Olivia Cotterell

1. Exam questions 2 & 5
OLIVIA COTTERELL

2. Examination questions
 Q2: How does your media product represent particular social
groups?
 Q5: How did you attract and address your audience?

3. Who my target audience was
 Gender: predominantly female
 Age: 15-30
 Ethnicity: predominantly white females
 Education: college students (depends on the age)
 Social class: Middle class
 Disability: None in particular
 Lifestyle: Always listening to rock music in their spare time,
loves going to gigs, a part time job in a music shop.

4. Why I chose this kind of audience to
target?
 I chose to target this age range of females as I thought that these ages were the
most popular at buying magazines (as people of an older generation may want to
read about more formal subjects in a newspaper). I chose to target females
because I think that males and females have very different styles and tastes in
things like music, fashion etc… Therefore I wanted to focus more on one genders
likes and preferences over the others.
 Targeting young females (depending on the age) would be a good task for me as I
am a teenage female myself so I can appreciate what kind of things that they like
to see/hear/read, so this put me at an advantage.

5. My example target audience individual
 Age: 18
 Gender: Female
 Ethnicity: White/British
 Social class: Middle Class
 Education: College
 Disability: None
 Lifestyle: Attends college 4 days a week and has a part time weekend job at HMV (a music
store). Any free time she has she spends listening to rock music and she is forever searching
for gigs/concerts to attend because she loves rock music.
 Style: Her favourite colour is black and she loves to wear leather jackets. She likes to stand
out from the crowd and be different by mixing leather with tassels and lace etc…

6. Sub culture groups
 A typical sub culture group that rock music magazines tend to target are ‘punk rockers’,
‘rock chicks’, ‘goths’, ‘loud mouth’ etc… So quite a few extravagant groups of people. This is
usually quite an obvious trait as we see the models on the front covers of rock magazines
wearing similar clothing (their look inspires their readers). They all like to stand out from the
crowd and wear what they please.
 The vast majority of the females who are part of these sub culture groups like to wear a lot
of dark make-up e.g. black eyeliner, black/red lipstick, black nail polish etc… To give
themselves a very dark and dangerous look. For many years a lot of male punk rockers also
like to wear dark make-up like eyeliner therefore their sub culture male audiences also like
to do the same. This is because they like to fit in and create their own ‘styles’.

7. My magazines sub culture groups
 Similarly to other rock music magazines, my sub culture target audience group would be
‘punk rock chicks’, ‘rock chicks’ etc… This is because that is the look my model on the
front cover is portraying. Therefore this is appealing to my sub culture groups.
 I also targeted them by the colour themes of my magazine (black, white and red), the
articles that they would enjoy reading (which I found out with my questionnaire from my
focus group) and the general look to the magazine.

8. Representation: Age
 The way I represented age in my magazine was with the age appropriate articles I wrote about
(as the cover lines displayed on the front cover) like make-up tips, up coming tours and also
including free posters. I thought this was an age appropriate gesture as people of an older
generation may not be interested in free posters.
 Another way age is represented in my magazine was because the models that I used are the
same age as my target audience. Therefore the readers may find my magazine more appealing
as they feel comfortable in the fact that it suits them and their age.
 Also the clothes that my models are wearing throughout my magazine are also ‘trendy’ rock
clothes. This will appeal to my target audience age group as they are more likely to want to
keep up to date with fashion.

9. Representation: Gender
 I chose to target predominantly females for this magazine (although it may also appeal to males too). The reason that I
chose to do this was because males and females have very different tastes in things like fashion, hobbies and even
music. Therefore I wanted to focus more on one genders likes and preferences rather than just generally covering both.
 One way I represented females in my magazine was by writing an article about ‘rock make-up tips’. This article about
make-up is stereotypically a female interest rather than a males and I thought this would be an interest to my target
audience.
 Another way I represented the female gender in my magazine was by having the majority of images and articles
throughout the magazine about females. My front cover, contents page, double page spread and most of the free
posters were all images of females. I thought that this would be of an interest to my female audience because they may
idolise and feel like they can relate to female artists more than male artists. This is because they may live similar
lifestyles, they can follow their fashion trends etc…
 As my main target audience are females, I have included images of males in there too (my free posters inside) as they
may prefer to have larger images of males to keep. On the other hand this may have the same effect on males, they
may enjoy reading about female artists and being given large posters of females. This is because females find males
attractive and vise versa. This is evidently shown through the male/female gaze by Laura Mulvey. Therefore, overall
feature this targets a wider audience range.

