How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My products represent the social group of ‘Aspirants’ people who live in the moment, keeping up with what’s cool and know the look, music and lifestyle they want. The demographics of my target audience are males and females between the ages on 18-24 with an ABC1/ AB ranking, the ages which my target audience is the transitioning period of their life as they are more likely to be at university being in the AB ranking. Therefore I have decided to represent them in various different ways within my magazine with the artists I decided to use on the front cover, as this is the type of music I am implying they are interested in. Another quality I have implied that they have is that they’re not really a fan of ‘touched up’ photographs where the person on the cover looks flawless or what society stereotypically refers to as ‘perfect’, I have represented this within the pictures I have used in my product of a regular looking girl, not with perfectly tamed blonde hair or bright white teeth showing; I did this deliberately so that my target audience could relate to her. I have also represented my audience through the colour scheme as my product is aimed at males and females I have tried to use unisex/neutral colours of white and light grey but also with red accents, none of these colours clash and I think they give a modern connotation to the magazine. The language I have used is quite colloquial as I know this is how this particular social group speaks, I also used puns on the contents page to introduce the technology page which is ‘mic tech 1,2’ also including a musical reference as this is the type of light humour I expect my target audience to smile at. The kind of personality and interests my magazine suggests that my target audience have is quite laid back and this is why I have avoided making my cover and contents very ‘busy’ with lots of coverlines and stories. Also my product suggests that my audience is interest in new music, fashion and films of any calibre. Some of the things I decided to leave out of magazine as I assumed my target audience/ this social group wouldn’t be interested in are reality TV shows, gardening and fishing because all of these things don’t seem to fit with the younger audience which my product is aimed at however this doesn’t mean that males and females between the ages of 18-24 and within the ‘Aspirants’ social group don’t enjoy watching or doing these types of activities. I believe that my magazine does challenge the stereotypes of the age group which my product is aimed at, as it doesn’t include the topics of partying and misbehaviour which is the negative connotation usually associated with this age group. However my product differs from that and creates a more artistic and sophisticated image for the younger generation. When comparing the front cover of my magazine and the front cover of an existing product which is CLASH a magazine which I intertextualised mine with, there is various similarities and differences which come to mind. A big similarities would be that both covers are not using direct modal of address for the cover image as both models are looking away from the camera, something unusual to see on the cover of a magazine. Also the mastheads a very similar is colour and font and the barcode is placed in the same place, another similarity would be that both of these issues are themed mine being ‘the fashion issue’ and CLASH’s being ‘the film issue’. However some differences include the choice of models, mine is female and CLASH’s is male, also the visual effects are very different as with my product I made minimal changes to the original image where is with CLASH they have used creative lighting and editing to give the image a surreal and artistic feel.