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

I intended to present my magazine in a way in which is seen to meet with the particular middle-class, so my magazine isn’t seen as unprofessional or at a low standard. Therefore I have included professional language along with colloquial language, to meet my demographic personal identification, along with trying to get consumers to take my magazine quite seriously, and not seen as a childish teenager’s magazine.

Throughout my research, I had come across that majority of my respondents preferred the R&B look, along with the Hip-hop and Rap. I have also discovered that majority of my respondents preferred the ethnic group of the Black African Caribbean, compared with other cultures of artists that were available for choice of favourite. This then puts me in a situation on whether to include images of models that follow the wants and needs of these results, which are stereotypes, or challenge this. This then led me to challenge this, as I had included all ethnics within my magazine, making this fair.

However, in my magazine I have shown that I have challenged a particular stereotype. This stereotype consists of R&B artists being typically stereotyped to be the ethnic group of Black Caribbean’s.  On the other hand, I have challenged this stereotype due to the fact I wanted to make my magazine fair, with a variety of ethnic groups contained within my magazine, as some of my target audience may find this offensive, if this ethnic group doesn’t relate to them. Instead, I have included a British White model on the front of my magazine, to reinforce the idea that R&B artists can consist of any ethnic group.  Whereas inside my magazine, I have included a variety of different ethnic groups, such as Asian, Black Caribbean’s, British White. This was so my all of my audience, have a chance of representing themselves within my magazine.

Within the gender of my magazine, I had followed the stereotypes of girls being presented in such a way where they are in line with the Male Gaze, and contain a sense of the Hyper Reality effect, which was created by Jean Baudrillard, and is a theory in which it suggests reality has been replaced by simulacra. He also argues that there is no such thing as reality anymore.  Majority of my demographic insists on having this theory within my magazine, so therefore this tells me that the Hyperreality is something in which is going to be appealing and attracting to my demographic. This is then where they want to have their ‘dreams aspiration’ to inspire to look like these images, as women have been stereotyped to contain these theories by society. By the use of Photoshop, this helps make these theories happen, along with the different stereotypes. Hyperreality images have been used so often, that the public are unaware that this isn’t actually how the models look, and that this is their natural look.

This however may come across a quite dangerous, due to the fact young generations inspire to look like these images so badly, they end up feeling the need to starve themselves, leading to eating disorders to have the ‘perfect’ body as showing in these hyper reality images. They are also unaware that these theories take place in images.  This table shows the average sizes for women; where the ‘Barbie’ image is presented with the containing the Hyperreality affect, where women feel this is what they need to represent themselves as.

However, regardless to this, I have decided to use the hyper reality effect, along with the Male Gaze, due to the fact that this enables my magazine to receive more readers, as these theories relate to my audience. Such as the Male Gaze, women inspire to be like the women in my magazines who represent the Male Gaze, due to the fact they like the attention that these women receive from men, and therefore lead women, to feel if they were to purchase my magazine, they will receive this attention from men, which results in me receiving more readers. Whereas for the Hyperreality, inspires women to have dreams and aspirations to look like these women, resulting in them purchasing my magazine due to my magazines containing these theories. This highlights that without these theories my audience would feel they are hardly able to represent themselves through my images and therefore my magazine would not appeal to them.

I have also detached the label to teenagers, where they are mostly seen as not caring about education, unorganised, back chat, lazy, unmotivated for many things, however in my magazine, I have presented teenagers, in particular girls, to be seen and treated like normal adults would be treated.  Ways in which I had done this was by including things such as the Male gaze theory, and the Hyperreality effect. These are theories that would be appealing mainly to an older demographic, due to the fact younger generations such as under the ages of 14, wouldn't know that the Hyperreality exists, and are unaware of this effect taking place in images. Whereas the elder generation, such as my target audience, are aware of this effect happening, however they still inspire to be like these images, due to the dreams and aspirations in Maslow’s theory. This can then give my demographic the ‘adult look’, so they aren't seen as typical teenagers. Other ways in which I have done this was by including a variety of different languages, such as colloquial languages, along with professional languages, in order to make my magazine seem not childish, or immature.

After conducting my research, I had found out that majority of young girls take images within my magazine quite seriously, and therefore have big effects on them. Without the uses of Maslow's theory, the Uses and Gratification, and hyper reality, and the Male Gaze, images to females would just be seen as an ordinary image, and therefore would not pay any attention to my magazine. This effect has been caused by societies ideological decision on how women are presented in society.