AS Media Evaluation by Cengizhan Sen

In Media, we were instructed to develop our journalism by writing an article about the changing face of the music industry, music piracy and file-sharing. Additionally, we used our recent knowledge of In Design to create a template for our article, giving the image of a magazine article. In this evaluation, I will be discussing the various factors of the process in creating my magazine article with my journalism and In Design. 

The process of writing an article involved obtaining information about music piracy and file-sharing, such as facts, statistics and quotes from various artists. Some of the strengths of my research were that most of the sites used were reliable, such as Time.Com and News.com.au, as they were news sites and had various articles dealing with serious issues. However the article from News.com.au was much older, so the information delivered could have been out-of-date, whereas the article from Time.com was published in 2014. Furthermore, the information from the News.com.au was from Australia and the statistics were based on an Australian audience.  Complementary to News.com.au, I attained information from the official RIAA site, which also contained information focusing on the American music industry and music economy. I obtained information from BBC, involving information on the BPI (The British Recorded Music Industry) which was reliable as it focused on the British music industry and was published in 2013, making the information in the article current and reliable. I also used information from cracked.com, however due to the humorous take on the subject of music piracy in the cracked.com article about Napster P2P and the up rise of file-sharing; I decided to confirm the information with Wikipedia. However since information on Wikipedia can be edited, there is a chance that the information was erroneous. The last website I used was Apple Insider. Apple Insider consisted of mostly about Apple products, showing knowledge in ITunes and various other Apple products. However the article about music piracy and file-sharing was published in 2010, so the information given in the article may have been unreliable and out-of-date.

In my journalism, my target audience was aimed at a mature, cultured audience, who have an interest in technology and sub-culture, as well as having a sense of humor. My publication was aimed at being a global publication, due to the foreign statistics and facts. The strengths of my journalism were the use of language. The majority of the language in my article was formal and consisted of phrases that a younger audience might not understand (e.g. the stumbling blocks of music piracy and file-sharing).I used formal language as a way of showing that the article was aimed at educated people and I used informal language as a way creating a conversational tone of voice however this might have given an unprofessional image to the article, resulting in not being aimed at my chosen target audience. I also added persuasive techniques such as rhetorical questions, to make the audience have a verdict (e.g. who wants to listen to mediocre, shabby music? No one).I also used humorous language as a way of making the article interesting and entertaining to the reader (e.g. “As Jessie J says in her song “Price Tag”- “It ain’t about the money, money, money; we don’t need your money, money, money. We just want to make the world dance, forget about the price tag!”). However, similar to the informal language as a way of creating a conversational tone of voice, the humorous language may seem improper for such a serious subject, depending on the reader. In my conclusion, where I presented my opinion, I used emotive language as a way of expressing my opinion towards music piracy and file-sharing (e.g. People slave at bringing money into that cashier, just how artists slave to make good music and make a living). By using emotive language creates a sense of injustice in the music industry and shows how strongly I feel about this injustice in the music industry.

To create a magazine article, we used In Design as a way of creating a template for our article and designing it to look similar to an actual magazine article. The strengths of my use of In Design were that I learnt various ways to make a magazine article. I learned how to make columns and text boxes by using various tools on In Design. Likewise, I learnt how to place pictures, headers, captions, drop caps, colour to text etc.  In spite of the strengths of In Design, I faced much difficulty with making my article look analogous to an actual magazine article. Furthermore, I found it strenuous to organize my article and moving the columns to make my article look professional and a fusion between a broadsheet and a technology magazine article.In the beginning, since I had only an insight to In

Design, it was slightly challenging however after learning about the tools and how to use In Design, was finally able to start my magazine article design.

To keep a record of the progress and work we make, we made our own personal AS Media blogs, as evidence of our work . Starting my blog was simple and effortless, as I had previously blogged with Blogger myself.  The strengths of web publishing is that compared to printing, it is cost efficient as no paper is wasted and there is no distribution.  Additionally customers do not need to spend money to the article online, in comparison to printing the article which can be expensive and customers may not consider wanting to buy something overpriced. Furthermore, web publishing allows people from other countries to read the article which may not be available in their country via the Internet.

The audience feedback was valuable and constructive by which it helped to reflect on my work and for me to have a future reference for another magazine article. One of the comments I received was from Owen Hickley, who commented on my work:

“The writing is informative and intelligent, not appealing to anyone group but easy to read never the less. The highlighting of the quotations is a good idea as it draws the eye however the lack of a background makes it look slightly garish. The removal of the boxes around the text would also assist in a more professional presentation of the article. The inclusion of the pictures is a nice touch but the selection of pictures could be better as the text on one of the pictures looks unprofessional. There are a lot of included facts and figures that inform the reader and give them insight into the subject, the inclusion of American facts could be seen as unneeded in a British publication but seeing as I do not know what publication it is being published in it may also be useful.”

From looking at the audience feedback, I am able to set myself targets for improvement. Firstly,  I should show that my article is aimed at my audience through my journalism, so my target audience is clear and I am able to grab their attention, so I will be able to appeal to my audience. Additionally I should pick out my facts and statistics according to the date and location, as some information can be out-of-date due to date and different due to location. As for the appearance, I should make my article more eye-catching by adding a background. Lastly, the images I use should be professional compared to the images I used for my article as it can look unprofessional.