In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My magazine fits conventions of music magazines in the following ways:

The title is short and abbreviated (similar to NME) and stands out at the top of the cover. I think using the three letters like this pays tribute to NME, a popular magazine, so may attract buyers. This way of writing the title is also easier on the reader, rather than saying 'Dance Music Asia'.

The main images of magazines concentrate on the figure and face of the subject and often don't include any substantial background (I've used a white background for mine). The person in an image is often smiling or maintain a 'cool' posture and facial expression. For my kind of magazine, coloured images are more common than black and white ones to emphasise the 'dance' nature of the magazine.

The costumes used in my magazine are simple and casual - for example Jaro is sitting in a plain black t-shirt jeans. This is suitable for the nature the article as it just gives us an idea of who he really is. The front cover image is slightly more dynamic with brighter colours to attract readers.

The people in my magazine all have at least some Asian heritage because of the subject my music magazine concentrates on. This strays from conventions of most local magazines because it concentrates on a smaller, more precise audience.

The written content of my magazine is fairly similar to that of popular magazines, but because of the subject matter of the magazine, some areas like interviews of new stars etc. are more difficult to arrange. Backgrounds of music artists sometimes take place in music magazines.

The music genre of the magazine is suggested through seeing the people in the magazine and the bright colours and some of the other images used (like the dancer on the contents page).

The layout of my magazine sticks firmly to the conventions of music magazine. For example, pull quotes, drops caps etc. are all used as well as columns and the way the contents page is laid out. These are all used to stick to generic conventions of magazines. Drop caps are used to emphasise the beginning of an article, so saves the readers from having to find it themselves. Pull quotes are a way of 'pulling out' an important quote or piece of information to attract the reader and let them get the gist of what the article is about.