Website:
https://tracyleussa.wixstudio.com/my-site
Chosen Pages:
Home page
About Us page
Statement of Intent
How do you intend to use the four areas of the media theoretical framework to communicate meaning and meet the requirements of your chosen brief?
Product 1
To engage the audience and create an incentive for them to read the magazine, the main cover line of my main cover page will be a direct intertextual reference to a very well-known RnB lyric from the song Normal Girl by SZA. All audiences, not just those who listen to RnB will recognise the lyric and will be drawn to the cover page
On my second cover page, the main cover line will be a question ‘Who is eALY’ -who is the artist featured on the cover. This serves as an enigma code for audiences to capture their attention and to encourage then to discover the answer to the question by reading the magazine.
The cover line ‘The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’ is a reference to British rapper Dave’s song ‘Black’ as well as American rapper Kendrick Lamar’s song ‘The Blacker the Berry’. Those with a negotiated reading may also identify reference to the song ‘Run and Tell Them’, from the film and musical hairspray
As well as this, on both covers the other cover lines will be ‘quotes’ from interviews the artists featured in the magazine, giving audiences an idea of the contents along with the cover lines along the bottom with ideas of what stories will appear. This will attract audiences who would want access to ‘exclusive’ interviews and celebrity news and gossip such as teasing the announcement of a tour.
One of the cover lines of the second cover page and article of the contents page is an artist talking about his experiences being a dark skin man in the music industry which highlights the magazine’s dedication to diversity and increasing representation. The institution being an independent music company is particularly suitable for my brand as it allows freedom for the magazine to represent under and misrepresented groups in the media such as black people who will be featured in both cover pages.
There will be a clear house style as I would use the same fonts for the masthead main cover line and cover lines. The colours, however, would differ slightly but will still represent the aesthetic of the early 2000s with a fusion of modern as they will be full of colour but also inspired by older magazine covers with larger type faces and bright colours.
Product 2
My website would feature artists of different ethnic backgrounds- showcasing diversity in the music industry, especially in the RnB and Rap genre which is a significant part of Wave Magazine’s brand identity. The artists will be of different gender identities so audiences could also identify themselves with the product and to portray Wave Magazine’s ideological standpoint of inclusivity. Not only this, but RnB music and musicians are becoming more mainstream with society’s shift to earlier 2000s aesthetics and 16–25-year-olds are increasingly wanting to be exposed to diverse cultures as they are growing up in an increasingly diverse and evolving society with different societal attitudes to minority social groups.
To appeal to the 16–25-year-old middle market target audience, the aesthetics of the website will be colourful, but with a mature theme of not too many animations or graphically designed aspects. This is to appeal to younger audiences who would want to interact with more mature pieces of media. This generation is also particularly interested in the early 2000s, despite not being old enough to truly have the cultural capital of the time as much as millennials. However, the theme is very current in the products with the similar colour schemes and costume in the pictures of the talent.
The collaboration with the large earphone company Beats would allow for a bigger audience to be targeted if they are not familiar with the magazine or the artists but by the products which coincides well with the music genre of the magazine.
Due to magazine sales declining and increasing accessibility to online media, an online version of the magazine will be available on the website with the same articles uploaded as well as a subscription being offered to audiences with exclusive content offered as well as discounted prices for concert tickets.
How do you intend to link your media products to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the digitally convergent nature of your media production?
I intend to link my products by having, my contents pages refer to the second as an incentive for the audience to take part in the competition as well as buying both editions. To get more information aunt the competition winners of the concert tickets and merchandise offered as the prize, audiences must purchase the second magazine too. The competition information is featured on the website as a QR code linking to the website on the magazine cover pages and content pages. Winners of the competition will be featured on the website with their ‘entry’ videos displayed. As an easter egg in the website, there will be a link to the Tik Tok and Instagram pages of the magazine which will also feature the competition winners and the 30 second audio/visual video that will be the teaser to the music video of the artist featured on the second cover page.
The contents page and website will also have direct reference to an existing Congolese artist as part of a collaboration between the magazine and the artist to promote international artists as part of the magazine’s remit to promote diverse voices.
-The main cover line for the main magazine is a direct intertextual reference to a very well-known RnB lyric from the song Normal Girl by SZA.
-The cover line ‘The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’ is a reference to British rapper Dave’s song ‘Black’ as well as American rapper Kendrick Lamar’s song ‘The Blacker the Berry’. Those with a negotiated reading may also identify reference to the song ‘Run and Tell Them’ from the film and musical hairspray
-The contents page has direct intertextual references to esteemed awards such as Grammys and BET Awards to describe the artists.
-The contents page and website also have direct reference to an existing Congolese artist as part of a collaboration between the magazine and the artist to promote international artists as part of the magazine’s remit to promote diverse voices.
-My website and contents pages have the magazines socials- its Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok as well as links to Spotify to listen to the music of the featured artists.
-The cover line and contents page both have direct reference to RnB legend Lauryn Hill’s lyric ‘Music is what feelings should sound like’
-On my the home page of my website, the competition highlighted on the first content page will have videos of the winners lip-syncing to RnB singer SZA songs from her album Ctrl that had global success.
- The website refers the current cultural zeitgeist with the artist brand deal with Beats by Dr Dre- a popular headphone company amongst the middle-market audience in the UK.
