This document discusses how a rap music magazine represents a particular social group. The magazine targets deprived council block kids who look up to rap stars. This social group is often negatively portrayed in newspapers as troublesome teens or ghetto kids. The magazine aims to portray this group in a positive light while still including some common stereotypes, but providing justification and explanation for them. Images and quotes about drugs, violence, and provocative poses are explained as representing the realities of growing up in difficult areas and using drugs/poses to cope or make a living, rather than as glorification. The magazine aims to show this group cares about family and only acts in self-defense, challenging negative stereotypes.

1. {
How does your media
product represent
particular social
groups?

2.  My media product is a 21st century Rap music magazine, for
this reason I clearly portray a particular representation of a
certain social group. The social group which my product was
aimed at was the youth of today, the primary market for it
was the deprived council block kids who look up to rap
stars. These people are willing to give it their all just to
become successful like their elders who have gone from rags
to riches.
 This social group is sometimes portrayed in a negative
perspective by the media; we constantly see articles slating
them off in the newspapers. The Sun loves portraying a bias
and negative image of us teens, they quite frequently publish
articles and front page story’s which are dedicated to how
bad the youth of today are!
Social group representations

3.  As you can see in the newspaper front cover stories below they
love a good old exaggerated story about how bad the youth of
today are. They always portrayed in an unjust way and I am
going to explain why I am using them as my target audience and
still keeping some of the common stereotypes in my magazine,
but at the same time portraying them in a positive light!
Social group representations

4.  My rap magazine has images of rap stars looking fierce
and aggressive, alongside this it features some images of
a girl lying in a provocative manner wearing not much
clothing flaunting what she has to offer, as well as this I
also have an image of my rap star posing like he has a
gun. On top of all the pictures I also have a few quotes
which are referring to drugs and living life on the other
side of the law.
 That’s all the supposed negative aspects out of the way in
my magazine. A typical stereotype would be that my
magazine readers and the people featured inside it are
drug dealing sluts! However I am going to portray to you
the other side of the story, which is the real side to the
story!
 My magazine represents the primary social group of the
“troublesome teen/ghetto kids” in a positive light, it
fulfils all the necessary ideologies in its content, the
images are no different to those in XXL and Vibe but mine
have this explanation and justification as to why they
aren't as bad as people make them out to be.
Social group representations

5.  My first image of an aggressive and fierce looking rap star isn't
because he goes round beating up people and robbing up granny's
like The Sun and The Daily Mail like to make us believe. The reason
why my star is posing in this way is due to his upbringing, being
born and brought up in an area as rough as Peckham isn't easy.
When people wont to take everything you have off you and exploit
you, you have to put on a fierce and aggressive look to protect
yourself. TJ Cruz is using this look to show everybody that he grew
up in the hood where life wasn’t pleasant but he has managed to
make a name for himself, he has turned himself into an international
star thanks to him not giving up on his dream and fighting for it.
Once the people understand why he looks the way he does they will
empathise and sympathise with him. The gun and gang culture isn't
because they like the thrill of going into turf wars, there gangs are
like our families, they don’t have lovely “nuclear family” like all the
posh, privileged people reading the newspapers do, they are
brought up with one or even none at all! For this reason they have
had to join gangs to find support for themselves, if they point a gun
to somebody's head or threaten somebody its only to protect one of
there gang members, if somebody killed or threatened one of your
members of family wouldn’t you do the same? I know that most of
you would and even in the bible it says “an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth”, they are only doing what is right and just morally, its
just the media decides to escalate everything and make them seem
like serial killers!
Social group representations

6.  The next image of Laura lying in a provocative
manner is stereotyped as a “slutty prostitute” in
newspapers like The Sun and The Daily Mail,
when in fact it is an image of a girl who is
making the most of her options in life, if she
isn't the best academically at least she can make
a living for herself by modelling, she isn't doing
any harm to anybody by taking these photos. In
fact she is saving the tax payers money by not
sitting around as an unemployed benefit thief,
she has gone out of her way to make herself
look like this, nobody notices the amount of
time and effort she has to go through to make
herself have a figure like that. She puts in the
hours at the gym and makes sure she eats
healthy, the least we can do is appreciate what
she has to offer, let her go by the motto “If
you’ve got it, flaunt it” and allow her to make a
living through whatever method she seems
necessary!
Social group representations

7.  On top of all these images I have a few quotes
throughout my magazine which refer to drugs and
disobeying the law. I would just like to take a moment
to inform you that I am not trying to publicise and
agree with them taking drugs, I am just trying to
portray a correct and accurate image of what they are
doing. As well as showing you what they are doing I
want to tell you the genuine reason why they are doing
it as well, no the myth that they do it to act “cool” and
“hard”. In my magazine both “TJ Cruz” and the artist
“SAHI” mention about smoking weed in a round about
way. However they don’t say that they smoke it to act
cool, or to fit the gangster image, they smoke it because
it keeps them calm and stress free, they aren’t brought
up in the nicest of areas and when you have a lot of
family issues and things going on in your head it is
impossible to find time to sit down and write lyrics. On
the other hand by having a bit of Marijuana it helps
them calm down and manage to think straight so they
are able to write their lyrics for there songs! They are
only doing it so they can help aid their career, they
don’t deal it either, TJ Cruz mentions how he chose rap
over drug dealing at a young age, this shows the
dedication he had unlike a lot of young boys who
decide to go for the money rather than what's right!
Social group representations

8.  So after reading through the reasons I have given now I would
hope that you can agree with me with the fact that my
magazine is portraying my social group in a positive light. I
feel that I have given a clear justification as to why I have done
certain things to my magazine and justified the reason for the
members in my social groups behaviour.
 Due to my product being on the music genre of rap I had no
other choice but to portray these representations. In my
photos you can see that I have mimicked the styles used by
professional magazines in order have similar image quality
and effect. You can see in my front cover image that I have
used a mid shot style picture so I can portray my artists facial
expressions but neck region where his chain is balanced! I
have done this because the chain is a significant piece of
iconography which is related to rap stars and the hood image!
Social group representations

9.  Through my article I have subverted the stereotype that all rap stars and hood rap
lovers that are part of my social group are uncaring, ruthless yobs who don’t have
feelings. You can see in my article that I have mentioned about members of this
social group caring about their loved ones who have died and that they only kill
or fight due to certain circumstances in there life that they cant change, if that had
any other option they would take it, but they don’t so there stuck in this vicious
cycle. At first this stereotype which I have subverted was an implicit ideology,
after reading this the explicit ideology is that the members of this social group do
care and have feelings just like other human beings, they just can t help it, this is
the way that they’ve been brought up so they are forced to act in this manner!
 The reason why I have chosen this representation is because I feel it is unfair for
this social group to constantly be portrayed in a negative light, it is a bias view
point which doesn’t portray the true, full story!
Social group representations