How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When creating my magazine, I had my target audience in mind. I also looked at my style models in depth and looked how social groups where represented in the magazine.

My social group are young girls who enjoy pop music. They also may be aspiring young musicians or want to have a career in the music industry. The genre of music is pop and it targets a younger audience and this type of music is usually very posative and bubbly. People associated with pop music are very smily, happy and friendly people who like to have fun. I believe that I have done well in choosing aspects of my magazine that will appeal to my target audience. For example, the use of bright colours, smily images and posative articles.

Pop music that is in my magazine is usually associated with females and this has effected the look of my magazine, like my pink, purple and blue colour scheme. My front cover shows my model smiling and looking friendly. This type of image occurs very regularly on a magazine front cover of this genre. I think that it represents the artists of pop music as being posative and upbeat. This is then transferred onto the reader, and they are seen as being happy and friendly. I took into accound the hair, make up and clothes my model is wearing, as I didnt want to represent artists and readers in the wrong way. My models hair is a natural dark brown and I wanted to avoid using a model that looked unnatural and fake, because some people see younger people as being 'too old for their age'. I wanted to keep the hair natural, have suttle makeup and have appropriate clothing, making sure it wasn't revealing or innappropriate.
I wanted my model to be someone for young girls to look up to. I think if a more perogative image was used on a magazine of this genre, aimed at this audience, I could represent the reader in a completly different way, as people tend to associate the talent with the reader.
I took care in choosing the celebrity names I used on my cover, for example Olly Murs, Pixie Lott and The Jonas Brothers. I thought about other news about them and I didn't want to use anyone that had been in the public eye for the wrong reasons (for example drugs and alcohol). This again can also represent the reader in the wrong way and they could be associated with the wrong things. Also, people look up to celebrities.
I chose to aim my magazine at 11 - 14 year olds because at this age you have alot of idols and can be inspired to have a musical career. Also, young people need posative role models to push them in the right direction. I think that this genre is the one that portrays the target audience in the best way. This way is very posative, freindly and happy.
There is a range of ethnicities in pop music, but the majority is white caucasian. This genre appeals to all ethnicities and I think this represents my social group in a posative way, and that all ethnicities can persue their dreams of a music career, or indeed any other career. I also think that pop songs are about alot of things the target audience will experience in their life. I think that the music can be very insperational and represents this social group in a good way - that the group is very together and are very supportive of one another.