How does media product represent particular social groups?

I have decided to compare two images from my music magazine, with real life magazines; one that is from my double page spread and the other, which is directly from my front cover. The right hand image is from my magazine, and the left one is from a real music magazine called “recognize”. I have identified that both models have similar poses, and they both happen to be black, which shows that majority of rappers are usually from afro-Caribbean backgrounds. They both have similar facial expressions alongside the same posture, in terms of their hands in their pockets, their hood hats on, which indicates to the audience that they are tough/gangster. The mis-en-scene of my image is of my model looking directly at the camera fiercely, alongside the real music magazine “Rap-up”.

This shows that the posture of my model is conventional as it is used in real music magazines. From looking at both backgrounds, one can identify that the backgrounds aren’t the same, however in one way they are seeing as they are both plain, however I decided to use a bright background on my magazine, whereas “rap-up” have used a light grey to make the black model stand out. Alongside

that I used a colored filter, and increased the brightness and contrast through the help of Photoshop on my model, whereas the real music magazine hasn’t used a filter on their model. Furthermore, I believe that the posture/ effect on both images represents todays youth society, as

well shows that its usually black people that are the front covers of music magazines.

“N-hits” is the front cover magazine that I have created, whereas the real music magazines named “frequency” and “XXL” are real music magazine. As you can see, real rap/grime music magazines consist of older black men, which appear to look tough/solid/bad boy. The older black model is wearing a number of gold jewellery pieces, which indicates to the audience that he is wealthy/thug, middle class. However the language used by the Afro Caribbean men may be of working class therefore the image contradicts the way in which they speak. I have also used a black model in my magazine, which is posing in a specific way that suggests to the audience that he is also tough/gangster. This again, I believe meets the codes and conventions of real music magazines.

However when comparing well-recognised rap/grime music magazines such as “XXL” the image on the front cover usually consists of two or more black male models, whereas mine is one model. This shows that my magazine is also unconventional when compared to popular grime/rap magazines.