The media product represents the following social groups: - Gender: Mostly features male musicians due to the dominance of males in the rock and metal genres. Includes one female musician to add diversity. - Age: Targets younger adults aged 18-30 but includes teenagers as the cover band members are 16-17. Focuses on new up-and-coming bands. - Class: Features working-class individuals through scruffy clothes and urban photography locations to match audiences' expectations of the genre. - Ethnicity: Mostly features white British males as metal/rock is a predominantly white genre, though includes some non-white musicians. Reflects the mostly white population of York.

1. Evaluation Question 2
How does your media product
represent particular social groups?

2. Gender
In my magazine the majority of bands and musicians (all of which are fictional) are male
due to the metal and rock genre being dominated by males. There are few famous female
musicians in the real music world such as Amy Lee (the lead singer of Evanesence) ,Taylor
Momsen (lead singer of The Pretty Reckless), Karin Axelsson (Bassist of Sonic Syndicate)
and The Marmozets which include 2 female members, this is just to name a few. These
musicians gain media coverage and when they do its usually focused on the fact that
they’re female and how they’re almost treating like outcasts in a patriarchal music genre. It
doesn’t mean to say that the metal genre is sexist, its just that males tend to be in metal
bands. I decided to add a female musician to my magazine to add diversity and I noticed
that female musicians are often only featured as small articles. I noticed this when doing
my research looking at existing metal magazines. My audience wasn’t gender specific but
I'd say this fits in with my audience’s expectations of what they would see in a metal
magazine.

3. Age
The age group in my magazine consists of teenagers, my cover band’s youngest member is
16 and the oldest being 17. However this is due to me being unable to get anyone older to
pose as my cover band. If this was a real product it mainly include young adults between
the ages of 18 and 30 due to it focusing on new up and coming bands. Metal and rock is
also predominantly a genre for younger people and my audience would normally expect
this. Most alternative music magazines include articles on “older bands” who have been
around for a while (such as Rise Against and A Day To Remember) but my magazine will
mainly focus on newer bands. In my double page spread the band are represented as 4
very humble and respectful young men who find their (almost) over night fame hard to
deal with. Breaking down the stereotype of teenagers being disrespectful, drunks and low-
lives. However there is a small part about getting drunk when they return home which
shows that the band can be “typical” teenagers.

4. Class
Metal/Rock is a very working-class based genre of music so my
magazine will obviously focus on working class individuals. This
working class idea is reflected in the photos as the band members
are wearing slightly scruffy and rough clothes and the urban location
of the photos. This fits in with the audience’s expectations of seeing
the bands in an almost dirty environment and in simple clothes that
they’d wear on stage and in everyday life. I discovered this when
doing my research of existing magazines

5. Ethnicity
My magazine mostly contains white british males (with one exception on the
contents page) because metal/rock is a predominantly white genre as opposed to
hip-hop and rap etc. However there is a handful of famous black metal musicians
for example Howard Jones (former Killswitch Engage vocalist) and Jean
Nascimento (guitarist of letlive.) Also I would be difficult for me to include ethnic
minorities in my magazine due to York having a mostly white population. Similar to
the lack of female’s in metal, this doesn’t mean that the metal genre is racist or
anything close to that, its simply down to metal being more popular with white
people (stereotypically)