This document discusses how the author represented various social groups in their media product about rappers. They analyzed the representations using the categories of class, race, age, gender and sexuality (CRAGS). For each category, the author provided details on how the social groups were portrayed and rationalized their choices. They acknowledged some of their portrayals, such as only including male rappers, could promote oppressive ideologies. The author also discussed applying David Gauntlett's female empowerment theory to their portrayal of the one female rapper.

1. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT REPRESENT
PARTICULAR SOCIAL
GROUPS?
Marshall Sandawana

2. CRAGS
Class
Race
Age
Gender
Sexuality

3. CRAGS
C- Middle Class
R- Black
A- 18-19
G- Male
S- Straight

4. CRAGS
C- Middle Class
R- Mixed
A- 17-18
G- Male
S- Straight

5. CRAGS
C- Middle Class
R- Black
A- 17
G- Female
S- Straight

6. CLASS
 All my models were from middle class families and this was what I wanted for the
magazine as it is obvious to see it's realistic manner for the following reasons.
Middle class is obviously in the middle of the classes and this would mean that there are
large number of people from the middle class who would want to pursue their dreams of
being a rapper. A person in the Upper Class wouldn’t really think of being a rapper
of them being exposed to something more 'formal'. While the population in the lower
go down the route of very basic and skilled jobs.
The middle class is the best of all class because they have struggles themselves like
in the lower class but they are exposed to sophisticated resources such like the upper
class.This is why I chose models from the middle class because they can easily portray
sophisticated rappers because of the way they are dressed, we can see that they are not
part of the lower class because they can afford to wear famous brands such as Vans and
Adidas however they are not wearing brands such as Gucci to show that they are in the
upper class. It really isn't clear that they are not in either upper or middle class.

7. RACES
 In terms of race for my production, I decided to use a common stereotype which is
that rap is a genre which is dominated by people of African ethnicity but I didn’t
follow the stereotype of having a rapper who may seem "ghetto" to my audience.
Rap is predominantly made by black artists but that’s not to say that non-blacks
can't enjoy rap because that would be ignorant. Yes, there are many white rappers
but there are about double the amount of black rappers. These rappers are not all
good at what they do and are certainly not all bad but most good rappers are black
which is why you would picture any rapper to have a darker complexion. It is
human nature to hear 'rap' and naturally link it with a black person. Here I have
clearly used the appearance of my artist to enforce a stereotype without even
noticing. However Kulture refuses to show the typical, black, 'jewelled up'
rapper from the 'hood'.

8. AGE
 My audience is young adults but my artist are from the ages 17-19 but the
characters are 19-24 and this has been done to make the artists look younger than
they are so that the audience want to read the magazine even more because of the
zeal to read about people that are younger than them . One of the reasons is
because at their young age they are very much influenced by fashion and this will
help us attract our target audience who are older but are interested in the same
thing as the artist in the magazine. Basically my older target audience are into
things that most young people would be into but just delivered in a different
manner compared to how you would find it in Vibe or XXL.
Due to the young age of the models, I believe that the readers will be able to tell
old Mic Jones is due to him wearing a hoodie which is a stereotypical thing to
teenager wearing which makes him look younger than what he is supposed to be.

9. GENDER
 There are more male rappers in my magazine than female and this may be
interpreted as a confirmation of the convention that men are superior than women
in the rap industry which is why they receive all the fame and acclaim compared
to the female rappers who we hardly see in the limelight.
But there are brief explanations for this:
 Hip Hop fans are predominantly male
 Males don’t feel they can relate to women

10. MORE ON GENDER
 The following was found on Quora and stated by Phil Jones
Another thing you see happen over and over is that somehow women rappers are
pushed towards singing. Presumably by a combination of record-company pressure
or their own search for an audience.
Sometimes it works out, eg. Lauryn Hill. Sometimes the results are so so (Mecca the
Ladybug was a wonderful rapper in Diggable Planets but her song based stuff does
little for me.) UK garage artists like Miss Dynamite and Lady Sovereign went from
being exciting cutting edge artists to forgettable Rnb singers.

11. SEXUALITY
 As you can see there is a clear pattern of sexuality with all the artists being straight
and this confirms the convention of rap being a genre that is against
homosexuality.This is largely because rappers and rap fans are against homosexuality.
Why you ask ?
The main topics rappers rap about is crime, their neighbourhoods, their families, drugs,
alcohol, money and most importantly, people of the opposite sex. Now obviously you can
see the reason people would not give homosexual rappers a good reception because not
everyone(who listens to rap) would like to hear what one man thinks of another man as
something that is unlike the rap genre.
In my magazine it unclearly that I am confirming the sexuality convention. It would be
to use costumes that can indicate whether someone is LGBT or not such an outfit with
array of rainbow colours which could make some people wonder. The only way I have
represented these artists as straight is by making them wear typical male/female

12. CAN YOUR PRODUCTION BE READ AS
HEGEMONIC? DOES IT PROMOTE ANY
IDEOLOGIES THAT KEEPS GROUPS IN
SOCIETY OPPRESSED?
 My magazine can be read as hegemonic for a few reasons. One of them that I have
used 1 female rapper and 2 male rappers and this could keep females oppressed as
they will believe that females aren't valued in the rap industry and will further decrease
the numbers of female rappers. Another ideology pushed through is the fact that I only
used black and mixed raced models and this may be read as "only people of African
ethnicity are successful or popular around the rap genre". This ideology can oppress
people of other races because this will discourage them as they might believe that
their skin colour works to prevent them from blowing up in the rap industry and they
won't get much attention from the public if they are of other ethnic groups because
most good rappers are black.

13. DAVID GAUNTLETT
 The one female in my production is an empowered female, a woman who is in control
of her sexuality. She is clearly rejecting the passive femininity act and is showing
feminist progress
We can use David Gauntlett's female empowerment theory as the lady in my magazine
has the characteristics for this theory.
The lighting in the photo of her shows half of her body dark and the other half is visible
and this connotes the power she has and that she has a bit of a dark side. Women are
seen as the perfect sex and they are weak but the rapper in my magazine challenges
these ideologies. The challenge she puts up is not just seen through the photo of her but
it is also seen through the fact that she is entering a genre that is male dominated and
she is making big moves too! This theory is the only theory I could apply to my
magazine because rap is a male dominated industry which would need powerful women
in it. The other theories are based around women being objectified of which women in
rap don’t stand for that. In reality men are a bit more advanced than women at rap and
this is because there is more rap about for a man than for a female but in the social
context, women have been rapping for a shorter time compared to men.

14. DOES THE DAVID GAUNTLETT
THEORY SUIT AN INDEPENDENT
INSTITUTION?
 Yes, David Gauntlett's theory argues that "identities are not 'given' but are
constructed and negotiated. Now anything that has the word "argues" means that
it will be very controversial in some way. Usually in media, an independent
product will have more challenging representations in it because it a combination
of reality, the opinion of the producer (me) and the influence of the society at the
time. At this point and time, female empowerment is something that is highly
spoken about because I believe it is important to remind society that women are
just as equal as men. This is my personal opinion and I showed it in my magazine
as much as I could.