Q2) HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

Introduction... Throughout the research and planning of my pop music

magazine production, I had to take into account a variety of representations and what they indicate about certain social groups.

I felt like it was important that the female models, who are found on my magazine pages, should provide positive and aspirational ideologies towards my young female readers.

There is no restriction on who can read the pop magazine dependent on their social status, as they are a younger audience of 13-16 years. This is because every girl member of this age income bracket should receive the same gratification from the magazine product.

However, even though this may not conform to traditional ideologies of females within the media, I wanted to relate to the particular age group that I was aiming for. It is important that the girl members of my primary audience, who are reading my pop music product, feel empowered. The pop artists (models) used within the magazine pages help create this image of my audience feeling confident within themselves, when it comes to following their own dreams (maybe by using their own talents).

CLASS (CRAGS)Within the British media, the middle class

are thought of being ‘exaggeratedly represented’ within British newspapers and TV dramas.

The upper class are possibly judged of being too sophisticated to receive enjoyment from the representations within pop music – Within my own music production, I don’t consider class being excessively obvious as there is little confirmation of peoples’ backgrounds/social class (except the use of slight colloquial language within the interview about Chaz Flora, e.g. ‘lol’).

Pop is a section of mainstream culture, meaning it can be expected that people who enjoy and are interested in pop music also have a variety of other mainstream interests.

This is such as mainstream TV which directs me to think that there can be relations between other readers’ interests and the music within my magazine production.

Due to my target audiences’ age, my pop music product shouldn’t be influenced or affected in any way by social classes. Therefore, the class structure shouldn’t concern or have an effect on my pop production.

The major representation of celebrities within the media, specifically within magazines, advertising and TV, is that everyone should aspire to be like them and live their rich complex lifestyle.

Since it is a convention of pop, I was aiming to provide this message to my female readers within my own pop music magazine.

In order to accomplish this, I used models who were at least attractive and aspirational looking. They had to look suitable on my pages and relate to the genre of my magazine, by not making it look like I have randomly chosen them.

I made certain that my models were wearing relatable and relevant clothing to my younger teenagers, but also conform to the idea that celebrities always have the most recent items.

RACE (CRAGS)Mainstream pop music is regularlyallied with a white audience/artists,which is a convention of the pop genre.The music is principally aimed at a whiteaudience.Currently, a diversity of artists are being introduced into mainstream pop culture.These are artists such as Nicki Minaj and

Bruno Mars, who both come from separate ethnic backgrounds.

These two artists are breaking through to pop music, although, usually many black artists, who are represented in pop, originate from an RnB background.

Within my production, I have achieved to portray a little diversity of my models’ age, approximately using models aging between 16 to 27 years old, however, I believe that I have hardly shown any diversity when it comes to race. This is mainly due to the limited availability of models.

My magazine would be maintaining with the progression towards a more accepting society, if a larger diversity of models were represented on my pages.

This is an improvement which I would take into consideration, the next time I create a certain media product.

AGE (CRAGS) Pop is a specific genre popular for its artists having an

extreme rapid turnaround, with them having small career life spans.

Within my music product magazine, I have represented a small age group of people aged 16-27 years through the use of my models. This may not have been a reasonable representation of pop artists in the media, but I specifically chose these ages as I wanted them to be relatable with my teenage audience.

I have conformed to the stereotype of having young teenage/adult artists, therefore, I have not really challenged the traditional ideologies presented in pop.

I’d realised whilst coming across the pop genre that there seems to be what might be known as an age limit in pop. This conforms to the traditional ideology of binary opposition that older artists are ineffectual and less appealing to the eyes of the young audience, whereas young artists hold more potential and are more powerful.

GENDER (CRAGS) A constricted group of representations of women within the

media are often related to a domestic state, such as women being seen as housewives and mothers.

On the other hand, in the media, particularly in music magazines, women are regularly observed as sex objects; objectified and sexualised in order to attract a male audience (Laura Mulvey’s male gaze).

Furthermore, the roles of women have a tendency to be minor then their male counterparts within the music industry.

Promoted within the media, women are also usually conveyed to be young, slender and frequently white, which conforms to a stereotypical image of ideal beauty.

