The document discusses how the author represented social groups in their magazine. They aimed to appeal to teenagers and young adults aged 12-18, choosing an affordable price of £2.99 that most young people could afford. The characters featured in the magazine were portrayed as young adults serious about music but still having fun. Males and females were represented equally. The dominant ethnicity shown was white/Caucasian due to the author's local demographics. Teenagers and young adults were the main age group featured as they are most influenced by media at that age.
Dynamics of Destructive Polarisation in Mainstream and Social Media: The Case...
Representing Social Groups in Rock Magazines
1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
2. Social Class within my magazine wasn’t represented greatly within my magazine other than the price of my
product. I found that all different types of social class in society read the same magazines and so only thought to
take the price of the magazine into consideration. I chose this price (£2.99) within my product because it is the
average amount of a magazine when it comes to the media market. I also took into consideration the income of
a teenager and decided that it needed to be inexpensive because most young people in today’s society don’t have
any
other source of income other than their parents or a weekend job/paper round.
Characters within my magazine:
“Bullet from Heaven”: My double page spread was based on a band called Bullet from Heaven. I represented
these as young adults who were serious about music but were still young enough to have fun doing it.
I represented “Jessie” as the most serious out of the three in “Bullet from Heaven” with the longest answers and
most serious in comparison to the other two members who mostly messed around and jokingly answered the
interview questions.
These representations make the members of the band seem inspirational and the audience, particularly
influential young females, aspire to be like members of the band in terms of looks.
Males and females are mostly represented equally within my magazine. I did this because I knew that my audience
would be both male and female and showed no preference featuring either gender. I used a female for my front
cover and on one picture within my double page spread but then used pictures taken at previous live events that
happen to be of males to present on my contents page and on the side of my double page article.
The most dominant ethnicity within my magazine is white/Caucasian. This happened by coincidence, because
of where I live there are not many other ethnicities and I did not have access to a lot of different models from
different ethnicities.
Teenagers/Young adults are mostly the most dominant age group within my magazine because of they
appeal to the audience of the magazine more than any other audience. This is because they are only a few
years older so they always aspire to be older and have that life when they are of that age in a few years.
3. Uses of Gratification:
• Audience:
Age: 12-18: Prime teenage years up to young adults. This is when the audience is most influenced by the media because they are exposed to so many
different types of it in different surroundings, so they would be more effected by my magazine than any other age group would be.
Gender: My magazine has no gender preference due to the fact I featured both genders equally throughout my magazine.
Class: Working class primarily due to there is more of a range of working class people in the UK currently than any other class, so I have a wider audience
oppurtunity.
Ethnicity: No preference of ethnicity.
- Information:
I did research and then continued featuring existing gigs like Leeds Festival in my magazine that appeal to a certain audience because they are widely featured
across different media platforms like video media, the internet, advertisements etc.
- Personal Identity:
There is a huge stereotype of the characters often used in rock magazines that they live a hardcore lifestyle of being on tour and drinking, and the audience
have become to find this lifestyle inspirational. From this I decided to feature a lot of this type of lifestyle for my characters within my magazine so it
would attract the same audience.
- Integration and Social Interaction:
I interacted with my audience by providing free supplements of posters within my magazine and providing an interview instead of an actual magazine article. I
thought this was more personal, because the answers weren’t scripted. Also, I mentioned that the audience chose the questions. This helps build a
relationship between the audience and the producers because it gives the audience a sense of belonging and involvement within the magazine and also
gives them a sense of achievement if their question was answered by their favourite band.
- Entertainment:
Often, after researching different interviews in different magazines, the male members of the band were joking around. I read interviews like ones in Kerrang!
Featuring All Time Low, and the interviews were very humorous but still personal and included a lot of random information about the band members.
5. I firstly researched other magazines with the same genre of music as mine and researched my target audience to see how they appeal to their
audience. After this I started thinking about how my magazine could appeal to my particular target audience.
MASTHEAD:
My masthead can be compared with
Kerrang! because they both have the
same destroyed effect on the masthead. I
did this because stereotypically the
readers of rock magazines are male,
which are stereotypically into violence
and such. I thought it would also be
easier to identify the genre of the
magazine judging by its appearance.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
I noticed that a majority of rock
magazine’s featured a band
member on the front cover. Most
of the photography used on other
front covers was high exposure
and contrast, I tried to include
these effects on my own I used band photography on my double page
photography. spread to give a feel of what the band I
decided to feature are like live. I learned that
from my interview that my audience like going
to gigs to see the bands live whenever they
can, and including photography of the bands it
may entice them to see the band live.
6. COLOURS:
The colour scheme I used was a dark red,
black, and white. I chose these colours
because they are the traditional ones used
in a rock magazine. I thought this would
appeal to my audience because then they
can recognise the genre. I used the same
colour scheme throughout the magazine in FREE STUFF:
order to link all the pages together.
Mise-en-Scene:
Within my research from my audience
interview I found that my audience preferred Through my audience research I found that the audience liked
to wear dark clothing such as skinny jeans free supplements as well as the choice of articles within the
etc. I also, upon my research on existing magazine. Free posters often appear to be a favourite in
products, realised females on front covers of magazines because the readers often like to collect them.
magazines often had brightly coloured hair.
This shows rebellion because often the
parents of the teenagers who read the rock Writing Style:
magazines often do not let the teenagers I used an informal writing style so the audience could understand and
dye their hair obscenely bright colours. The read the articles. I used violent words like “You vs. Bullet from Heaven”
setting of the pictures was just taken upon a on the front cover so it would promote the rocky stereotype of violence.
blank wall or at gigs I have currently I also mentioned within my double page article things like partying and
attended in the past. The blank wall drinking to keep up the hardcore stereotype. I also included promotions
background gives the effect it was taken in a of different albums that were already out such as All Time Low’s new
studio. album “Dirty Work” because upon my past research I found that other
magazines like Kerrang! used a lot of promotional materials such as
providing free downloads or free previews to one of their songs to
promote the band and themselves because of the free supplements.
8. PULSE Target Audience for my Magazine:
PULSE is aimed at 13-18 year olds, and around 60% Male
preference, 40% Female for my magazine. Around 80% of
the readers prefer the articles to the supplements(posters,
free downloads etc), 10% prefer the supplements and
another 10% don’t have a preference of either.
The audience of PULSE is passionate teenagers who prefer to
know more about their artists than just listen to the music.
PULSE producers, IPCMedia are both experienced and
passionate about the articles and music that is featured
within PULSE.
Due to PULSE, the readers are on average 6 times more
influenced to go to a gig if it has been featured within the
magazine.
500,000+ READERSHIP IN UK
92% OF PULSE READERS BUY EVERY ISSUE
68% OF PULSE READERS ARE SUBSCRIBED