How does your media product represent

different social groups?

In my product I have represented four main social groups; gender, age, social class and

ethnicity.

GenderThe characters featured in my magazine are mainly male bands and solo artists but I have included a small amount of female artists. Although the main band I have focused on for my

pages has a female lead singer artists listed on my contents page and as headline son my front cover are all male artists. This is suggesting that the male gender is more important and this occurs in a lot of other rock music magazines including Kerrang! This is so because rock

magazines have a mainly male audience. The audience for the rock magazine I researched as an existing product had a large percentage of male audience and for my magazine although I aimed for a varied audience the majority would be male. This is reflecting the importance I

have represented in my magazine pages because I have put a lot of focus on males and have represented this in my product through stereotypes. For example for my colour scheme, I

have used black, white and red. Males are stereotypically dominating, strong and hard willed and the colours I have used are bold and striking which have connotations of those

stereotypes.

The same connotations are portrayed through my font; it is bold simple and striking suggesting confidence.

AgeThe average age of characters featured in my magazine is around 22-30 which is a popular age

for music artists. However, this doesn’t reflect my audience. The magazine appeals more to a younger teenage audience and I have done this so artists can represent role models and be people that an audience can inspire too because at that age a lot of teenagers have idols. I

have represented the teenage audience in my magazine through writing style. Like stated in my pitch, a younger audience is stereotypically less educated therefore I have used simple sentences and written informally, for example ‘awesome’ and ‘Authority is brand new and there’s nothing like a fresh smash into the rock industry’. I have used a lot of exclamation

marks to portray enthusiasm as teenagers can stereotypically be seen as lazy and unwilling.

Stereotypically younger people like to look instead of read which I found in my audience surveys so in my layout I have used a lot of images and bright eye catching colours.

Red

White

Black

ClassFor class, my target audience is in the social group working class. This is the same as the class of

my characters within my magazine. I have represented working class through my characters, photography, font and writing style. I used a simple font and simple writing style as a

stereotype of the working class is that they are less educated and unemployed. I have used images with connotations of rebellion such as messy hair, serious facial expressions and

confident open body language.

I have also used colour to represent the working class. Red, white and black have connotations of confidence as they are bold and striking also having connotations of rebellion.

EthnicityThe main photographs in my product pages are of white British. My magazine is monocultural

and I have shown this through British characters- something that is very common in rock magazines- which reflect a white British audience. My magazine is monocultural because stereotypically working class people are not as much family orientated and do not have

specific religion beliefs which are stereotypes often associated with other different ethnicities. Like class, I have presented this through elements that have connotations of

confidence and therefore independence such as the colour scheme, facial and body language and mise en scene of photography.