2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

On the front cover of my magazine there is a woman who is seen as quite young so that she can relate to the audience, she is white and probably middle class.
This is the most stereotypical use where the artist on the front cover is white, middle class. This shows how I have not represented ethnic minorities in my magazine where as if I was to do the magazine again I may have decided to try and use a different ethnic minority on the front cover so that this would challenge the representations of the youth.
The picture that I have used on the front cover is representing dominant ideology as there is a medium close up of a woman on the front cover which could represent the male gaze where they want to see a picture of a woman on the front cover to try and attract them to the magazine.

On the whole my magazine shows most of the products for the content of my magazine on the front cover. The front cover imgage shows a girl of similar age to the target audience so that it can relate to particular social groups of this age also. The images used in the product can also be related to certain social groups due to the type of clothes and colours used. You can tell that it is a rock/indie magazine by the bright/bold colours used on the front and by how the artist is not smiling on the front cover. The fact that the artist shows no tattoos or piercings shows how this magazine although being aimed at the rock/indie audience it is still aimed at the youth so they want to try and portray some innocence so that youths do not get the wrong idea and try to copy exactly what is shown on the front cover as 'cool'. This representation of the character on the front cover may portray innocence and may represent social groups who cause no trouble.

Although the magazine is aimed particularly for girls of this age range and stereotype I have not used the stereotypical colours of pinks or purples but instead used more bold vibrant colours on the front cover and contents page of reds yellows and black which may be more stereotypical of males so this challenges the gender representation of the magazine. I did this to go with the theme of the individuality but also to try and show that girls don’t all have to like pinks and purples and can be attracted by the bold colours shown on the front cover of my magazine.

To fit with the messages and values with communicating with these groups and how they are constructured through the media language by the way the artist is dressed and how she is against a bright blue background so that she sticks out from the rest.