How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question-2

AgeYoung people (Around 17-25) are represented the most within my magazine, as this is also the same people who read these magazines. Therefore my magazine represents them in a good way, as this compliments the average reader of my magazine.

“SHOUT”

Similar magazines

GenderDuring my research of magazines I found a high abundance of females. Also, my magazine’s target gender is male. The rock music genre is often aimed primarily at males and it’s a very masculine genre. In order to follow this rule my magazine has no women presented within it, all males, this reinforces the stereotype of rock music being for males. Furthermore, the males presented are doing masculine poses, in order to represent themselves as males even more so.

However sometimes in the rock genre women are presented, but usually subvert the stereotype of being feminine by pulling a masculine pose/ saying manly things. My magazine however does not represent any women as I thought it’d be easier to promote males rather than explain why I would have pictures of women. Furthermore my audience research says the target audience is 70% male.

In fact, whenever Kerrang has a female portrayed it’s ALWAYS Paramore.

Gender

Interestingly, on “Bauer Media”s website, Kerrang is displayed under “Men’s Entertainment”. This obviously shows us what audience “Kerrang” is aimed at, and therefore provides us with what type of social group is displayed in such magazines, men. Therefore, when taking this information into account, my magazine too focuses on men within its pages.

ClassThere are no media packs out there that mention class, but from my own research I can tell that the consumers of my magazine are Middle Class. One thing that reinforces this is the price £4.00 is reasonable for a middle class teenager who gets a good amount of money from work/parents. In addition the “Kerrang” media pack stated that the readers of these magazines are the biggest buyers of albums, buying 3 a mint on average, this would suggest a Middle Class customer. My magazine supports the idea of being Middle Class by asking for £4.00 and having well(?) dressed individuals depicted within it.

Here, you can see that my magazine also has a Middle Class person photographed. If we compare both these images they both hold the same details, casual clothes (shirts), both people are well bathed and both have looked after hair. All of these are signs of being Middle Class.

EthnicitySome ethnic groups are scarcely represented in rock music magazines. They usually consist of white, British or American, middle class people.Therefore my magazine adheres to this trend by only having white, middle class, British people shown throughout the whole magazine.However, rarely a different ethnic group is represented, here are some examples:

“Kerrang” “Metal Hammer” “Rock Sound”

Non-existent Non-existent

As you can see, non-white people are extremely rarely depicted in rock music magazines. In fact, I could not find any non-white people throughout all of “Rock Sound” and “Metal Hammer” via a basic Google search. In conclusion, rock music magazines are racist and therefore my magazine adheres to these values by having no non-white people depicted within it.