Evaluation Question 4

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine, VENUS, is aimed towards a target audience of 16-25 year old British females

with an interest in Hip-Hop/R&B/Rap music.

I decided on this target audience because I saw from my research that there was a gap in the

market for a Hip-Hop magazine aimed towards females. There was also a gap in the market for a

British Hip-Hop magazine, as there were only American Hip-Hop magazines available on the

market, such as Vibe and XXL.

To make sure that if I created a magazine aimed towards females that also featured British Hip-Hop artists, I made a survey that my target audience would answer. 56% said that female Hip-Hop artists don’t get enough recognition, and 80% said there should be a music magazine based on British Hip-Hop.

I imagine the typical reader for my magazine to be a 17 year old girl from

urban London, from a African ethnicity. She would enjoy listening to

both male and female Hip-Hop artists, British and American. She

would also enjoy street dance, as this is a way Hip-Hop music can be

performed, and she would also have an interest in fashion.

Even though I just stated the typical reader for my magazine, any ethnicity of people can read

my magazine, and all over the world, as international artists such as the ones pictured

will be included in my magazine.

This would appeal to the social group of people who are solely dedicated to

finding new music and want to find outinformation on the new albums etc.

The featured artists would appeal to die hard fans ofcertain artists, because they’re such big fans they’llbuy a magazine just because their favourite artistis mentioned inside, because they aspire to be like them.

This would appeal to girls who maybe ‘fancy’ this male artist andwouldn’t be able to afford a trip to LA to meet him. Although this aconvention not commonly used in Hip-Hop magazines, because myaudience is so young they may need something else other thancontent to persuade them to buy the magazine.

Featured stories would also make fans of particular artists buy the magazine because theywant the newest information about their favouriteartists.

The readers of my magazine willwant to discover the newestartists to add to their extensive musiclibraries, my magazine allows them to do this with countdowns like this.

At £3.99, my magazine isn’ttoo expensive for the audience asthe magazine is issues monthly.Because some members of the target audience may be workingclass I didn’t want them to feelisolated if the magazine was too expensive.

The artist on the cover of my magazine iswearing fashionable, expensive looking clothes. This would appeal to a social group who have a big interest in fashion and maywant to find more fashion influences andemulate the stars in the magazines looks.

Giveaways aren’t usually associated with Hip-Hop, however with the younger female audience, an ideologyis that they aspire to be as successful as the stars that featurein the magazine. To allow them to experience this feeling,a giveaway would make them feel special if they one somethingan artist wore in the magazine, such as this chain.

The target audience all belong tothe social group who spend a lot of timeusing technology such as the internet andtheir mobile phones. I thought it wasimportant to allow the audience to interactwith the magazine online on different socialmedia websites such as Facebook, Twitterand Instagram.

The social group of fanswho regularly go to gigs

and concerts of their favourite artists are

represented as they canread reviews about their

favourite artists toursand decide whether or

not they would go to seethem.