Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent a particular social group?

I believe that my magazine, "VINYL", represents social groups similar to those of magazines such as Rolling Stone. Because Rolling Stone was my main style mode, I began the process of making my magazine, with the mindset of basing my photos and layout on the popular, established magazine.

The photo I have inserted on the right is an image used for an issue of Rolling Stone and the image on the left is one I have taken myself that I have gone to use as my front cover image. As you can see, I was inspired by Debbie Harry's (Blondie's) aura that she brought to the photo and I really wanted to recreate that feeling in my photos that I was taking for my cover, contents page and double page spread. The aura of confidence, style and focus within an enticing photo is what I wanted to portray on my cover as I believe it would be very likely to attract my target audience, young professionals.
My photo shows my model, Megan, looking straight down the camera lens which is a development from the Rolling Stone cover however the makeup look and hair style are similar to each other as I wanted to mirror Debbie Harry's style with my model.

The kind of camera angle and shot is a Medium Close Up of my model, like the Debbie Harry photo, and the facial expression's from both Debbie and Megan give a clear indicator that these type of photos couldn't and wouldn't be used on a magazine such as "We Love Pop"or "Top of the Pops. This is because the magazines stated are solely pop magazines and show more of a glaring representation of euphoric pop stars, whereas, a magazine like Rolling Stone focus more on stylised photos that represent that kind of attitude and style the specific artist on the cover has, and like to retain more of an air of establishment surrounding their magazine and the artists included. These aspects of all magazines are used in order to attract their desired target audience perfectly.

Despite the fact both Rolling Stone and other multi genre magazines such as Billboard target the same kind of audience, they are subtly for different social groups. This is due to the difference in physical quality of the similar magazines. For example, Rolling Stone is printed on thick, good quality, glossy paper whereas Billboard or other multi genre magazines are printed on thinner, cheaper magazine paper which effects the price drastically. Rolling Stone is around £5 whereas Billboard is £2.50-£3. Therefore the target audiences differ in relation to how much disposable income the consumer has e.g. teenagers compared to young professionals/adults.

My Complete Cover

Rolling Stone Cover