The document discusses how the media product represents the target social group of "indies". Research was conducted online and by observing people to understand the interests, fashion, and music preferences of the target group. This included discovering that they like minimalist styles, bands like The Vaccines and The XX, and UK festivals. The magazine was designed around these insights by including profiles of up-and-coming bands, reviews of the best UK festivals, and personal profiles of favored bands. The artist used to illustrate the magazine was also modeled after an indie artist, Lucy Rose, in terms of hair, makeup and fashion style to make her realistic and appealing to the target audience.

1. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups ?
During my research I placed much of my time into this exact question: How was I going to shape my
magazine into something that my target group would appreciate and want to buy? It took a lot of
planning and using different resources until I was able to confidently known what it was I needed to
do.
Firstly, I conducted some research online using sites such as tribes.co.uk. Tribes were highly effective
as it let me know what sort of shops, gigs, festivals, alcohol, drugs, clothes, shoes etc that my target
market was interested in. Obviously, I wouldn’t be including most of this stuff in my magazine, only
elements such as the music, gigs and festivals. Without using this site and finding out this
information it would have proven a challenge to creating my magazine for the ‘indie’ cliché. I found
out that my group are very minimalistic, happy wearing a white tee, black skinnys and a hoodie-
that’s where my minimalistic approach came from; I guess you could say my magazine mirrors the
indie’s wardrobe. Secondly, I took inspiration from band’s that the ‘indie’ group were interested in,
for example : The Vaccines, The XX, Arctic Monkeys, Passion Pit- they are all on my + section of my
magazine, I made this choice in order to hopefully drawn in my target market to a magazine they
were unfamiliar with, with some familiar bands.
Furthermore, I also became more conscious of people around me, so I could get a real life
perspective of the target market I was aiming to please. I took note on what music they were
listening to, what they were taking about, what they wore, in order to shape my magazine around
there life’s. I found that that they were interested in up and coming stars, the best festivals in the UK
( as travelling abroad was something ‘those braindead twats off TOWIE would do right’), and more
personal band profiles on the bands they liked. Therefore I decided I would incorporate this
information into my contents page. Here are some of my examples of doing just that:

2. As you can see I have based my artist
on the current indie artist of Lucy Rose.
I used Lucy to base my artist on; I took
notes on her hair, her makeup and her
fashion sense, to make my artist as
realistic as possible.
I based my artist’s minimal makeup on
Lucy’s, as Lucy only wears a small
amount of mascara and minimal
foundation. Alongside this, I also made
my artists hair natural to make sure
that I achieved that ‘bed hair’ look.
I changed my artists dress sense to
make her more unusual. For example I
choose a metallic skirt, as I believed
that this stood out, and when
conducting my research the ‘indie’
group I found out that they like to
wear clothes that are ‘edgy’ and
‘unique’. However I then dressed the
outfit down by placing a plain Urban
Outfitters tee with the skirt. I
specifically choose an Urban Outfitters
top, as when conducting my research
my target audience enjoyed shopping
in Urban Outfitters.
There are differences between my
artist such as the age of them, as my
artist is young as she is 19 whereas Lucy is older than Bella as she is 23. I wasn’t ever going to be able
to say that my artist was 23, as she in real life is 16, therefore the eldest I was going to be able to say
she was, was 19.
Another difference between my artists is the length of their hair. I wanted my model to have long
hair, in order for me to style it into the bed hair look I wanted. Alongside this, I believe that Bella’s
hair fits the surfer image that I was going for when modelling her.