Neel's AS Media Studies blog

Monday, 4 January 2016

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/QP5VQLG

I am going to use survey monkey to conduct market research and discuss the findings. I will be gathering quantitative data on different preferences of my target audience, to get a better understanding of how to use various conventions(colours/body language of the artist and puffs).

Sunday, 3 January 2016

Hip-Hop research

Hip-Hop began in the late 1960s in the south Bronx in Brooklyn New York(east coast) it was seen as rebel music as it contained profanity and rappers rapping aggressively. Hip-Hop that was so new and raw to people spread from the east-coast to the west. Different parts of America adapted and even created new Hip-Hop styles such as gangsta’ rap and hardcore rap. Traditionally Hip-Hop was about catchy choruses and a funky verse which is demonstrated by Kurtis Blow The Breaks,which is about the numerous crisis people go through everyday in the ghetto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZDUEilS5M4

Gangsta rap was about representing the place that you're from and representing your gang/clique. Which was expressed through wearing certain colours that represented your area, there were several conflicts that initiated. For example the conflict between 2pac(west coast) and The notorious B.I.G(east coast) which really put Hip-Hop on the map raising extreme awareness of the music genre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41qC3w3UUkU

Hit em up by 2pac was about dissing biggie smalls(THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G) from the east coast as 2pac was shot and was convinced that biggie organised the assassination as biggie made a track after the shooting called ‘who shot ya’. 2pac in this song sends direct explicit threats, of killing biggie and disrespecting him by calling him ugly and stating that he had sexual intercourse with biggie’s wife. These situations were common in the west coast vs east coast era in gangsta rap.

Nas later in 1994 released and album called Illmatic which was considered the ‘bible of hip-hop’ as it is referred to the foundations of hip-hop. Nas raised the bar and changed the style of hip-hop by introducing something completely new that exhibited his intellectual skills. Nas exposed his flow containing complicated rhyme schemes which the people never thought was possible. He also improved the delivery, word-play and the art of story telling hence it is the perfect album, and one of the greatest.

Contemporary Hip-Hop has changed a lot from people talking about their struggle representing their area and ‘keeping it real’(not forgetting your roots) to rappers bragging about how much money they make , fornication and relationship problems. There has also been an increase in the amount of female Hip-Hop artists such as Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea. The image of the Hip-Hop changed from dangerous and wearing baggy clothes to wearing flashy jewelry. From music videos of rappers in rough locations to showing of luxury items such as cars and boats in a majestic location.

Hip-Hop magazine deconstruction

This is a magazine deconstruction of two Hip-Hop magazines, this will give me a better understanding of various media conventions in Hip-Hop magazines. Also, it will be a good technique to improve my comprehension on how artists are portrayed through the use of colour layout and other conventions

Mag decon from Neel Patel

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

Research Rationale

I have chosen the genre of Hip-Hop for my music magazine, I will need to conduct research into this genre and collate data from my target audience. My target audience will be Hip-Hop lovers around the age 16-25, as most Hip-Hop is pre-dominantly targeted at young adults and teenagers. This is an advantage for me as some of my peers in sixth form belong to this age group and listen to hip-hop which makes it easier for me to collect data as it is less time consuming. The benefit of conducting a research is that it broadens your understanding of what the audience demands/requires which you can implement into your magazine. I will gain different types of data through various methods such as focus groups where a particular convention of the magazine will be discussed, another example is a questionnaire where I will be asking open questions as they generate more of an accurate outcome as the interviewee is free to answer in any way they desire which does not limit the amount of information retained, compared to closed questions which prompts the interviewee to answer in a certain way which creates a biased outcome/findings. These findings generate qualitative data.

On the other hand I can also gain quantitative data by giving the target audiences questionnaires which would contain multiple choice answers which will be taken into account to generate quantitative data. I will also use the internet to gain a better understanding on how artists are portrayed in this music genre in order to conform or to subvert from the stereotypes in terms of how induvial artists are portrayed in a hip hop magazine.