How does your media

product represent

particular social groups?Evaluation Question 2

Price of the Music Magazine

I priced my magazine at £2.00 because it ensured that people who bought the magazine were interested in the musical genres explored and discussed enough to spend an amount on a leisure activity which is relatively expensive.

Thus this made sure that people who bought the magazine had money to spend on leisure activities as well as living off their wages, thus stereotypically this would attract a middle class audience. My particular target audience would be relatively wealthy and most probably middle aged, because then they would be able to relate to the 1960s Soul music style, similar to the show Soul Train. One could say this has limited potential, because the method of attracting the audience relied heavily on the customer realising a new revival in 1960s music style, which would make it unique compared to other Soul magazines; and in some ways this is true, but I haven’t produced it in a way which at the same time wouldn’t make it appealing to this social group, as some people may just enjoy the style of the magazine and make no connection between the similar styles. I chose this predominantly based on the dominant ideology that people are more likely to remember a product if it reminds them of something, especially something positive in their lives. Therefore, if someone enjoyed the 1960s Soul music style and music itself, then they may look at and feel it reminds them of that time, and so it will stick in their mind.

I chose this social group to represent because I believe that these musical genres are quite expensive, as the listener has to have both the money and time to explore the genres, because they are not so universally available compared to Pop or Rock Music. Howbeit, this is a stereotype and it would be simply untrue to expect this factor of the magazine to put anyone off buying it purely because it is £2.00 necessarily.

Main Article and Main Image

I used the main article about Green Eggs and Spam to entice an audience who would understand

and appreciate the parallels between the band itself and the links of Doctor Seuss. Despite being

a child’s book, many people would not be able to make the link between the book and the

presentation of the band in the magazine. Ergo, this narrows the audience down to people who

understood the authorial intention and stereotypically this is more likely to be someone who is

middle class, because they may have had a better education or are more intelligent. The main

image itself supports this, as there is a green background to the artists; thus linking to the band

name itself.

A limitation of this however would be that the attraction of both the band and the way they are

presented is reliant on stereotypes and the ideal way they would react to the article. There is no

reason to say that some people wouldn’t look at the article and deem it either childish or too

relaxed for the article to be taken seriously.

The design of the magazine masthead

The masthead is in the style of 80’s Soul records, which would only appeal to a certain part of the

customer audience. This is then narrowed down to people who listened to Soul music in the 80’s

because then they would recognise the style of the magazine, which entices them to purchase the

magazine. This is one method which will constantly attract new buyers, ensuring the magazine’s

success. Also this refines the social group down to middle class, because this social class are more

likely to be able to spend money and time to purchase a variety of music within these genres.

Furthermore the style of the magazine creates the age range for the target audience, because only

middle aged people would be able to recognise the style and relate it to 80s soul and funk music.

However, one could argue that by selecting this social group this subverts the stereotypical audience

of 1960s Soul music, because it was more working class, because where it originated in America such

as the Detroit record label Motown the singers came from working class. However this obviously only

a stereotype and in 2014 anyone can listen to any type of music anywhere no matter what class they

are, and the middle class are at the forefront of this.

Social Groups

I realised from the very beginning that it would be very difficult to try and represent very broad

social groups such as the whole community. This would be extremely hard to try include conventions

which represents a different part of society as a whole; primarily the music genre isn’t telling of

what the majority of the community like to listen to; such would be a genre like Pop or rock.

This is why, although perhaps not technically a social group, the middle class were much easier to

target. Despite this, the middle class could be seen as a social group because they are very likely to

socialise together, because they have similar interests politically and financially- this is another

common ideology; the working class would be made up of groups which are just people who are

working class and it is the same with the middle class.