Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I feel that my music magazine represents the more casual music fan, in that it does not focus on any specific genres of music but instead covers a wide variety of things. This is why I have chosen to compare my main cover image to one of Q's main cover images, since they usually have what are considered more casual singers/bands on their cover, such as Cheryl Cole, Madonna (see below), Michael Jackson, Lily Allen, U2 etc. Just to clarify, by casual I mean singers and bands that are well-known to the general public and are not considered to be a part of a specific sub-genre of music; things that your aunt and your little brother could both equally enjoy listening to. For example, those artists that I mentioned had been on Q's cover are casual. In contrast, Slipknot has been on the cover of Kerrang! more than once but are definitely not what I would consider to be a casual band, the same goes for Pink Floyd and their being on Mojo's cover several times (despite being a completely different genre of music to Slipknot). This means that the social group my magazine most represents is that of the general music-liking populace, a much more mass audience rather than niche audience, and this is highly unlikely to include the "music aficionados" of Mojo, the "individually minded" of Kerrang! or the mostly unemployed "entertainment enthusiasts" of NME.

To get a better idea about how the social groups which my magazine and Q represent are different and similar, I shall compare the cover images between the two magazine covers. The first, and probably most obvious, similarity is that both images are of females. What's more, both females are attractive and are staring at the camera in a seductive way, in a medium close-up shot. They are also similar in that they have perfectly clear skin and make-up, in my case this is because of edits in Photoshop and I wonder how much Photoshop is to thank for Madonna's flawless appearance on Q's cover as well. From what I can see their poses aren't too dissimilar either; both have one hand up by the neck, but Madonna's hand is in the foreground turned toward the camera while Kerry's is in the background. I personally like it more in the way Kerry posed, as the hand does not obscure or detract attention away from the face at all. However, creating a sense of obscuration and mystery may be exactly what this cover of Q was trying to do, since Madonna's head and body are covered by a kind of silky curtain. This gives an overall different image to my cover; it seems more sultry and mature than the innocent yet rebellious attitude presented in my image. Another difference which supports this is that Kerry is looking upwards at the camera while Madonna is staring at it directly. This suggests that Madonna is older and more powerful, while Kerry is young and still has to look up to/at others.

Overall my image is still representative of the same social group as the Madonna image, and one can imagine that if Kerry Anne were still popular and attractive when she reached Madonna's age she would be positioned on a music magazine cover in a similar way to her.