Social identity

Social Identity is "a person's sense of who they are or self-concept based on their group membership", meaning their social in-group, or out-group.

In 1979, Henri Tajfel and John Turner proposed the social identity theory. This was away to explain intergroup behaviour and that all groups are important to our social identity – they essentially give us a sense of belonging in society.

 

There are two main groups, in – groups and out – groups. In (us) groups are the people who a person shares a common identity, and then by definition out (them) groups are those who a person is perceived as different, not in their in – group. Thus, our social identity is satisfied by in – groups, and dissatisfied by out – groups. We identify ‘us’ and ‘them’ categorisation through these mental processes

• Categorisation: categorise and identify to understand social environment.
• Social Identification: adopt identity of group put ourselves in.
• Social Comparison: compare to other groups.

 

An example of in-groups and out-groups would be Mods and Rockers, two conflicting British subcultures in the 1960s/70s.

 

Mods were clean cut, fur trimmed parka wearing youths who listen to soul and British blues bands. In contrast, Rockers were influenced by Rock n Roll, leather jacket wearing and creeper adoring youths who were centred on motorcycling.

 

Throughout the period, they are known for their conflicting ideologies as both went through social comparison, sometimes leading to violent outbursts such as psychical fighting.

Pop identity

Name: Lara Scout
Age: 22
Hometown: London, England
Genre: Indie/Indie rock

Lara was born and raised in London. Her mother is an artist, and so has always been exposed to creativity. She discovered her love of music through small gigs at local live music venues and festivals. Accomplished piano player, many of her singles feature her friends' old university bands, giving them her unique sound. Her influences  and favourite artists include Banks, Passion Pit, Arcade Fire, Lauren Aquilina and Funeral Suits.

 

She describes her style as "anything goes" - often dressing in what she likes rather than to a certain style. Her clothes come from a mixture of high street brands and reclaimed vintage shops. Much of her style inspiration is from her mums "fashionable days when she was younger".

 

Her personality is bright and energetic with a mix of sarcasm and humour. She is a hardworking and determined as well as free spirited and open minded. She appreciates other artists work and always aims to improve her own.

 

Drafts of Covers

Before I went straight into taking photos and designing a front cover,I sketched what I was planning to do. This is due to the fact that I wanted to experiment with different ideas and be able to edit or change certain aspects. Additionally, it helped me think about what types of shots I wanted for my main image on my cover. I then went away and took different images that corresponded with some of the drafts I had made up. Furthermore, it helped me greatly as I could look at other magazines and take aspects of their covers that I liked and feature them on my ideas.

 

I later then created digital mock ups on the computer using the photos I had taken. I tried to replicate some of the ideas I had drawn, but I came to the conclusion that the ideas sounded good in theory, but did not look good in practice. As a result, I adapted and changed my cover many times to get it to my final product. I didn't end up using any covers below, but I took some of the different features of them and applied them in different ways.
 
 

Opinions on final product

I asked a few people, who would fall into my target audience, what they thought of my music magazine. The results are shown below individually, as unfortunately I was unable to get them to work as a single video.

Perfect Contents Page

Much like front covers, the same concept applies in terms of everyone has different opinions on what makes contents pages good. There are, of course, specific features and conventions that make contents pages recognisable, but different audiences will have different preferences as to what they want them to look like.
 

Conventions of a contents page

Title: this is usually the biggest text on the page, highlighting what the page is. Sometimes the magazines name may also be included.

 

Main image: contents pages typically has a main image that relates to the main article of the magazine. It is normally bigger and bolder than the rest so it stands out.

 

Subheadings: these are usually bolder and tend to list the main articles, before they are then later explained.

 

Articles: they are usually arrange in chronological order of the magazine, and so often dictate the layout. additionally, some bigger articles have small explanations about what the main function of the article is.

 

Editors note: this is typically a few lines about the magazine from the editor. It is commonly in an handwriting font to connote a more informal and personal mode of address to the audience.

 

Features

House style: like the front cover, this is an important feature than links the magazine together. It promotes uniformity and professionalism, consequently making the magazine more recognisable and looks more put together. This can greatly impact the success of a magazine.

 

The Four Fs: when designing a magazine - these are important aspects to consider throughout. The main ones used in the contents pages are function and format, as the main aim for a contents page is to be easy to understand and inform the audience of what is included in the text.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality, by definition is; 'the relationship between texts, especially literary ones'

 

This means that different media texts will often reference other ones, the most noticeable ones are in TV programmes like The Simpsons or Disney productions. Also, the popular rewriting of fairy tales in a modern setting can be seen as a 'highly cultured use of intertextuality'.

There are different types of intertextuality, these are as follows;

• Explicit - the intertextuality is noticeable, and, is meant to be noticed. This consequently adds to the overall look of the text
• Implicit - this type is not as prominent in the text, and so is more subtle. It is only noticeable to those who are paying attention to it or understand it.
• Accidental - the intertextuality is unintentional and is usually only pointed out afterwards.

Intertextuality is not plagiarism. This is because authors or writers usually make it clear when they are evoking an reference that it is another piece of work.  

Intertextuality in my magazine

I have no plan to include intertextuality within my magazine, any intertextuality that may occur is completely unintentional. This could potentially happen because I have used inspiration from other magazines such as INDIE and Q, and have somewhat modelled mine around them, but I still want to create a unique piece of text. I have done this so I can attract my target audience, to give them something familiar that I am confident they will like.

 

Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For my preliminary task I had to create a front cover and contents page for a school magazine. This was the first time I had ever used the software Pixlr and so it was a learning process. Due to this, there is a large difference in the way my prelim and final product look - most noticeably the photography and editing. Lastly, fundamentally, both tasks were different as there were different aims and target audiences as well as a different context, meaning that they would have ended up distinct from each other. However, they still essentially has the same task - to construct a magazine.