I aimed to fix to these ideologies, due to my magazine being precisely pop, since typical beauty advertises in mainstream genres such as pop.

I have come upon this into my own magazine production, which is correspondent in my options of models and youthful attire.

On my front cover, I have specificalley chosen to use a young female as my main focal image (known as ‘Chaz Flora’).

This is because presently the genre of pop music is somewhat dominated with solo female artists.

Throughout my planning and research, I decided that I wanted my female (and male) models to send a positive ideology towards my target audience. This is so my female teenagers are aspired by the artists’ success in music; for example, Chaz Flora provides a positive ideology that even ‘younger people can have a happy success with the use of their talents’.

In spite of this, I have still conformed to the traditional ideologies of pop, except with all of my models being white in race.

How I represented people within my production was mainly impacted due to the age of my primary audience being 13-16 year olds.

I could not represent overly sexualised women as this would be unsuitable and inappropriate for the age group, and would also put off parents from buying the pop magazine for their own children, due to its sexual manner.

I became dependent upon the representation of women as innocent females due to this, without the influence of anything sexual.

This innocence conforms to traditional ideologies that females are either seen as pure and innocence, or frivolous within the media.

Judith Butler (performative of gender) argues that we are born a certain sex, but gender is performative. A man is not inherently masculine or a female inherently feminine; we perform different aspects of gender.

Gender does not exist outside of these performances; for example, the act of wearing make up defines a person’s gender, rather than their gender defining the act.

In general, ‘performative of gender’ means that women in the media act in a inherently female way, not because they are female but because this is what they are known.

In my magazine product, I portrayed my female models posing in a feminine way as this is stereotypical of pop culture. For example, Lisl Tudor has her hands on her hips as she smiles directly at the camera.

Also, the ‘selfie’ of Jamie hugging his girlfriend in a gentle manner (on the contents page), conveys a more emotional and sweet side of the male artist, which will appeal to younger teenage readers (as it’s not exactly the most masculine action performed).

SEXUALITY (CRAGS) Pop culture is traditionally very mainstream. Mainstream culture principally promotes relationships between a male

and female, as this is what is considered traditionally ‘normal’ within society.

My magazine product is mainly female orientated and portrays the traditional representation of sexuality, which is commonly conventional of pop.

The ‘selfie’ image of James and Jenny on the contents page, supports traditional heterosexual relationships, however, this is really the only reference of male and female relationships on my pages (as the other content is focused on solo artist’s and their music career).

The image of Lisl Tudor has conations of females who are looking to attract males by her fancy attire and her direct posing towards the camera (however, the aim is to appeal young females for wanting to read about ‘Nicole’s’ tips for pop success). – not principally to attract a male audience.

• The larger percentage of the population is made up of females who are interested in males, therefore, there is a wider female audience who are attracted to boys (I have edited some images of good looking males onto my magazine pages, to appeal a female teenager who may socially interact with their friends about boys).

Conclusion... Throughout my magazine production, I have conformed to

stereotypes which are represented within the media. I decided to conform to the conventions of pop magazines, as

they successfully conform to conventions which are appealing to the primary target audience.

An example of a convention I chose to conform to, was the use of colours (the main colour scheme of light blue, red and white) on my magazine pages, as they are representative of the genre and will appeal to my young teenage female target audience.

I found that it was important to consider conventions during the process of my production, although, it would have been appealing to push traditional boundaries set out by pop magazines (as this would have made my magazine individual and slightly different from other pop products). On the other hand, challenging common conventions could prevent my pop product becoming successful, as it could have not reached the demands of my target audience. Therefore, I didn’t really focus on challenging stereotypes within pop so much with my production.

CONSTRUCTIONIST THEORY

I can apply the ‘constructionist theory’ to a particular representation; I believe I represent the main focal model, who is found on every one of my pop magazine pages, known as Chaz Flora as aspirational but also attainable. This is due to the image representing her as something of a ‘klutz’ and a little clumsy.Due to her being an aspirational 16 year old

teenager, my female audience would want to ‘buy’ into what she has, e.g. her busy but enjoyable lifestyle as a young successful artist (star as commodity).Also, she sells a positive ideology to her young fans that ‘you can be successful by doing what you love if you work hard for it’ (star as ideology).