Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When designing my product I wanted to create a magazine representing stereotypes and age groups from the research I did. When researching magazines within my genre I found that the audience of Mixmag is 28% female, 72% male, the median age of a Mixmag reader is 24. The majority of them live in cities and are single. Mixmag represents males who are single that live in cities and are in there early/mid 20's. It was important for me to take this research into effect whilst producing my own research by conducting a survey, using Survey Monkey. The results from my survey showed that 60% were male and 40% were female, 85% of the people who took the survey were aged 16 to 19, however 15% were aged 20 to 24, and 60% were students. Taking these results into account, I decided to produce my magazine aiming at teenagers and young adults, also I chose to design my magazine representing two genders equally not just representing one more than the other. I have represented a particular social group as I made the model make direct address towards the camera to connote confidence, this will appeal to the audience and make them interested.

The target market of my product is teenagers and young adults as I fit into this category it was important for me when creating the product to represent the age groups clearly and to directly aim it at the audience, and to make it appeal to not only the audience but myself. I did this by using a bright colour scheme, stylish and modern costuming and main artists who were of a similar age to my readership. These things helped to present my magazine to young people and had a youthful attract to it, ensuring that the product appeals to my target audience.
 

When taking pictures I wanted my model to be dressed up but also look casual so it would appeal to the audience, to do this I took pictures of my model wearing different kinds of outfits. The first outfit was a white top and jeans this was the more casual look out of the outfits, however I thought that it fitted in with my genre as it is a common casual look among the age group that I am trying to represent. The second outfit was a black and white checked dress, which is the image I used on my double page spread, the dress represented the age of my target audience and had a youthful modern day look about it. The third outfit I used again made my model look youthful and fashionable, this was key as on my contents I have a specific column dedicated to fashion. I kept my models hairstyle simple, like you would style it day to day, I made the decision to do this because I wanted it to appeal to students from working class/middle class background, and I didn’t want her hair to look to extent taking the reader’s attention away from the rest of the magazine. In each shot my models pose is different, showing her confidence and appealing to the reader that the magazine is fun and out there like the genre. In one of the shots my model has her hand on her hip connoting power and dominance, this is significant as it shows that the genre is not only dominated by males but also females. From the stances of my model it will make the reader want to buy and read more about the artist.

 

 

Conventionally female artists are the main attraction for female and male audiences in this type of magazine. However, just having a female on the cover should be more appealing to males, as they are the bigger target audience for my magazine.

To get a real representation of how my magazine is received by my targeted audience, I composed some questions to ask various people who fit in with my target audience. Form doing this I can get a realistic and accurate view on how people take to my magazine.