1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
Evaluation question 2
2. My magazine represents the social group of mainstream. The style
of this magazine is similar to the magazine Wonderland, however I
wanted to develop the niche style of Wonderland into my pop
mainstream magazine. The main reason for this is because
Wonderland is a magazine that not only talks about music but
culture and fashion too. This is because my social group is not only
into the music but the fashion and the culture around the artists
as well. I choose for my colour scheme to be white, pink and black
as this is stereotypical feminine colours that appeal to my target
market of women ages 15-25. I choose the cover artist because
firstly she was a women in the age range of 15-25. This means
that the target audience can inspire to be her. She is represented
like Taylor Swift on the Wonderland issue to the left. This is
because Taylor is dressed in pastel colours and her clothing is
covered up. Taylor is portrayed as a sweet feminine and demure. I
have posed Ellie in a chocolate box way. I have asked her to smile
a little so it shows a presence of sweetness to the picture. This
pose is similar to Taylors pose on Wonderland because Taylor is
half smiling and this shows an essence of youth. It is important to
do these type of poses as I need to remember the target audience
which is women ages 15-25. This therefore would appeal to
women aged 15-25 who are classed as ‘mainstream’ and like
pop, culture and fashion.
3. My contents page represents my social group of mainstream
because of the layout. This is because the page is quite
cluttered, however it is still clearly structured, for example, the
four columns and the text being lined up next to one another.
The content of this page includes different articles of artists in
the charts, competitions and fashion articles. The magazine
includes interviews from artists in the charts. It is necessary for
the artists to be in the charts as this is what type of music the
mainstream pop listener enjoys. The typical pop listener takes
the full package of the artist into account, for example, it is not
always about the music they produce, its about the fashion
sense of the artist and their personal life as well. So by writing
articles on the artist’s relationship status and what high street
shops they like to shop at, this automatically attracts the
mainstream pop listener in. The colour scheme of the page also
matches with the cover as the colours are pink, white and
black. This again adds a more feminine feel to the page and
therefore attracts the target audience of women aged 15-25.
One of the competitions is to win tickets for the V festival. This
type of festival will attract my target audience as the lineup is
mainly artists that feature in the charts weekly. This therefore
means that it fits in with the mainstream social group as this
festival will be popular within this social group and more likely
they will be interested in going.
4. The double page spread layout represents a formal and
structured layout because of the text alignment and its
simplicity. This portrayed more of the respected style of
pop that I was going for, as both the layout and the
graphology of Ellie is very formal. This is because the
pose that Ellie is doing is very simple yet elegant. The
graphology of Ellie will attract my target audience of
women aged 15-25 as they will aspire to be like and
look like Ellie. I believe because of the bright colours
used on Ellie’s dress they will attract the readers to the
page and therefore the audience will read the article as
they will be interested in the content. The article is a
question and answer type which I believe will attract
the mainstream pop listener audience more because
they will want to hear Ellie speak for herself and
therefore will enjoy reading the chatty language from
the artist. This also gives an informal tone to the artist
but because the audience are pop listeners, I believe
they will enjoy reading this type of article rather than a
descriptive article as it is a lighter read. This page also
still carries on with the colour scheme which is
pink, white and black so brings a feminine feel to the
page.
5. The similarities of my artist Ellie Mae and the Marina and the Diamonds is firstly the style. I have created quite a girly but old fashioned style
on Ellie as that is how Marina sometimes dresses. The main thing I copied from Marinas style is the accessories. The bow that she is wearing
in her hair has a very girly feel but at the same time quite quirky. So I copied this accessory and put three pieces of ribbon together to put in
Ellie’s hair. The way she dresses is very simple yet elegant. So I have tried to copy this by styling Ellie in a 1950’s dress for my final photo
shoot because this fit with the old fashioned style that Marina wears and the quirkiness of pulling the outfit off. The other similarity
between them both is their genre of music as Marina does either pop or alternative music and I have made my artists genre of music mainly
pop with a little alternative as well.
