What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The genre of my magazine is not a conventional mainstream genre but is generally a very popular genre and not necessarily niche.

One of the largest publishers is Bauer. They publish a large range of different magazines including photography and good housekeeping. Bauer also publish music magazines and some are in a similar genre as my own such as Kerrang! and Mojo. Both magazines being famous brands in their own right.  

For the success of the magazine publishing on Bauer would be better money wise than self publishing or using an independent publisher. As they cannot afford to distribute widely and possibly not weekly either. However, due to the ideologies of the genre it may be a hindrance to use a big publishing company and could raise the price significantly.

On the other hand, Rock Sound is published by the French publisher Editions Freeway. This magazine is more like what my magazine aims to be. The main rival to the magazine in Britain is Kerrang! because of the similar types of music both magazines cover. However, Kerrang! is released weekly and does not usually provide as much coverage to more alternative, new, upcoming bands or to the British rock scene. 

There is a unique selling point of my magazine in that it features other types of serious articles and older musicians mixed with young, this could encourage a variety of ages to be interested in the magazine compared to the 15-24 age range of rock sound and Kerrang. As well as this it may encourage the 50 quid bloke theory to play  part as older people are more likely to buy a magazine




  

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The magazine makes references to other rock and punk bands in the magazine. This means that it will be most likely be unappealing to people who are not a fan of the bands or genres featured inside. However, the most important thing is the band that has the main double page spread as this is what will attract people that are fans of the band who do not usually red the magazine to buy a copy and hopefully enjoy the other features of the magazine as well. 

The pages of the magazine are not totally conventional as they feature strange and multiple colours on the images for the cover and double page spread and the contents page also has a different layout than some other examples. However, this will appeal to the target audience because, the readers are likely to be interested into pushing boundaries, being in the minority and liking things that are different. 

As this comparison shows, on my cover, the colours are much darker and unconventional. A major difference between the two is the application of male gaze theory. Katy Perry is a woman known for being beautiful and sexy and the pose she is doing fulfills by flaunting her body to appeal to people who find her attractive but also to others who want to be like her. However this would not be totally suitable for the rock ad punk genres as its typically the music and looking cool and being controversial that attracts this audience. Much of the artists in these genres are not conventionally attractive to the mainstream media.

It is important that for an alternative genre that there is an aura of " I don't care"  Trying to hard and being perfect are almost frowned upon within these genres whereas its almost necessary for mainstream artists to be perfect and its not uncommon that people will be photo shopped to meet incredibly high and unrealistic standards of beauty. Which is the opposite of how I wanted to portray the musicians in my magazine. In my own opinion, I find that you connect more and appreciate a musician more if you can relate to them instead of worshipping them like a perfect god.

By looking at just the covers its easy to identify who is interested in what. Someone into mainstream, popular music want beautiful and flawless people to read about and look at with interviews that do not push boundaries and the articles are generally gossip columns; articles which are not serious or about world affairs. Almost as if these people want to ignore the problems within the world and society. Whereas rock and rap magazines do highlight these important issues. My magazine aimed to include a mixture of serious issues like feminism and mental health with the fun and rebellion of a genre like punk and rock.