Welcome To My Blog!

Welcome to my AS Level Media Studies blog! I am a year 12 Media Studies Student, and I am using Blogger to present my music magazine coursework. The whole purpose of this blog is to display the work I have completed within my foundation portfolio project, from the early days of preparation and research and planning through to the construction and evaluation of my final product. 

My Chosen Genre

For my music magazine, I have chosen to create a magazine based on the genre of 'electronic dance music'. This includes many genres such as drum and bass, house, electro and dubstep, however my cover artist, and the genre I will be mainly focused on is drum and bass. I have chosen to do this genre as, although I listen to various different genres ranging from 'indie rock' to 'rap', I would say I listen to EDM a lot more than any other music and I believe I have a vast knowledge of different subgenres. I also chose this genre as I want my magazine to stand out; I noticed not many people were doing dance music and, as I am passionate about it, I wanted to discover the codes and conventions of electronic dance music and electronic dance music magazines. Another reason for my choice of genre is that I feel it has a lot of background to it; although various genres have lots of history to them, I feel the dance music scene is ever-changing (for example, it started out in the 1980's in discotechques, moving onto the rave scene of the early 1990's and nowadays clubbing culture is as popular as ever, with various DJ's constantly appearing in the charts) - it is constantly evolving as time goes on and technology progresses.

Mission Statement

RaveUp is a fresh, fun and original music magazine that is solely dedicated to electronic dance music. With a vibrant, outspoken, modern yet funky style RaveUp isn’t afraid to break boundaries and traditions, appealing to the younger generation with its youthful style. It has a light, refreshing and witty approach to discussing, promoting and celebrating electronic dance music; although it is serious about its genre, it isn’t intense and its trendy, younger readers will be able to relate to it easily.

In recent years there has been a rise in the number of young people listening to the different sub genres of electronic dance music, such as drum and bass, house, electro, dubstep, etc. However, although there are magazines dedicated to these subgenres, most of them are online magazines – the only electronic dance magazine in print is Mixmag. We have a lot of respect for Mixmag and its success here at RaveUp, but we are also aware that it tends to be aimed at an older audience and is very deeply focused on more mainstream artists. Due to this surge of popularity for the sub-genres, there is a gap in the market for a new electronic dance magazine; one that will appeal to young readers and reflect current music trends through its content and through the way in which  its information is light/easy to take in – We  plan to quench the younger generations thirst for this.

 RaveUp is different to other magazines in the way that it approaches electronic dance music; it’s frank, friendly and fun. It focuses on artists that young people want to hear about, artists that young people can relate to and have actually seen, not just general dance music artists or whoever ‘played in Ibiza this summer’. It is extremely supportive of British musicians and wants Britain to be known for its amazing variety of excellent electronic dance music DJs. RaveUp is not overly intense about the genre, and so the information is easy to read, understandable and most importantly, much more appealing to its audience.

RaveUp is aimed at confident, independent young adults who like to stand out from the crowd and enjoy having fun, listening to music and partying.  However, they are intelligent and they work hard just as much as they party hard. RaveUp will be distributed monthly at all high-quality newsagents, supermarkets and music stores at a retail price of £3.10. The magazine also has its own website (www.raveupmagazine.co.uk), meaning that the readership can constantly access the magazine and get their daily fix. It will provide an online version of the magazine, including articles, interviews and information on raves/festivals/events. As the website will be updated daily, it will mean that the audience can always be given the freshest information, making the website the perfect accompaniment to the magazine. There will also be a RaveUp app, available for all smartphones so that the audience can easily access information/news on their favourite artists and are able to keep updated on them on a daily basis and whilst on the move. 

RaveUp promises to deliver its target audience information about their favourite genre of music, and encouragement to keep listening to the genre we promote. A wide range of interesting topics will feature within it, for example, an on trend fashion section (i.e. with clothes for gigs/raves/festivals), polls and quizzes, exclusive interviews with artists of the genre, news about the audience’s favourite artists, reviews on new albums and singles, reviews on raves/festivals/gigs, event listings, a technology section (a must for all aspiring DJs) and articles about general issues related to electronic dance music.

Amongst this, RaveUp will also include freebies for our dedicated readers, for example cover mount such as mix tapes, CD’s and vinyl related to the artist that is featured on the front cover. RaveUp promises to also have at least one competition a week in which one lucky reader can get their hands on exclusive tickets for festivals/raves/gigs. We may also include vouchers within our magazine (for example 20% off music downloads) which will be available for all readers.

