Second Evaluation Question

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents particular social groups by focusing particularly on age and ethnicity. I didn’t represent gender and orientation specifically because the genre I chose wasn’t specific to those categories. Of course, all music can be enjoyed by anyone of any age and sexual orientation, yet it’s marketed to specific social groups. So to widen my target audience I only marketed it to two social groups in particular.

My media product represents age through the use of the colour scheme used, the language and the images used on each of the pages. The three colours; black, red and white are very popular amongst the younger audiences as they find it more lively and bold. As proved my my questionnaire results, which prove it to be the most popular option. Also, the image I have used represents this social group as it is showing a young female artist. A large proportion of younger audiences like singers their own age, or of a similar age. For example; Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers or Justin Bieber, who are all young and have huge fan bases. Finally, I represented my audience my using non-complex language and funky fonts that will appeal to them. Younger readers don't want to read long complex words, so I used smaller words and sentences that got straight to the point, instead of being too long. The font I used; "Will&Grace" switches between lower case italics and upper case non-italics, which is very modern and funky. They fit with the punk rock genre and make the fonts more appealing to the younger audience I am targeting.

I was focusing on the caucasian ethnicity with my magazine, however this doesn't stop other ethnic backgrounds from purchasing my media product. As musicians appeal to anyone and everyone, and there are no limits on who can like who. I represented this social group by using a good looking caucasian female as the model on my front page, who is also the main focus around my double page spread. My audience will be able to relate to these images because they will be of a young age and be more familiar with white singers. This makes the magazine more appealing to them, as punk rock musicians are usually of a caucasian decent, as black singers tend to focus on the R&B and hip-hop music genres.

Gender wasn’t a social category I decided to focus on because both genders should and get equal chances in life, therefore the magazine I created shouldn’t completely focus on one specific gender. I achieved this by using a good-looking female model for my front cover, who would be representing the artist for my media product. This attracts both genders to the magazine because most men like reading magazines that have women in them, often for looking at their physique. Whereas women will be attracted because they like to look at the hair, make-up and fashion sense of the people in the magazine. As some women admire celebrities and wish to make themselves appear more like them. The benefits of a female artist greatly outweighed the benefits of a male model, which is how I came to the decision of using the image I used on the front cover.