Evaluation #2 (done)

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

During my research I placed much of my time into this exact question: How was I going to shape my magazine into something that my target group would appreciate and want to buy? It took a lot of

planning and using different resources until I was able to confidently known what it was I needed to do.

Firstly, I conducted some research online using sites such as tribes.co.uk. Tribes were highly effective as it let me know what sort of shops, gigs, festivals, alcohol, drugs, clothes, shoes etc that my target market was interested in. Obviously, I wouldn’t be including most of this stuff in my magazine, only

elements such as the music, gigs and festivals. Without using this site and finding out this information it would have proven a challenge to creating my magazine for the ‘indie’ cliché. I found

out that my group are very minimalistic, happy wearing a white tee, black skinnys and a hoodie- that’s where my minimalistic approach came from; I guess you could say my magazine mirrors the

indie’s wardrobe. Secondly, I took inspiration from band’s that the ‘indie’ group were interested in, for example : The Vaccines, The XX, Arctic Monkeys, Passion Pit- they are all on my + section of my magazine, I made this choice in order to hopefully drawn in my target market to a magazine they

were unfamiliar with, with some familiar bands.

Furthermore, I also became more conscious of people around me, so I could get a real life perspective of the target market I was aiming to please. I took note on what music they were

listening to, what they were taking about, what they wore, in order to shape my magazine around there life’s. I found that that they were interested in up and coming stars, the best festivals in the UK ( as travelling abroad was something ‘those braindead twats off TOWIE would do right’), and more

personal band profiles on the bands they liked. Therefore I decided I would incorporate this information into my contents page. Here are some of my examples of doing just that:

As you can see I have based my artist on the current indie artist of Lucy Rose. I used Lucy to base my artist on; I took notes on her hair, her makeup and her fashion sense, to make my artist as realistic as possible.

I based my artist’s minimal makeup on Lucy’s, as Lucy only wears a small amount of mascara and minimal foundation. Alongside this, I also made my artists hair natural to make sure

that I achieved that ‘bed hair’ look.

I changed my artists dress sense to make her more unusual. For example I choose a metallic skirt, as I believed that this stood out, and when conducting my research the ‘indie’ group I found out that they like to wear clothes that are ‘edgy’ and ‘unique’. However I then dressed the outfit down by placing a plain Urban Outfitters tee with the skirt. I specifically choose an Urban Outfitters top, as when conducting my research my target audience enjoyed shopping in Urban Outfitters.

There are differences between my artist such as the age of them, as my

artist is young as she is 19 whereas Lucy is older than Bella as she is 23. I wasn’t ever going to be able to say that my artist was 23, as she in real life is 16, therefore the eldest I was going to be able to say she was, was 19.

Another difference between my artists is the length of their hair. I wanted my model to have long hair, in order for me to style it into the bed hair look I wanted. Alongside this, I believe that Bella’s hair fits the surfer image that I was going for when modelling her.