Artists that will feature within our magazine will be mostly British artists (such as Disclosure, Sub Focus, Skream, High Contrast), as RaveUp is a British magazine that supports British artists and believes the best electronic dance music artists come from the UK – we also believe readers will be able to relate to British artists much more; we hope to inspire our readers who are aspiring artists, wanting a career within the electronic dance music genre. The likelihood is that RaveUp will feature mostly male artists, as the genre of electronic dance music is conventionally male dominated, however we will strive to represent high-quality artists equally – regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual preference etc; RaveUp believes all artists are equal.

RaveUp magazine believes that we should all be together as one; we hope to bring together our readers in their passion for electronic dance music (much like the original values that early 90’s raves had); we aim to unite them in their quest for new, edgy and advanced music whether it be house music, drum and bass, dubstep, garage, jungle or electro.

Like its readers RaveUp has a work hard play hard mentality and wants to be known for its distinctive style. It is the only magazine of its kind, a friendly magazine aimed at young people who want to have fun whilst listening to their favourite genre of music.

Target Audience Profile

The reader of RaveUp is a male, who is aged 16 to 24 years old. He is in full time education at sixth form, college or university, and may have a part time local job in retail. Currently single and having fun for the time being, he is not in a rush to commit, although, if a special girl came along, he wouldn’t mind getting into a serious relationship. He’s a fun-loving, enthusiastic, intelligent yet humorous guy, who is serious about electronic dance music. Although he can appear shy, once you get to know him he’s extremely bubbly and outgoing!

His hobbies and interests include mixing on his decks (however this is just a casual hobby), travelling, going on nights out with his mates to raves, watching TV (especially football/sky sports) and comedy movies (Such as Stepbrothers or 21 Jump Street), listening to new music, football and most importantly reading RaveUp magazine. His ideal meal would be a Domino’s pepperoni pizza, accompanied with a mars ‘refuel’ milkshake/any kind of chocolate milk. He tends to spend his leisure time on his xbox 360, playing Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and his all-time favourite, Fifa. He also plays for his local football team and spends a lot of his leisure time training with, as well as socialising with his friends - they are extremely keen on electronic dance music too, especially drum and bass, house and garage and accompany him to lots of events, such as LED Festival and an assortment of raves (i.e. Promised Land, UTR, Lets Go Crazy, Spectrum, Raindance), all of which focus on and promote his preferred genres of electronic dance music. His favourite artists are Netsky, Disclosure, Julio Bashmore and Chase & Status.

He’s also good with computers and keen on technology; his prized possessions are his iPhone 5 and his MacBook Pro. He has a FaceBook account, but doesn’t tend to use it much – he’s recently started using Twitter a lot more and prefers it to FaceBook because he feels like Twitter is much easier to access, and much trendier than FaceBook is (all his friends/peers tend to use it).


Magazine reading is not an activity he participates in all the time, although he occasionally buys Mixmag; he enjoys reading about his favourite artists and getting the latest music-related news. However, he wants a music magazine that appeals more to his age range. He feels that Mixmag, though fairly interesting and informative, is suited more to an audience who is likely to be in their late twenties. He also feels Mixmag is much more intense about music; he wants a magazine which is serious about electronic dance music but isn’t too/as intense or deep about it – a dance music magazine with a lighter style. He wants a magazine to feature the artists he really wants to read about, rather than one that is simply about all electronic dance music artists in general.

Codes and Conventions Brainstorm

Final Questionnaire

Questionnaire Analysis

Focus Group

Case Study

Front Cover Overview

Front Cover Analysis

Front Cover Analysis

Contents Page Overview

Contents Page Analysis

Contents Page Analysis

Double Page Spread Overview

Double Page Spread Analysis

Double Page Spread Analysis

Exploring Mise-En-Scene

Costume Ideas

Location Ideas

Font Analysis

Artist Profile

Mock Ups

These are my mock-ups; I made these before I took my images, so that I had an outline to go by when taking my images and creating my magazine on Adobe Photoshop. By creating these I was able to see what worked and what didn't - therefore these have helped my magazine to look more professional as a finished piece.

Practice Shots

My Product (First Draft)

My Product (2nd Draft)

Evaluation

Evaluation babyyy from betsimegan