? Choose three of the following:

o Real life    School updates and help    o Music/bands    o Serious journalism            o Book or film reviews    o Comics/Posters    o Relationships    o News discussion

·         What issues would you not like to see in the magazine?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Would you like an advertisements page in the magazine of opportunities and events in the local area?

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Who would you like to contribute to the magazine? E.g. younger students, staff etc.

_____________________________________________________________________

·         Would you like to contribute towards anything in the magazine?

_____________________________________________________________________

P R E L I M I N A R Y - T A S K

I have been signed a preliminary / practice task of producing a school magazine before I produce the final music magazine. I've been researching school magazines and mainly looking at their covers. Here I have listed the codes and conventions of a school magazine that I have devised from my research:

List of Conventions for a School/College Magazine

·         A modern, yet sophisticated title at the top of the page, like many professional magazine, but with the title of the school and term dates underneath it.

·         Good standard of photographs, not necessarily professional. Relevant picture on the front cover such as students studying or working in school. Usually showing that they are happy or successful to promote the school or the magazine.

·         Information about events in school for all years or the specific years that the school or college magazine has made its main target audience.

·         Well written, but still young and appealing written text with formal and respectful content.

·         Informative content, such as how to deal with pressures of school or organise yourself better to make school life easier.

·         House style and colour scheme relevant to the main colours of the school and continuing throughout the magazine.

·         Organised page layouts that are be clear and easy to manage.

·         The magazine would most likely contain lots of balance between colour images and text to grab the attention of the reader.

·         Text should be relevant and appeal to the students through specific language or humour.

·         College/School magazines are often written by the students themselves which could make it much more inviting for the other students to read.

·         Main article, usually school related, advertised on the front cover of the magazine.

S T A R T I N G - M Y - B L O G

 As you know this is the very first post that I've made in my blog. I began an AS course in Media Studies at my school in September and have now set up this blog. The purpose of this blog is to update regular on the progress that I am doing on my course and in my classes. Thus blog should be regularly updates, around twice a week (or maybe more if I'm making good progress). With five lessons a week spread out onto two days, every wednesday and friday, you can expect me to keep updated on those days as homework for my course.

 The task that I am currently working on is the first peice of coursework that I have been set for my AS course, which is to research and design a music magazine for an audience and genre of my choice. I've already started to research the codes and conventions of a school magazine as a practice, including making a questionnaire and a practice front cover for my mock magazine called 'Ed', as in 'Educational Magazine',

 I still have to work out what my music magazine is going to be called, what the main (double page spread) article will be, what will be on the contents page and what kind of magazine it will be, e.g. what music genre and what target audience I'm aiming for. I have a rough idea that I want to make a music magazine that it somewhere in between 'NME' and 'Kerrang!'. I'm thinking a 'Kerrang!' style magazine but more for girls as well.