Question 2:

‘How does your media product represent particular social groups?’

My magazine is aimed at teenage girls and young women. I have been very stereotypical in a way

that I have typically made my magazine look glittery and glamorous using girly colours such as ruby

reds and gold’s. All of my images are of girls also, thinking that they would only want to see photos

of girly girls for this sort of target audience.

Demographics:

I have chosen to use teenage girls in my images, they are all teenage girls and I did this because I

thought the target audience would relate to a magazine with the same age range on the magazine,

like I previously stated, I have represented the girls and young women as stereotypically girly, I’ve

done this in the language, style, colour, context and In other things throughout my three products.

I particularly left out male images as this would bring a sex appeal to the magazine. I strictly wanted

this magazine to be aimed at women for time out on a work break or time to themselves to catch up

on celebrity gossip, not to gawp over topless pictures of men, like they can in other magazines. This

was particularly for music as well, not lifestyle. The Magazine may include some men, but It’s not

built or produced around the ideology of selling it through having the gorgeous men to look at and

the sex appeal.

The colours in my magazine, as mentioned before, are all bright colours mainly reds and pinks, this

suggests and represents girlyness and suggests that rock fans or heavy metal fans don’t suit this

magazine, because of the colours associated with that sort of magazine. I assumed my audience are

not interested in things that aren’t girly and stereotyped them typically as girly girls.

I would say my magazine represents middle class AB social groups mostly. The colours are all very

rich connoting the richness of the audience. The clothing worn in the images/pictures used in my

products are casual but of high quality. The make-up and hair is well presented, showing they take

care of themselves, and present themselves well.

The products however, represent young singers as wild in the DPS and outgoing. From the body text

and the article being about regrets and things young singers have done that are ‘funny stories’ show

that the audience will be interested in other people’s lives. It suggests that the audience of my

magazine are gossiping girls as represented in the article but also that girls, like the subject of the

article, can ‘break the rules’.

The text is mainly italic and fancy/posh. This gives a sense of sophistication and elegance

representation of the audience.

Magazines well represented like VIBE and BLENDER are magazines I used ideas from to create my

products. Therefore the people they represent can also be reflected a little in who my magazines

represents. They both represent the same age group and interests, although not the same gender

and class particularly.

My product suggests that young girls are interested in knowing secrets and exclusive things about

celebrities. It suggests they are interested in fashion and boys, as in the comments I have a whole

section on fashion and elements of ‘hot men’ or exclusive interviews with new x-factor male artist.

This is stereotypical. It represents those people that love to sit in on a Saturday night and watch all

the talent show competitions and the life story programmes where their secrets re revealed.

On the other hand girls are typically sweet and innocent, like in my contents and double page spread

images, smiling and looking away from the camera, showing shyness and innocence.

But the front cover image uses a piercing my addressing look, challenging this stereotype.

Overall, my representation of young women and teenagers is a mixture of reinforcing the

stereotype of teen femininity and challenging it.