Photoshoot

For my Magazine cover i held a photoshoot in the school's music rooms with several musician friends. I used different musical intruments and props like Guitars;drum sticks and Headphones to create anchored signs that cannot be polysemic so they signify a music magazine.

This is my finished magazine front cover; i chose these pictures for my cover because they signify the right style and target audience i am trying to encode for my music magazine. The fact that the main picture is of a girl means that men are attracted to it and the fact that she is then flanked by two pictures of guys means that men can also relate to it. This picture is an anchored meaning to the chosen music stereotype of my magazine and my target audience; this helps attracts buyers and encoders.

For my Double page spread i took a trip down to the forum on Halloween night to see my friends band 'Honor Amongst Thieves' play. i used took pictures of them whilst they performned that i selected and used in my double page spread. i also used pictures that i previously had from an outing we had taken together to london and used those in the double page spread too.

for my content page i used a screen grab of my magazine and a picture of 'Honor Amonsgt Thieves' this is to make my magazine contents page presentable and eye catching and to make it relatable to the rest of the magazine; this helped me as the decoder signify my magazines sigsn in the right way for the chosen decoder.

Overall the photoshoots i organised were very beneficial and significant to my product as the photos signify the signs and meanings i wanted for my magazine for the benefit of the decoders chosen.

Encoder/Decoder Model

Hall's Theory of encoding and decoding is a theory of reception theory, developed by Stuart Hall.

According to the theory, audiences can have three different reactions to a media text as Decoders, whether it be a film, documentary or newspaper:

1. Dominant, or Preferred, Reading - how the director/creator wants the audience to view the media text;
2. Opposition Reading - when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning of the text;
3. Negotiated Reading - a compromise between the dominant and opposition readings, where the audience accepts parts of the director's views, but has their own views on parts as well.

Stuart also believes that people's intake of meaning form a media product is affected Geographically; demographically and people's backgrounds in general. This is why the creater of media products (Encoders) must choose a certain social class and target audience as their decoders so they take in the Preffered meaning from their product.

St Gregory's Weekly Contents Page

Vogue Case Study

Double Page Spread

This is my improved double page spread as i had to make it look more like a magazine spread rather than a newspaper article; i needed to add plugs and more colour to attract eyes and to make my double page spread more presentable and easier to read.

Content Page

Timeline

Date	Task
9th November 2009	Preliminary task complete.
10th November 2009	Plan title, style and genre of your magazine.
11th November 2009	Study of signs
16th November 2009	scan in mock of front cover, double page spread and contents page.
23rd November 2009	Study of encoding and decoding model.
10th December 2009	Original photos taken and uploaded.
11th December 2009	Mock up of front cover completed.
15th December 2009	Mock up of double page spread completed.
4th January 2011	Front cover & Double page spread completed.
10th January 2011	Contents page completed.
18th January 2011	Questions 1-3 of evaluation completed.
21st January 2011	Questions 4-7 of evaluation completed.