10. Representation: Ethnicity/social
class/disability.
 My main ethnic target groups was predominantly white females. This is
represented by me taking photographs of white people. This may attract my main
ethnic group more as this is something they can relate to.
 The social class that I was targeting was middle class people. This is why I made
my magazine a reasonably affordable price so that they could afford to purchase
it each month. I chose to target this social class group as that is the most popular
group. Although this is not made obvious through my magazine.
 My magazine isn’t particularly targeted at any type of disability as I think that is
hard to portray. Also I didn’t want to target any specific disability as I didn’t want
to segregate any different groups or forms of disabilitys.

11. Representation: Colour theme
 My house style consisted of three main colours: Black, red and white.
 I chose to use these colours as my colour theme because they are very bold
colours so they will stand out off of the shelves in stores for people to see.
Another reason why I chose these colours was because they are very rock related
themed colours. They’re very dark, powerful, dangerous colours and this will
appeal to my target audience. I chose to use such bold colours as they represent
key traits that my target audience like e.g. danger, blood, gothic, darkness etc…
Also when I carried out my questionnaire, this house style was the most popular
one chosen by a selection of people from my target audience. Therefore I know
these colours appeal to them more than others would (like pink or green).

12. Representation: Font
 Throughout my magazine I used a lot of bold fonts. I chose to use these styles of
fonts as they stand out off of the page so they’re easy to read, so this is part of the
codes and conventions of a magazine. Also they represent my target audience
well because they like things to be big, bold, outgoing and drastic. So I tried to
portray this as best as I could through the fonts that I chose to use. This represents
rock music well as other fonts would be used for other genres of music magazines
like pop.

13. Representation: Photographs
 I decided to take a range of different photographs for my magazine as my target
audience answered in my questionnaire that they prefer to see more images rather
than too much writing.
 In the photographs I took, the models wore clothing that represents the genre of rock
music. They wore a lot of dark clothing, rock t-shirts, black jeans, dark makeup,
chockers (accessories) so they had that overall edgy rock look to them. This would be
eye catching for my target audience as they would like to follow these fashion traits
and like what my model’s were wearing.
 I also chose to include 6 free posters in my magazine as a feature. This would again
attract my target audience as it was a free gift for them. The images that I chose to use
for those posters were of the girl band, the main artist and of a male playing a guitar. I
chose to use this images as they’re all different in their own way and I thought they
would all appeal to my target audience.

14. Representation: Language
 I used different types of language to attract my target audience. I thought that this was
a really important to use the correct language because I chose to use the ‘wrong type
of language’ for a rock magazine, my target audience wouldn’t enjoy reading the
articles.
 “Rock chick” – rather than “female artist”
 “Rock star” – rather than “musician”
 “Epic”- rather than “exciting”
 There are a few examples of different rock styled terms that I used rather than just
basic words that may be used in other magazines like pop.
 I also used punctuation like exclamation marks so that the phrases and words sounded
more dramatic and loud, as this is how my target audience speak and address things.

15. How did I attract my target audience?
 With all of the representations and reasons why I chose to do them in the slides above, they
are mainly the reasons how I attracted my audience. I tried to use the correct tone of
language, colour themes, fonts, images etc… All so that it was eye catching for my target
audience. One important feature that I used for my magazine was including free items inside
(potters). This would have attracted my target audience as they feel as though they were
getting more for their money by receiving a gift inside the already purchased magazine.
Using direct address in my main image on the front cover, this would have attracted my
audience to the magazine as the image of the model would draw them in. As the model
looks straight into the camera, The audience on the receiving end feel as though she is
looking straight at them which instantly puts the magazine on a more personal level with the
reader.
 Overall with all of the different features and techniques I used to create my magazine, all
together it would have attracted my audience because I created it to suit them.

16. How did I address my audience?
 The main image on my front cover that I chose to use, my model is using direct
address and looking strait at the camera for the picture. Using direct address
through my main image addresses my audience because they feel like the model
is really looking at them and trying to get their attention. Also the language I used
throughout my magazine was used to address my target audience as I thought
that using the correct tone of language would attract them on a more personal
level as this is the language they use on a day to day and what they’re used to.