How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Q2

Target Audience and DemographicsI stated early on in the process of pre-production that I wanted my main target audience

for my magazine will be 16-30 females and males, mostly females. This includes high school, college and university students and other adults up to the age of 30. I used the social economic table to figure out what social class I wanted my audience to be in. The table made me realise that I my magazine to appeal to the ABC demographics due to the high quality and price of my magazine as it will be monthly (£3.75). As this is a country and folk magazine, it is stereotypically stated that this genre is more popular with females than males. I chose this age range as it will mostly be based on current artists and upcoming artists rather than classic artists. Although references to older artists will be made at times to give my magazine diversity and appeal to even more audiences and demographics.

Furthermore, I created a reader profile for my music magazine which includes all of the statistics and information provided above (next slide)

Shortly after choosing the target audience for my music magazine I created this readership profile, which includes all the statistics and facts on all the readers. Which altogether allows the creators to see who reads the magazine. This is useful because it allows the creators of the magazine to make possible adjustments and changes to future magazines if they aren’t appealing to their chosen target audience as they thought.

My reader profile is definitely a good representation of this social group, or country music fans. It shows that it has successfully attracted both male and female readers as well as sticking to the target audience of ages 16-30 while still appealing to the older generation to some extent as 25% of the readers are 31 or older.

Target Audience and Demographics

I did stereotype my audience to some extent as stated on my readership profile. As a “fact” for the readers of my music magazine, I stated that “the average Acoustic reader is a student in University and/or owns a guitar.” This goes by the stereotype that the majority of country music fans usually own/have an interest in/play a stringed instrument like a guitar. Guitars, violins, banjos etc are a very commonly used instrument in country music and they are very heavily associated and stereotyped with the genre. Referring to the “student in University” part of the profile, I have noticed a stereotype that when a person is in University, they are exposed to a variety of different groups which allows them they start to discover less-mainstream genres of music, like country and folk.

Stereotypes

As explained in Tajfel’s social identity theory, their new interest may lead to them changing their whole lifestyle, interests and philosophy based around this music. Which turns into a new social group and stereotype in itself. Some of these include, emo, hipster, scene, metalhead, mainstream addict, raver etc

StereotypesElaborating on my previous point. Stereotypes are heavily dependent on music, TV, film and social media and social groups are usually based on these things. According to social psychologist Tajfel, Social identity theory is best described the ways in which people perceive and categorize themselves.

According to social identity theory, individuals form

self-conceptions that are based on two parts: 1) personal or self identity2) collective identity. Personal or self identity refers to our unique, personal qualities such as our beliefs, our abilities and skills, etc. The collective self includes all the qualities that arise from being part of a society, culture, family, groups, clubs, etc. For example, you may identify yourself as a protestant, male, football player, who is very popular with people at school.

There are now so many stereotypes associated with artists that there is now a website http://stereotype.fm/ where you can type in an artist’s names and it gives you facts on what their fans are most likely to do. E.g Blondie fans are most likely to prefer blondes

Which Stereotype is most likely to be my target

audience?From the information stated on the previous slide, out of all the music stereotypes, my target audience are most likely to be “Hipsters”

Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers that appeared in the 1990s. The subculture is associated with independent music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility, liberal or independent political views, alternative spirituality or atheism/agnosticism, and alternative lifestyles. Interests in media include independent film, magazines and websites

The picture on the right that I found online depicts the stereotypical appearance and style of a hipster.

Interpretation of Hipster stereotype

Initially, I struggled to find more information on “Hipsters” from another person’s perspective. But I came across this video via Youtube created by comedy channel WinterSpringPro which is a parody of the song “Pumped Up Kicks” By Foster the People. This song through the use of obvious stereotypes explains the lifestyle of the average hipster.The lyrics in itself fully refer to a lot of hipster stereotypes. For example: “He's got a plaid flannel shirt and some thick-rimmed glasses” “Brittany collects vinyl, she did before it was cool” “She doesn't own a TV, because art is dead.” The vintage format, cinematography and mise-en-scene of the video also reflect the hipster lifestyle. This is useful to me as this is the main social group that I was aiming to represent with my media products.

Genres?Early on in the stages of pre-production I conducted a survey where I asked 15 people various questions on music magazines to get an idea of what appealed to my then-undecided target audience

PopRockFolkCountryIndie

This question related to my chosen genre. I had already narrowed down my choices to five genres. The answers of my survey would determine which genre I would go with. From these results, I ultimately chose country for my genre. But from the other commonly chosen genres, Pop and Folk, I decided to use those as sub-genres to widen the appeal.

Most important element?

ReviewsCompetionsUpcoming GigsArtist in-terviewsGossip

This part of the survey was intended to help me decide which features I would use and prioritise in my front cover and contents page. From this, I discovered that the artist interviews were seen as the most important element, because of this, I chose the artist interview to be the headline.

I also used the other features but made their size be in order of how much my audience liked them. For example: the reviews feature got the least page space and the artist interview feature got the most page space

Colour Scheme?

White and blackRedAquaGreen

This part of the survey was intended to help me decide on the basis for the colour scheme of my music magazine, especially the cover. I had already

decided that I would incorporate all of these colours into my magazine. The results determinewhich will be the main colours. The

results obviously show that Aqua was the most popular colour in the survey, due to this, I chose it to be my main colour in the colour scheme. As Red was the second most popular colour, I decided to make it the focal colour in the colour scheme for my double page spread.

Release schedule?

WeeklyBi-WeeklyBi-MonthlyMonthly

This part of the survey was intended to help me decide how often I would release my music magazine.

Monthly was the most popular with my participants as over 50% chose it over the other options. They also mentioned that they prefer magazines to come out every month as they are a much higher quality.

This helped me decide that my music magazine would be released once a month, so 12 issues a year, all very high quality and vast.

Price?

£1-£1.50£1.50-£2£2-£2.50£2.50 or more

This part of the survey was intended to help me decide the price my music magazine once it hit the shelves.Surprisingly, the

majority of my participants wanted my music magazine to cost more than £2.50, which is more than the average price for a music magazine.

But my participants insisted that the more magazines cost, the better quality they are. These results supported my previous decision of making my magazine monthly, as playing more than £2.50 for a weekly magazine would be to much. On the other hand, a monthly magazine would be ideal.

ConclusionOverall, my media product does represent and appeal to many different social groups. From using the SEG table and choosing my groups (ABC) I was able to make my magazine suit this audience through references, price etc. I also attempted to represent the stereotype and social group of “Hipsters” I did this through the use of vintage sub-culture and the many different sub-genres of my music magazine aside country (Folk, alternative, Indie etc). Lastly, I represented social groups through my decisions, as seen in earlier slides, I conducted a questionnaire early in the pre production process where 15 people gave their opinion on the genre, the main elements, the colour scheme, the release schedule and the price. All of these results were taken into consideration and I have stuck by them while in the process of creating my music magazine.