How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What is representation?

The term ‘represent’ refers to the portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.

Within the media the term Representation literally means to ‘re-present’ something. It refers to the construction of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, etc. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.

By using a female teenager as the main feature of my magazine it shows that this magazine is suitable to people of a similar age because they may feel that they can relate to somebody the same age as them.

I believe that my magazine is suitable for people of all class, this is why carefully considered how much I would price my magazine for; I decided on £2.50 as, in comparison to ‘Billboard’ and ‘Sugar’ this is affordable for most teenagers and would still provide enough money to produce the magazine. I ensured that I did not price my magazine to high as this would have limited my target audience to only people who could afford it; I want my magazine to be accessible to all teenagers.

In order to connect with a teenage/young adult audience I had to ensure that my mode of address was suitable and would allow the readers to understand and connect with my magazine. Therefore before I constructed my magazine I did some research into the styles of language used in other similar magazines. From this I found that it would be most suitable to use full English sentences instead of colloquial language because a lot of the people within my target audience said that terms such as ‘omg’ and other abbreviations seemed quite patronising. Therefore I decided to use a relaxed, yet grammatically correct, form of language for all three pages of my magazine.

My magazine is suitable for people of all race, as the UK is quite multi-cultural I feel that it is essential for my magazine to be respectful to all people; I also aim for it to be appealing to everybody as well. Therefore, although it may seem obvious, it is essential to ensure that all pictures and language is acceptable for the range of people my magazine is aimed at.

The casual clothing which I chose for Kirsten to wear represents that this is a summer issue. The relaxed dress code also helps teenagers to relate to her and shows that the magazine is light hearted and fun.

The use of a microphone and the masthead clearly represent that this magazine is suitable for people who are interested in music.

Throughout my editorial profile I ensured that I used a relaxed form of English which would be easy for my target audience to read fluently. I also tired to include as much information about the magazine as possible in a small amount of words so that people would fully understand the product they are buying.

On this page the different types of font represent the different styles of music which each artist does, for example a girly, slightly delicate pattern has been used for artists such as The Saturdays and Taylor Swift in order to show that their music is quite feminine, on the other hand I have used a bold, block font for some of the boy bands because their music is more masculine. Once again Kirsten's casual

clothing is suitable for summer time, when this issue would be released. The brightly coloured top represents that she is fun and happy and the shorts show that she is brave and in some ways quite confident. Also her unique hairstyle shows that she does not just follow the crowd; this may encourage readers to become more confident in themselves.

This is a photo of Dianna Vickers (I saw her at Escot). In this image she is dressed in clothing which is quite revealing showing that she is confident and she is also dressed in summery clothing which suggests that the magazine will be released at similar times to when there are a lot of festivals and fun ‘pop’ events. She seems to be singing very strongly in this image; this suggests that she is passionate and loves music which encourages the reader to enjoy music as much as she does.

The use of pink, yellow and light blue connote love, happiness and fun. They also clearly show that the magazine is aimed at girls.

If I was to create this magazine again, there is not much that I would change about it, however I think that it would have been a good idea to include one picture of a boy band on the contents page or front cover in order to represent boy and to draw in more girls who wish to read about their favourite boy bands. This may have improved the sales of this issue of ‘InTune’.

Within the media nowadays teenagers are stereotyped as grumpy, vain, emotional, materialistic, image obsessed people. I wanted to challenge this stereotype and in order to do this I included a row of photos across my double page spread which show Kirsten wearing different styles of clothes, different facial expressions and in different positions. I felt that this would perhaps show people that all people are different and that teenagers are not as bad as many people seem to believe they are. I felt that representing teenagers as healthy and happy was essential for my double page spread as this is where people will read more about Kirsten and it is important that they see her as a role model who is happy and confident in herself, therefore encouraging other teenagers to feel the same about themselves.

Kirsten’s signature at the end of the interview reminds people that she is a real person and therefore readers may feel as though they can relate to her more.

By including a quotation about when Kirsten used to sing ABBA songs I have encouraged readers to think about ABBA songs and therefore they see similarities between Kirsten's style of music and ABBA’s. Songs by ABBA are typically quite happy and fun and therefore this quote implies that Kirsten’s music also has these characteristics, therefore encouraging people to listen to her songs.

Many of the readers will be at an age when they are in the latter years of secondary school, for this reason I decided to have Kirsten positioned sitting on the floor as though she is relaxing with her friends. This will help her to connect with the readers as they may feel more like Kirsten’s friends than her fans and therefore they will be able to relate to her and want to buy the magazine again and listen to her music.

The use of a floral pattern behind the row of images across the page not only helps to connect the images, but it also represents that the magazine is mainly for girls. The hint of pink which I drew on the flower pattern reinforces this idea and ties the row of pictures in with the rest of the page/magazine.