Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 2

1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
Media Evaluation
Question 2
Eliza Chapman-Smith

2. Jewellery
By including strong jewellery on her
hands I have given the illusion that
my model is successful. Jewellery implies wealth as
they can afford to splash out on something that isn’t
essential, and that they don’t do much manual work
as they would need to have undecorated hands to do
this. This represents the social group of young
metropolitan singletons as they are aiming to get to
this sort of status and therefore they aspire to look
and live like the people on the cover. Conversely it
could be relatable if they are already in this
situation and so they empathise and feel like a part
of the community depicted in the magazine.

3. Makeup
I have chosen to put quite strong
makeup on my model, in the form of
dark colourful lipstick and smoky eye
shadow. I did this because I wanted her to come across as
very feminine, and also proud of her femininity. The
choice of makeup puts this across as it is a very visible
symbol of womanliness and she is not wearing a subtle
neutral shade, she is wearing a very bold lip colour.
Therefore she is not portrayed as young vulnerable girl,
more of a strong woman. This would represent the social
group of young women as they would want to associate
with this type of woman. Feminism is becoming more and
more of a recognised cause and it is encouraged to be
strong and confident, and I have tried to capture this
feeling by having a confident woman on the cover of my
magazine.

4. Ethnicity
The model I chose to use has dark
skin and this positively represents
the social group of ethnic
minorities as she is portraying
confidence in her race. She is not trying to hide her
race or exemplify the stereotypes of her race or any
other- she is just being herself. This is a positive
representation due to the fact that she is being very
overt about who she is and she isn’t conforming to
any stereotypes. It is an empowering
representation, it is encouraging being who you are
and not hiding form anything.

5. Eye contact
By choosing to have my model
make direct eye contact with the
camera she is portraying confidence. This is often
stereotypically associated with theatre people, and so
my cover represents the social group of actors. Most
people would expect performers to be very confident
and self-assured, so by the model displaying this trait
she is making herself more relatable to the audience of
young actors and actresses. Her slight smirk portrays
a sense of youth, which in turn suggests that she is
still starting out in this industry. This makes the
audience even more able to identify with her, as a lot
of them would be in a similar situation, trying to make
their way in the musical theatre industry.