AS level Creative Critical Reflection 1.

Question 1: "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

As I sat down in front of my computer gathering my thoughts for writing this reflection, I felt that I would have had a clearer view on what I was supposed to create, if I had done it backwards: reading about the four Q-s in advance. However, looking back on how I created my magazine, I can conclude that I shaped my project instinctively, guided by the topic I chose, and as I was progressing with my media studies, I modified my magazine in the spirit of what I learned. After analyzing my project, I can define it as a nature and ecology theme magazine. When I was searching for a good topic for my project, I decided to focus my research on a very crucial subject: „What is my local community doing on a day-to-day basis to achieve a sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle?” I started my work by searching for any environment-centered organization located in my hometown, Targu-Mures, Romania. I had previous experience and contact with an NGO called Milvus Ornithological Organization which helps injured birds and other wild animals in the area. (I used their help previously to nurse to health an injured pigeon which fell onto my balcony.) I also broadened my horizons after searching the internet and other paper-based publications and I came across the name of another NGO which is deeply implicated in local sustainability and ecological subjects. They are the Focus Eco Centre. I found their work also significant and game-changing for my town, so I included them in the loop as well. I used as reference one of my favorite magazines: National Geographic. It was perfect for finding the necessary inspiration and stylistic choices which reflected my vision and mindset. Therefore, it can be said that Go Green magazine does follow the main conventions of an informing theme magazine but also highlights the local issues we are facing in our everyday life in Romania.

When looking at Issue no.1 we can notice from the covers that is not an average conventional magazine, because it has its focus specifically on my hometown, Targu-Mures. I left the cover with a minimalist design, and only communicated the valuable information. I created a unique image incorporating the picture of my hometown captured on Google Earth combined with hand-made design elements to represent the two NGOs headquarters I wrote about in the magazine. A commercial magazine has many more elements present on the cover such as the byline, the captions, and sometimes „pull-out quotes”, but I considered these unnecessary for Go Green magazine, because it would have pulled the readers attention from the main vision: the local theme. In my early version I had 11 pages for the Magazine. I learned so much information during the project that I only had to put it on paper, and I just wanted to present a thorough image of my town ecological activities. The lack of advertisement and the „mirrored question technique” for the two interviews I conducted (The two interviews have the same questions for both organizations, and they are presented parallel to each other) are also highlighting the importance of the sustainable lifestyle. I find important to challenge through this project the average Eastern European people’s attitude towards environmental issues, which I experienced in my childhood, namely „it’s not our problem and we will wait for the Government to solve it”. As for the representation of social groups and issues I decided that my magazine should be the voice of all those simple people who are concerned about the climate changes, global ecological challenges, sustainable lifestyle, and conservation of local wildlife. My present project challenges those who believe that environmental issues are decided only on global scale by powerful political players or internationally known NGOs. The magazine creates representation through its content. I hope that by conducting interviews with local eco-friendly NGOs I could highlight the fact that it is enough to do important things for sustainability or helping wildlife daily to be a hero of the environment. We don’t need to win the war at once, but we must keep going to battle and fight for the environment locally, every day. In my opinion, having a magazine which presents local activists for the environment, that people can relate to, encouraging young people to choose them as role models or demonstrating for the elderly that is possible to have a sustainable lifestyle even if you are not a member of a world renowned NGO organization. I hope that my project can bring inspiration to those who would like to „Go green”.

I did an artistic representation of an environmentally aware local citizen and I like to include the

piece in this reflection because I consider that is highlighting the best way the representation of

social groups and issues, I chose in this project.

I also made a video version on this topic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xKrNQDLabRM6Udir0-c_Tk3f6CKb_e9a/view?usp=sharing