Evaluation Task 1 Conclusion: In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something.  Conventions can be used, supported, reiterated.  They can be challenged deliberately to make a point about an artist and make them stand out in the market. In evaluation of the question set I feel that I have drawn on the conventions of media products in my own campaign.  This use of these conventions is evident in the construction of my own products.

This is supported by my own research onto indie music conventions, analysing the websites of King Krule and Beach Fossils, among others. This enabled me to create a similar look, with wide images, a big font and an About page that was very detailed in the passion and talent of August.

At the same time, I have sought to develop and been able to challenge conventions, for example, I have decided to include a collage composed of small-scale images of the artist sleeping rather than the typical pop promo campaigns in which the face (and body) of the artist are used to attract audiences in a sexualised way.

The reason why feel that I have achieved this is to differentiate my product in a competitive music industry market and I have attempted to challenge audience expectations, bring something new to the media forms.  Media Conventions are ultimately relied upon for communicating the right message to the intended audience, but also deviate from these expectations helps sell the star image that I wanted to promote. Audiences produce meaning from the interaction of the conventional material in a text, and their understanding of conventions, for example in my online survey, I got responses which acknowledged  the alternative style of the artist and found the image to support the music genre because they were familiar with similar musicians.