I have also carried out every role done by professionals at real magazine houses. This meant I was the photographer, editor and columnist for my magazine. As a result, it has opened my eyes to the extent of pressure when constructing a magazine and how much thought and consideration goes into it along with the constant scrutiny of what it looks like.

Front Cover

The front cover of my prelim was taken in front of a piece of artwork in our school gallery. This created a vibrant and busy background, however it then meant I was limited as to what I could put on it in terms of text or use any other editing techniques. Consequently, the overall look of it is not majorly professional or sophisticated. Also, as I had previously mentioned - I had never edited an image in this way before. As a result, I experimented lots with different ways I could present the front cover as I was getting used to the different tools. This ended up helping me greatly with my final piece because I was more aware of what I could use, and so ended up taking different photos with the idea of "I can edit this to look like this or change that" in mind. Furthermore, I feel like this is reflected in my final front cover because I haven't just changed where the image is situated like I did with the prelim, but I have edited and manipulated the image so it corresponds with the aim of creating an indie music magazine.

The prelim image is also of a lower quality - this is due to my inexperience of creating a magazine and I was not aware of what I wanted to make.  The fact that I had never used Pixlr software also contributed to this. Furthermore, I used my prelim to help e combat problems that I had previously experienced. An example of this that I ended up taking my photos using a mundane white background. Although it isn't particularly exciting, it meant that I could really experiment with text and in cooperate more colours into it. It also allowed me to create a bigger contrast between the model and background, so she was the main focal point, rather than being lost in the colours like my prelim cover. I also had little experience at the time of my prelim about what made a good magazine cover and the different conventions of it. As a result of this, my masthead is pretty basic and my coverlines are more listed. Using my learnt knowledge, I built on this for my final cover and experimented with different fonts and the situation of certain features such as the main cover line and barcode/issue number. There is also a more definitive housestyle in my music magazine. This is because I was dictated to by the background of my prelim task and so the only colour I could really use was black so it would stand out. Consequently, I aimed not to make the same mistake with my final one and I ended up having a main theme of a deep pink, black and white. I used this because I wanted to keep to the minimalistic idea that I hade created, which I was unable to do with my prelim task. The fact that it was an indie music magazine contributed to this because I needed to make sue it appealed to the target audience of teenagers who like the genre, not a school magazine for older students.

The layout of the cover also differ greatly. This is partly due to the fact that I was less experienced when creating my prelim at editing, but it is also because I had different aims. My school magazine was meant to look like it was more student made - the idea behind the name 'Student Speil' as it is their ideas and this impacted the masthead - making it less formal and more creative. Consequently, my music magazine was made to be distributed on a larger scale than a school, as so the overall look needed to be more professional and appealing to the target audience that consisted of different people. Therefore, in comparison, my prelim task layout is quite dull because of the listed coverlines and basic masthead, whereas my final product is more minimal and the coverlines are more creative.

Contents Page

The differences between my preliminary contents page and my final contents page are largely similar to the cover pages. This is because my editing is basic and less sophisticated as it was for my final piece. While contents pages are usually associated with generic lists, my final piece is inspired by other magazines and certain conventions of them. I wanted to improve on the layout and overall look of the contents page, and to an extent, used my prelim as an example of what I wanted my final one not to look like. Furthermore, there is little difference between my prelim cover and contents page. This could potentially be classed as housestyle, however I think it makes the magazine too plain, so I wanted my final piece to be something to look at, but still have the theme of minimalism whist being understandable.

I decided using a white background for my final contents -  this is because I felt that it gives a clean and professional look. It also links to my colour theme and it allowed me to explore other editing techniques to make it attractive to the reader. Essentially, I picked out the parts of my prelim task that I did not like and strived to do the opposite of them - the most significant is the background and layout. Granted, the aims and target audience were different, and I wanted it to have a more professional look, but I still like the idea of the main image of the model looking away. The main focal point, I feel, is still her, however it does not detract from the rest of the page. I think that I haven't really challenged any conventions, as much of what I have done I researched and took inspiration, however I don't believe this was a bad move. Conventions are conventions for a reason - they work, and I didn't want to end up losing the main function of a contents, to inform, by going crazy and making it too minimal or vice versa and making it illegible. Additionally, my final contents fits well with the housestyle and it links further to my double page spread I created as part of my final product too. I also felt that by adding more images switched up the dynamic, as opposed to my prelim, and so linked to the audience that I was trying to connect to - the younger demographic. Lastly, I felt like my prelim was too much like a book, and this was the only previous visions I had of contents pages, and so with my final one I wanted to in cooperate all my new information on them to create something unique yet familiar and appealing.

Conclusion

Overall, I feel I have progressed hugely from my preliminary task to my final product. This is due to the fact that my editing skills have improve massively, and I was able to change the main features of my final cover image, such as brighten her eyes, as opposed to just change its positioning. Furthermore, my photography skills have improved because I was able to apply my knowledge of conventional images used in magazines and shoot photos that I know I could use for certain things, rather than taking photos for the sake of it - which in turn gave me a smaller range because I knew what I wanted, and so took photos specific to my aim. This process also allowed be to learn about new software and experiment with tools I had never used before. As a result, it meant that I could use my time effectively to create a more professional and sophisticated magazine. I also learnt along the way the many factors that need to be taken into consideration when creating a magazine. For my prelim I just took some photos and thought adding text made it a magazine, but I now know that so many other features make a magazine, from sell lines on a cover to pull quotes in an article. Every aspect of a magazine is important and making it stand out and attract attention requires scrutinising down to the last detail to ensure a solid reading audience.