Representation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Pick a photograph of a person from your magazine.

Find an image from a real magazine which you think bears some similarity. Drop the two into photoshop, as a split screen. Export this splitscreen image as a jpeg then drop onto your blog and write about the similarities and differences in terms of the way you have constructed the image.

You might consider posture, gesture, angle, shot type, lighting, costume, expression, hair, etc.

Refer back to: Demographics – gender, age, race, social status (ABC1C2DE), area (north/south, urban/country)

Psychographics – mainstreamers, aspirers, reformers, succeeders, individualsLifestyles and sub-culture identities

Music magazines often try to 'subvert' conventional stereotypes. For example, hoodies and goths in the mainstream press are represented negatively but in a magazine such as Kerrang, the representation is a positive one because these subcultures are part of the target audience.

Does your magazine have a pro-consumerist or an anti-consumerist stance? Remember, they rely on advertising for a considerable percentage of their income.