This document summarizes how a media product represents teenagers. It focuses on a magazine created by the author for a teenage audience. On the front cover are three teenage models - the main feature is a 17-year-old singer, Oceana, dressed casually in a band t-shirt and jeans to appear like a typical teenager. The writing aims to be neither too formal nor informal so as not to patronize the intended 13+ audience. Images of Oceana are welcoming and non-intimidating to connect with teenage readers, and the interview is in a simple question-answer format for easy reading. The target audience of teenagers is represented through focusing on an artist who lives a normal teenage life attending college.

1. Question Two - How does your
media product represent
particular social groups?
Katy Marwood

2. I have chosen to represent teenagers in my media product. This is
because I am a teenager myself and know what kind of things most
teenagers like. However, a secondary audience for my media product
could be young adults around the age of 20-25 who enjoy music from
the genre.

3. I have shown the models on the front cover of my magazine to be
teenagers by the clothes they wear and how they present
themselves. I have three models in my magazine – a teenage girl
(the main feature) and two teenage boys (free posters).

4. My main feature is a seventeen year old singer named Oceana, she’s not wearing a lot of
makeup so she looks her age and she’s dressed like a typical teenager. Her hair is very natural
and she looks like a seventeen year old unlike other celebrities the same age that dress to
impress other people and appeal to a wide audience. On the front cover she’s wearing a band t
shirt (Arctic Monkeys – a band of the indie rock genre and also a band featured on the front
cover) and on the double page spread Oceana is wearing jeans and plain clothes, this clothing
choice causes no other social groups to become offended as nothing she’s wearing affects or
promotes things like drugs/swearing/ethnicities/ religion/culture.Making Oceana wear clothes that
are intended to offend would be very controversial and sales of my magazine would drop and it’s
a morally wrong thing to do anyway even though a lot of magazines still do it to attract a larger
audience and generate bad publicity. Oceanas clothing choices don’t distract the reader from the
main focus of the feature which is her music and her career.

5. I took the age of my audience into consideration when
writing my magazines double page spread. As the
audience is primarily teenagers certain linguistic choices
had to be made during the process of writing. I didn’t want
my writing to be too formal but I also didn’t want my writing
to be too informal as I personally as a sixteen year old think
too much of informal language in magazines is very
patronising and unprofessional especially if they target
audience for the magazine is people above the age of
thirteen.
So, I decided to write an introductory paragraph which tells
the audience background information of Oceana and what
she has so far achieved in her short career at such a young
age.

6. My target audience are again represented in
my magazine as
my main feature is an artist that tries to live life
as a normal teenager and thus attends a Sixth
Form College. Many teenagers will then be able
to relate to Oceana on a personal level and a
strong connection will therefore be created with
the singer down to the magazines interview.
All of the images used in my magazine of
Oceana are very welcoming and do not
intimidate/offend the audience in anyway as the
models all look friendly and inviting.
My interview is wrote in a very simple “question
and answer” format, making it an easy read for
the audience.