Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine is a pop magazine aimed at teenage girls aged 11-15. Like in many pop magazines the cover model is the latest chart artist. I imagine my target audience being girly girls that like pop music, bright colours and fashion or shopping therefore this is what I included most in my magazine. I have many themes throughout my magazine making it not just a music magazine. I found this in my research that this is what my target audience likes. I also took a questionnaire in which i asked 45 11-15 year old teenage girls that fit my target audience and asked them what their favourite part of a magazine is and here is what they said:

This shows that many teens like a variety of topics in their magazines and this is what I tried to create.

Many teenage magazines use female models and often in a medium shot. I also discovered that the generic conventions of a model are often slim, smiling, nice clothes and good skin. I kept to these generic conventions and reinforced them as my model is slim, nicely dressed and smiling in all the images. His gives off a fun vibe to the audience and this is what pop music is about and what my target audience’s social group is about too.

I found that when I researched there were many age inappropriate articles such as articles about weight issues, plastic surgery I have tried to break these and not include them in my magazine as I feel they are delicate subjects that young teens shouldn’t be introduced to. This is breaking some representations of young adults in my social group. I think some magazines may be responsible for teens and young adults wanting plastic surgery, and being unhappy with the way they look therefore I didn’t Photoshop anything about my model’s figure or face/ skin therefore breaking the generic conventions of an edited model.

Social groups expected from the Pop genre are quite wide in variety. As Pop is short for popular it usually depends on what is mainstream as to what social groups it is expected to aim at.

Pop is most recently known and referred to worldwide for being targeted at teenage girls that like boy and girl artists/bands. Most Pop magazines aim for this audience too, this is why aspects such as Posters are included in the magazines as it is expected that most teenage girls have posters on their wall of their favourite Pop artist.

The reoccurring theme of Pop genre throughout the years in magazines, on music videos, CDs etc has been the colour pink. Pink is immediately recognized as a feminine colour and has been used throughout current times of Popular music; the colour often perfectly suits pop target audience perfectly.