Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product is aimed at an audience which isn’t massive in the UK therefore is a niche audience so it was difficult for me to find conventions to follow. Firstly I think my product represents the lower class because generally when I researched Reggae it was often associated with the ‘lower class ‘which is why my product only costs £1.50 meaning it’s not very expensive which is a benefit for the lower class who should be able to afford the magazine comfortably, if I could do it again I would try and make it more appealing to the lower class by maybe adding in competitions and advertisements which would benefit the lower class.

My magazine is gender specific towards male but if I could do it again I would make it less gender specific, however generally reggae is associated with the male audience which is why I thought it would be a good idea to make it more male orientated, if I was to do it again I would make it less male specified because there are female reggae fans in the UK, my product could also get females into Reggae in the UK so for this reason I should have made it less gender specific.

My main target audience is Reggae fans within the UK, people around ages 20-40; to get a more accurate number I could have done some market research where I conducted a questionnaire on the streets. Knowing what my target audience affected my magazine in different ways; it affected the price, the advertisements as well as competitions. From doing research on Reggae fans using social demographics charts and creating reader profile from the information I learnt, I could influence my products to their particular interests.

The colours of my font represent Reggae fans in general because they are widely associated with the Reggae genre, I used colours like Red, yellow and green which are seen as ‘Rasta’ colours, this highlights the fact that Reggae has a trademark of certain colours which must be used on a Reggae magazine to put it in the Reggae genre.

The clothing used in my magazine isn’t really associated with Reggae but I had limitations to what I could use as clothing, the closest I could get to ‘Rasta’ was plain black. If I was to do it again then I would try and find more suitable clothing which was associated with the Reggae genre. I did try and Photoshop the clothing with the colour replacement tool but I felt that it looked unnatural and ‘fake’.

Feature stories are one of the most important factors of a magazine because they are designed to help sell the product, they can decide whether the potential buyer buys the magazine or not so with that in mind I had to make sure I got my feature stories right and make sure I fitted them in correctly. One of my feature stories is “Bob Marley tribute act going on tour” this is associated with Reggae because Bob Marley is seen as the ‘king’ of Reggae and one of the most successful Reggae artists there has ever been so obviously this is going to attract my target audience and attempt to persuade them into buying the magazine.

Overall my magazine represents the ‘lower class’ and Reggae fans in general, I did this by adjusting the price to one that the ‘lower class’ should be able to afford whilst creating feature stories that can persuade the potential buyer into buying one of my magazines.