2. 2. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
3. Gender
In pictures that I have used in my magazine I have used an equal number of males and females. In my pictures I have 4 models, 2 of
these models are males and 2 of these models are female. I have done this because I want to try and make it represent society and in
society there is an almost equal split of males and females, with females slightly outnumbering males. And in my questionnaire I
found there was 58.33% wanted a female on the front cover whereas 41.67% wanted a male on the front cover. I have generalised
these results throughout my magazine and tried to cater to everyone's wants and included an equal number of males and females in
the magazine so it represents both aspects of gender. Because if I did not do this and only catered to one gender this could cut my
readership in half.
The women in my magazine are stereotypically portrayed in the things that they are wearing and the make up that they have on.
They are wearing either low cut tops showing off a bit of skin, almost fem fetal like, as I feel that this will increase readers if they see
women like this inside when they pick the magazine up. And the other girl is wearing a fur coat and make up.
One of the males in my magazine is wearing red, which is a powerful colour as red has connotations with danger or fear, showing
that he has power, which stereotypically is the case with males, as males are the majority of the people with power around the
world. The main model of my magazine is wearing quite casual clothes such as jeans and a long sleeved t shirt, this gives him the
image of the classic teenager/young adult look about him. It shows he could be quite rebellious as he dresses how he likes.
4. Age
The models photographed in my magazine are aged 16-18 which represents the people that were in the majority that answered
the questionnaires. This may attract more readers as the majority of rock magazine readers are in the age range of 15-24 as you
can see from the reader profiles that I found for each one of the magazines that I analysed. The reason I think this will attract more
readers is because the people who mainly read these magazines can relate to the models as they are the same age and may feel
some sort of connection with them that may want to make they buy the magazine to see how similar they are with them.
I have represented the girls as looking quite classy and making it look like they like to take care of themselves, as girls that age like
to look good, or feel like they look good due to low levels of self confidence at this age, so I have represented the girls stereotypical
to their age
The way my media product represents age in males is the way that they are dressed, the main subject of my magazine is dressed in
quite a stereotypical way of a teenage boy, in dark colours and very casual, long sleeved t shirt and black jeans. The dark colours
could represent the dark nature of how teenagers are usually negatively stereotyped against. His facial expressions represent age
as well, as the main subject of my magazine when he looks at the camera a lot of the time he has quite an empty expression on his
face, this could represent the way he is feeling as teenagers are usually portrayed as being quite moody a lot of the time by the
media. He also has a festival band around his wrist, showing that he may have quite a wild life style and is very into music, which is
more of a younger thing to do to go to festivals as they seem dominated by the youth.
5. Ethnicity
The subjects shown in my magazine are all white British. The reason for this is because in the genre of music,
alternative rock, is dominated by white people and stereotypically it is thought of as a music genre that seems
to be dominated by one race. It is the same as other music, like hip-hop/rap, that genre is heavily dominated by
black males, but is slowly becoming more diverse. Another reason that I have used all white models is because
not a lot of my friends are any other ethnicity than white, which shows a lot about society and how it is
predominately white.
6. Class
Class is mostly defined by job role, but because the people in my magazine are teenagers and do not necessarily have jobs their class is
defined by their parents job role.
The majority of alternative rock music artists are middle class, so I have tried to represent this through my models. I have done so with
what they are wearing, for instance with the females in the magazine, one is wearing a fur coat and make up and the other girl is wearing
a necklace and has a lot of make up on. This shows that they can afford luxuries which suggests that they may be upper class. The males
in my magazine are wearing items of clothing and accessories which may suggest that they are middle class, as the male in my contents
page at the bottom is wearing a button up shirt and an expensive branded jumper. And the male that the magazine is focused on has a
Leeds Festival band around his wrist, which suggests he has enough money to pay for luxuries. So all of the models on my magazine fall
into the ABC 1 category. Which is good because so does most of the readership for the 3 magazines I analysed, this means that the
reader may be able to relate more to the artists in the magazine as they may feel more alike with them.
I have priced my magazine at £2.50, which is not too expensive at all so the working class and middle class will be able to afford it, which
is good as that means that I am not limiting my readership to only the people with a lot of money so a lot more people will be able to
buy and enjoy the magazine.
