Question 2-

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Katie Thomas

Front Cover My model for the front cover was chosen

because she is an accurate representation of my target audience. This is because she is a late teenage female who enjoys pop music.

Therefore I think my audience would be able to relate to her, as they are a similar age.

The differences between the two images is that my image has the model not looking directly at the camera, I did this to make my magazine look different to regular pop magazines.

Also the model in “Top of The Pops” appears more glamorous because of her makeup and hair.

The clothes of the two models are fairly similar although perhaps my model’s clothes look slightly more casual in that she is wearing a t-shirt and jacket.

Therefore I have partially portrayed this social group in a stereotypical way.

The facial expressions of the two models are quite different because the “Top of the Pops” model isn’t smiling whereas my model is. I have decided to do this because it makes my magazine look more friendly and appealing to readers as she looks happy and smiley.

Both images also have a plain white background. This shows I have kept with some stereotypes of pop magazines. I did this because I think it makes the images look more professional and clean cut.

Other images

My images are mainly of females because this is my target audience and so I feel they would be able to relate to them more.

However, I have also used an image of a male showing my magazine doesn’t just focus on female artists and creating variety in the images. I have also done this because I think featuring male artists will also appeal to females, because stereotypically teenage girls like young male singers.

This goes against the stereotype because I have noticed many teenage magazines contain lots of photos of teenage/early twenties males because the stereotype is they can become obsessive towards them. However, my magazine is more to do with the music rather than the “celebrities” hence I am subverting the dominant stereotype by having fewer images of males and not commenting on them being “fit” or “attractive”.

Other images

However, in some of my other photos I have portrayed teenagers in a less stereotypical way. This is because I have images of female teenagers (who are my target audience) but represented them in a more mature way.

This is very contrasting to the pop genre stereotype because generally teenage girls are represented in a very girly way. This is shown through the clothing many of the models wear which tend to be bright dresses and skirts whereas my models are just wearing jeans and jumper/t-shirt. This make them appear less girly and obsessed with looks which is the conventional stereotype.

House style

Through the layout, fonts and colours I have also represented my target audience, because it is aimed specifically at them.

The colours I have used are red and teal which contrasts to the stereotypical pop magazines which tend to use pink and purple. These colours I feel connote youth and being really girly.

I have also used a less informal mode of address than the stereotypical pop magazines which use slang and abbreviations, like “omg”. This makes the target audience seem very immature.

I think the combinations of my colour scheme and mode of address challenges the stereotype, by showing teenage girls can be more mature and not as girls as generally represented.