Media Evaluation-Representation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The particular social groups my magazine is representing is the chart following festival goers who listen to the big selling hits, but also look for the underground big band names who will soon make it in the industry. It represents this group in a positive, bold way, emphasising their qualities of individuality, eclectic musical tastes, great fashion sense and love of socialising. It does this through the layout, photography, choice of content, language and register and products advertised.

Demographically, the magazine's gender split is 70% females, 30% males although the cover image and colour scheme would change each issue and may alter the gender split. I chose to target a more female audience because magazines targeting women are more popular and also because there are fewer music-oriented magazines that target women. The age is 17 - 24 years, social class C1C2, living throughout the UK but mostly in urban areas. They like to think of themselves as individuals but they are also aspirers and in terms of interests, they have a big passion for today's musical, culture and fashion. They are slightly less cool than readers of Clash and Wonderland but aspire to the same alternative, cool lifestyle.

As a whole the magazine does not focus on one genre of music. It wants to reflect its readers diverse musical interests and it doesn't want to limit itself to one specific genre because all genres come and go out of fashion. Offering a mix of musical genres allows more social groups to mix and connect through the magazine. This should help to create a social network and also increase circulation figures.

The readers of this magazine aren't your typical 'glamorous' type but do like to feel that they look fashionable and are on trend but don't go and buy weekly copies of Vogue. They often become inspired about the way they want to look through the music they listen to.

The language I have used throughout the magazine is fairly bold in register and creates a statement on the page. This represents my audience as loud and passionate towards their music, they like to make a statement to society and aren't afraid to share their opinions. I have used a direct address to help them feel like the text is speaking directly to them.

The magazine 'Wonderland' inspired the magazine 'FM' in its creation and is the nearest magazine on the market to FM . FM magazine is more of a music based magazine than Wonderland but it has the same vision for its readers. The Wonderland magazine has a bold masthead covering the entire top eighth of the magazine making it stand out on the shelf, and hitting our eyes with a powerful image in the centre of the page. Cover lines are minimal allowing for maximum visual impact.
The FM magazine also features a powerful image covering the majority of the front page, but is laid out to the right of the page, with the magazine's name 'FM' in the top left corner, so our eyes are attracted immediately as we read left to right.

The first image on the left is of an American singer, songwriter, actress and model Sky Ferreira. She has been on many front covers of magazines but this particular image from one of Wonderland's issues stayed with me and gave me a vision of the type of image I would want for my front cover.

Posture: My model's posture during the photo shoot with was crucial. To get this particular image I needed to take a slightly high angle shot to focus more on her face than the rest of her body. I made the model lie on a white blank sheet on top of a table so I could intensely focus more on her face making a statement. Her subjective gaze was essential to attract the audience's attention.


Lighting: The lighting for my shoot was high key and focused on her face. The lighting on her face had to be strong and bright to make her features stand out.

Expression:The expression on my models face had to be fierce and
looking straight down the lens focusing on the viewers; drawing them in to read the magazine. The facial expression had to be strong and bold to link with the character of the shot and indeed the magazine. I deliberately avoided the 'sexy' facial expression as my readers are more indie than Vogue.

Hair: The model had to have her hair up high in a pony-tail and have it messy down her face like the model in the top image. I didn't want hair covering any of her face because this would detract from the intensity of her gaze.

Shot-Type: The shot type and angle of the image for my front cover was a medium close up, eye level shot (MCU) to concentrate on her face.

In general my target audience is young, sociable, they enjoy social networking, have an interest in the media. They likes to look their best and they have a passion for music. I think I could attract a lot of advertisers to my magazine because the audience, whilst thinking they are indie and alternative, actually have fairly mainstream interests such as iTunes, Asos, Topshop, Urban Outfitters, L'Oreal, Chanel, Kate Moss, Latitude and Reading festival.