How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation

When creating my magazine I had to look at what social groups I was targeting it towards, because this was to be the dominant audience for my magazine.

Not only did I have to look at front covers but at magazines as a whole. I had to look at the conventions of Indie and other music magazines, because that was one of the social groups I was targeting.

The social group that is represented by my magazine is indie teenagers.

Social Group - Class

However, when looking at indie social group I had to look at class. I think my social class is middle class, because they have the disposable income to spend on magazine such as mine and they are my target reader. They like to go out with friends, go to cinema buy the new CD or Itunes download by there favourite band.

The characters in my magazine are all middle class, have gone through education and want to work etc and so this reflects my audiences class. I've done this because I want my audience to feel as close to the characters as they can.

Social Groups - Age

While designing my magazine front cover, contents and Double page spread, I had to think about the things that represented my target age.

The characters in my magazine are aged between 16 and 18 which represents the age of my audience perfectly. I wanted to mirror my audience in the people they were reading about so that they had a connection with them.

My target age group was 16-18 years old and so I had to look at different things such as Images, Colour schemes, writing styles,

The characters in my magazine support stereotypical teenagers, as the people in my magazine enjoy music, hanging out with friends and having a good time and this is what I wanted in my magazine because this represents our teenage generation in the best way.

Social Group - Gender

On my front cover and contents page I have used a mixture of pictures that include characters from both genders. On my front cover I have used one male and on my contents I have used 3 females trying to balance out the gender in my magazine.

I wanted to balance out gender in my magazine because I originally planned to target my magazine to equal gender audience. I wanted a magazine that would appeal to both genders and so I did this by using equal male and female bands.However in my magazine

contents I planned a lot of articles that include male characters and so it seems like a magazine that would probably be targeted more towards a male audience.

While looking at gender I tried to make it equal however when looking at stereotypes such as girls like fashion, music, make up etc. and boys like cars, COD and music, it seems that my magazine supports the typical view of what boys like and my magazine supports that more than a female stereotype.

Why my social groups read my magazine

My audience would read my magazine because they want to find out what's new with their favourite bands, or the new CD that’s out soon or the festivals that are on this summer. They want to read for the information that they can receive from my magazine.

My audience want to read my magazine also for the integration and social interaction. They want to read about what their friends are reading about and want to talk about it when their going out. They want to read bout things that they have in common with other people so that they feel part of a mass group of people. They want to fit in and this is how they can do it.

One of the final reasons that my audience would want to read my magazine would be the entertainment and the escapism. They want to escape to a world where they only read about their favourite things. This means that nobody can tell them what to do or read and this appeals to them. Also they want to find out about celebrities and their favourite bands because they like to know modern gossip.