How does your media product represent particular social groups?

EVALUATION

My magazine’s genre is rap music. The typical listener of this type of music would generally be working class. This is because the genre originates from ghettos and was seen as a cheap and easy way of making music and enjoying yourself.

Class & AgeOne of the social groups represented in my magazine is working class people. I have shown this in my cover because I have no included and instruments or any other expensive objects. My models are also wearing casual, high-street clothes to show they are down-to-earth and to connect with the social group.This also represents my targeted age group of people aged 15-25 because many of these would be students and therefore unlikely to have much money so would also wear high-street clothing.

I took my photos in an urban setting with a graffiti wall as a background. This represents the social group because graffiti is common in working class areas. Graffiti walls are also often made (and enjoyed) by teenagers. This represents the target age of my reader which is ages 15-25. also, in one of my images the model is drinking a can of the energy drink ‘Monster.’ This drink would be often drunk by teenagers and therefore the audience can relate.

In my double-page spread article I included swearing and slang language. This represents the working class social group as they would be more likely to use swear words and slang than people of a higher class. This also represents the age group I targeted of people aged 15-25 as young people often swear, whoever they are not too young to misunderstand or be influenced badly by the language.

I also priced my magazine at the very reasonable price of £2.50. This represents the class & age social group of my magazine. This is because younger people (especially students) would not be able to afford a magazine that is expensive and would rather buy a cheaper magazine or get the information online. It also reflects the working-class social group because they also would have lower incomes and be less likely to spend a lot of money on luxuries such as magazines.

Gender

The typical gender who would listen to rap music are marginally males. I have mainly represented females in my magazine due to the fact that the my main models are females.The colour scheme is mainly pink and black. The pink is because it is the same colour as my model’s lipstick. This gives the cover a sense of consistency and connects the image with the mast head. On my double-page spread I used a background of an image of a rose. I

decided to include this because of the name of the group featured- which is ‘Urban Rose.’ This also makes the page appear more feminine and would therefore attract females rather than males to read.

The clothes my model’s are wearing are seen as quite fashionable and modern. They are the typical clothes that a teenage girl would be very likely to wear. Therefore, a female reader would be interested in looking at the clothes they are wearing and may admire them or possibly even take influence and try aim to dress like the models. The clothes they are wearing therefore reflect the social group of females.

The models on the double page spread are also in quite relaxed poses. Occasionally they are making contact, leaning on each other etc. This shows they are close friends and reflects the typical friendship's of females which involve much more affectionate contact than that of males.

Social Groups

Many people relate rap music with ‘chavs’ or young people who are low-class and likely to behave badly, be nuisances in public, drink and smoke heavily, take drugs, be in gangs, swear often etc.These people would stereo-typically wear baseball caps, tracksuit bottoms and trainers.It could be argued that this stereotype is reinforced in this image on my contents page because of the fact the male in the image is wearing a cap and fits the stereotypes because the article on him is entitled ‘Luke Coleman. Gangs, Drugs and Hip Hop.’

It could also be argued that this social group is represented in the double-page spread article because of the wearing and casual language used. For example it says “I don’t think anyone can say they never made any bad choices as a teenager, but yeah, we did some stupid shit.” They are basically saying that they behaved in this stereo-typically bad way as teenagers and the audience could relate to this if they are in the same position themselves.