Media Evaluation-Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

On the front cover, I used a photo of my younger sister. This will automatically create a younger audience because they will be interested in an artist who is around their age. I dressed my sister in a black lacey dress so she looked sophisticated but girly at the same time. I also dressed her specifically like that to make her look like a ‘pop’ singer rather than ‘indie’ or ‘rock’. However, the black and lace on the dress could attract a different social group to my targeted one such as rock or punk social groups I asked my sister to smile in most of the photos I took of her because on young teens’ magazine covers, the celebrity is usually smiling rather than pouting. The positioning of my sister would attract the typical ‘teenage girl’ social group, which is what I was initially aiming for.

The mise-en-scene of my magazine communicates that the social group I am targeting are energetic and enthusiastic because of the bright colours used throughout. The pictures used in my magazine contents page and double page spread are all girly and help to highlight the youth of my artist. I think that as a result using these images, I will attract a similar social group to the one portrayed by my artist.

My product presents its target audience by the colour scheme and age of the artist I chose to use. Also the cover lines and celebrities included in them represent the age group that I am targeting.  Also, the questions asked in he interview with Aisha Thompson are typical questions that young teens would want to know the answers to. The answers that Aisha has given are also very inspirational which presents a young audience because they are more likely to have dreams that need to be inspired; an older audience would have already gained inspiration throughout their lives.

I have slightly changed one of the representations of my target audience in my magazine though; the colour scheme. In my double page spread, I toned down the bold and electric colours because I didn’t want to over-power the interview and text by it being too colourful. I still kept the pink colour scheme, but added grey to create a balance of colours. This could change the way my product represents its target audience because it makes the magazine a bit more sophisticated, maybe edging towards being targeted at a slightly older age group.

The representation of my media product definitely supports dominant ideas about my social group. All in all it looks very girly and fun and involves splashes of colour. Using my younger sister as the artist for my magazine also contributed to supporting the dominant ideas because of her age and the fact that she looks innocent.