How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation question 2

My magazine represents the social group of mainstream. The style of this magazine is similar to the magazine Wonderland, however I

wanted to develop the niche style of Wonderland into my pop mainstream magazine. The main reason for this is because

Wonderland is a magazine that not only talks about music but culture and fashion too. This is because my social group is not only into the music but the fashion and the culture around the artists

as well. I choose for my colour scheme to be white, pink and black as this is stereotypical feminine colours that appeal to my target market of women ages 15-25. I choose the cover artist because

firstly she was a women in the age range of 15-25. This means that the target audience can inspire to be her. She is represented like Taylor Swift on the Wonderland issue to the left. This is because

Taylor is dressed in pastel colours and her clothing is covered up. Taylor is portrayed as a sweet feminine and demure. I have posed Ellie in a chocolate box way. I have asked her to smile a little so it shows a presence of sweetness to the picture. This pose is similar to Taylors pose on Wonderland because Taylor is half smiling and

this shows an essence of youth. It is important to do these type of poses as I need to remember the target audience which is women

ages 15-25. This therefore would appeal to women aged 15-25 who are classed as ‘mainstream’ and like pop, culture and fashion.

My contents page represents my social group of mainstream because of the layout. This is because the page is quite cluttered, however it is still clearly structured, for example, the four columns and the text being lined up next to one another. The content of this page includes different articles of artists in the charts, competitions and fashion articles. The magazine includes interviews from artists in the charts. It is necessary for the artists to be in the charts as this is what type of music the mainstream pop listener enjoys. The typical pop listener takes the full package of the artist into account, for example, it is not always about the music they produce, its about the fashion sense of the artist and their personal life as well. So by writing articles on the artist’s relationship status and what high street shops they like to shop at, this automatically attracts the mainstream pop listener in. The colour scheme of the page also matches with the cover as the colours are pink, white and black. This again adds a more feminine feel to the page and therefore attracts the target audience of women aged 15-25. One of the competitions is to win tickets for the V festival. This type of festival will attract my target audience as the lineup is mainly artists that feature in the charts weekly. This therefore means that it fits in with the mainstream social group as this festival will be popular within this social group and more likely they will be interested in going.

The double page spread layout represents a formal and structured layout because of the text alignment and its simplicity. This portrayed more of the respected style of pop that I was going for, as both the layout and the graphology of Ellie is very formal. This is because the pose that Ellie is doing is very simple yet elegant. The graphology of Ellie will attract my target audience of women aged 15-25 as they will aspire to be like and look like Ellie. I believe because of the bright colours used on Ellie’s dress they will attract the readers to the page and therefore the audience will read the article as they will be interested in the content. The article is a question and answer type which I believe will attract the mainstream pop listener audience more because they will want to hear Ellie speak for herself and therefore will enjoy reading the chatty language from the artist. This also gives an informal tone to the artist but because the audience are pop listeners, I believe they will enjoy reading this type of article rather than a descriptive article as it is a lighter read. This page also still carries on with the colour scheme which is pink, white and black so brings a feminine feel to the page.

The similarities of my artist Ellie Mae and the Marina and the Diamonds is firstly the style. I have created quite a girly but old fashioned style on Ellie as that is how Marina sometimes dresses. The main thing I copied from Marinas style is the accessories. The bow that she is wearing in her hair has a very girly feel but at the same time quite quirky. So I copied this accessory and put three pieces of ribbon together to put in Ellie’s hair. The way she dresses is very simple yet elegant. So I have tried to copy this by styling Ellie in a 1950’s dress for my final photo shoot because this fit with the old fashioned style that Marina wears and the quirkiness of pulling the outfit off. The other similarity between them both is their genre of music as Marina does either pop or alternative music and I have made my artists genre of music mainly pop with a little alternative as well.