Draft Q2 of Evaluation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

By the use of costumes, props, language, pricing and social media, my magazine represents the particular social group that I have chosen to target my magazine towards. My target audience is females and males ages 16-24 in the E social bracket. These are the people that are still involved with education at sixth form, college or University, or have got part time jobs. These particular people are often associated with attending gigs, loving music and wanting to have fun, which is what the Indie genre is all about. In order to attract my target audience I ensured I used aspects that would draw them in to the magazine.

For my photoshoot, my model was Claudia Dyer. I chose to keep this name for her as the main artist of my magazine as it is a unique name that I think people would be able to remember. She is of a Jamaican ethnicity which gives her tanned skin and big, curly hair. I used her hair to advantage as it is a unique element of her appearance and when used successfully could attract the audience’s attention. On the front cover, the main image displays Claudia looking directly into the camera with a captivating expression. This is likely to capture the attention of the audience and lure them in into wanting to find out more about her. Her dark red lipstick and her green eyes compliment the tone of her skin and make her features more prominent and ensures that she stands out to the reader. Her big, curly hair is down and projects an image of being free and wild, which is usually associated with the Indie genre that I have chosen to base my magazine on. Her flowery top connotes nature, peace and relaxation which are key aspects of the Indie genre, and the gold chain round her neck gives her a bit of edge which is popular within the genre. For other images in the magazine, I ensured that Claudia had a range of outfits to wear to keep the magazine interesting and appealing to the audience. For some of the other photos she is wearing a denim jacket, a patterned kimono, a flowery bomber jacket, black boots and burgundy Dr Martens. All of these clothing pieces are those typically worn by artists/bands in the Indie genre, and also by the fans of the music. By dressing my model in this clothing, she is displaying to my target audience that she is just like them and is very down to earth, which would made the readers idolise her and give her a fan base.

I chose Claudia as my model as she isn’t shy to get stuck in with the photos, and she is extremely photogenic. For the post part of the magazine, her facial expressions are quite serious and dramatic, which gives the idea that she has a captivating personality, and the readers would be able to find her interesting and want to know more about her. I tried to avoid ‘silly’ facial expressions and poses because the main article focuses on how much she loves music and wants to get a message across, and I felt that more serious images would complement that. This would capture the reader’s attention as they would want to find out why she is so serious about her music, which they could find in the main article.

By including multiple props I was able to further vary the images of my magazine. I used props such as a microphone, a guitar and a stall which can all be associated with music. The microphone demonstrated Claudia’s singing ability, the guitar highlighted the artist’s talent to play the instrument, and the stall allowed a range of camera angles. Often, fans of the Indie genre are able to play instruments as it is a very popular item to use in that genre, therefore if my target audience could see Claudia’s ability to play the guitar, they could perhaps be more interested in her.

As my magazine is targeted towards males and females, I decided not to make any of the images too explicit because her modesty would captivate both genders of my target audience. The male gender would be attracted to her unique features and her shyness, and the female gender would want to dress like her and be like her. Therefore, the positioning and poses in the photographs were very important. I ensured to use a variety of positions as this would make the images more attention-grabbing for example, lying down with the guitar – insinuating the love and passion she has for the instrument, sitting on the stall, standing up looking directly into the camera, standing up holding the microphone at various angles. All these positions I found worked extremely well.

I have found that what has made my main article successful was the taboo language that I included in it. Typically, teenagers and young adults are more prone to using this kind of language freely, and wouldn’t be offput if the magazine was to use it. I feel that it allows the audience to feel as if it has a personal relationship with the magazine because of how similar the language used by both recipients is.