The document discusses how the creator's media product represents various social groups. It states that the target audience for their music magazine is 16-30 year old males and females, mostly female. It aims to appeal to the ABC demographic. The creator also represents the "hipster" social group through references to independent music and vintage aesthetics. Early in development, the creator conducted a survey to help decide aspects like genre, features, color scheme, release schedule, and price based on the preferences of the target audience.

1. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?

2. I stated early on in the process of pre-production that I wanted my main target audience
for my magazine will be 16-30 females and males, mostly females. This includes high
school, college and university students and other adults up to the age of 30. I used the
social economic table to figure out what social class I wanted my audience to be in. The
table made me realise that I my magazine to appeal to the ABC demographics due to the
high quality and price of my magazine as it will be monthly (£3.75). As this is a country
and folk magazine, it is stereotypically stated that this genre is more popular with females
than males. I chose this age range as it will mostly be based on current artists and
upcoming artists rather than classic artists. Although references to older artists will be
made at times to give my magazine diversity and appeal to even more audiences and
demographics.
Furthermore, I created a
reader profile for my music
magazine which includes all
of the statistics and
information provided above
(next slide)

3. Shortly after choosing the target audience for
my music magazine I created this readership
profile, which includes all the statistics and
facts on all the readers. Which altogether
allows the creators to see who reads the
magazine. This is useful because it allows the
creators of the magazine to make possible
adjustments and changes to future magazines
if they aren’t appealing to their chosen target
audience as they thought.
My reader profile is definitely a good
representation of this social group, or country
music fans. It shows that it has successfully
attracted both male and female readers as
well as sticking to the target audience of ages
16-30 while still appealing to the older
generation to some extent as 25% of the
readers are 31 or older.

4. I did stereotype my audience to some extent as stated on my readership
profile. As a “fact” for the readers of my music magazine, I stated that “the
average Acoustic reader is a student in University and/or owns a guitar.” This
goes by the stereotype that the majority of country music fans usually
own/have an interest in/play a stringed instrument like a guitar. Guitars,
violins, banjos etc are a very commonly used instrument in country music and
they are very heavily associated and stereotyped with the genre. Referring to
the “student in University” part of the profile, I have noticed a stereotype that
when a person is in University, they are exposed to a variety of different
groups which allows them they start to discover less-mainstream genres of
music, like country and folk.
As explained in Tajfel’s social identity
theory, their new interest may lead to
them changing their whole lifestyle,
interests and philosophy based around
this music. Which turns into a new
social group and stereotype in itself.
Some of these include, emo, hipster,
scene, metalhead, mainstream addict,
raver etc

5. Elaborating on my previous point. Stereotypes are heavily
dependent on music, TV, film and social media and social
groups are usually based on these things. According to social
psychologist Tajfel, Social identity theory is best described the
ways in which people perceive and categorize themselves.
According to social identity theory, individuals form
self-conceptions that are based on two parts:
1) personal or self identity
2) collective identity.
Personal or self identity refers to our unique, personal
qualities such as our beliefs, our abilities and skills, etc. The
collective self includes all the qualities that arise from being
part of a society, culture, family, groups, clubs, etc. For
example, you may identify yourself as a protestant, male,
football player, who is very popular with people at school.
There are now so many stereotypes associated with artists
that there is now a website http://stereotype.fm/ where you
can type in an artist’s names and it gives you facts on what
their fans are most likely to do. E.g Blondie fans are most likely
to prefer blondes

6. From the information stated on the previous
slide, out of all the music stereotypes, my
target audience are most likely to be “Hipsters”
Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently
settled urban middle class adults and older
teenagers that appeared in the 1990s. The
subculture is associated with independent
music, a varied non-mainstream fashion
sensibility, liberal or independent political
views, alternative spirituality or
atheism/agnosticism, and alternative lifestyles.
Interests in media include independent film,
magazines and websites
The picture on the right that I found online
depicts the stereotypical appearance and style
of a hipster.

7. Initially, I struggled to find
more information on
“Hipsters” from another
person’s perspective. But I
came across this video via
Youtube created by comedy
channel WinterSpringPro which
is a parody of the song
“Pumped Up Kicks” By Foster
the People. This song through
the use of obvious stereotypes
explains the lifestyle of the
average hipster.
The lyrics in itself fully refer to a lot of hipster stereotypes. For example: “He's
got a plaid flannel shirt and some thick-rimmed glasses” “Brittany collects vinyl,
she did before it was cool” “She doesn't own a TV, because art is dead.” The
vintage format, cinematography and mise-en-scene of the video also reflect the
hipster lifestyle. This is useful to me as this is the main social group that I was
aiming to represent with my media products.

8. Early on in the stages of pre-production I conducted a survey where I
asked 15 people various questions on music magazines to get an idea of
what appealed to my then-undecided target audience
This question related to my
chosen genre. I had already
narrowed down my choices
to five genres. The answers
of my survey would
Pop determine which genre I
would go with. From these
Rock results, I ultimately chose
Folk country for my genre. But
Country from the other commonly
Indie chosen genres, Pop and
Folk, I decided to use those
as sub-genres to widen the
appeal.

9. This part of the survey
was intended to help me
decide which features I
would use and prioritise
in my front cover and
Reviews contents page. From
Competions this, I discovered that
the artist interviews
Upcoming Gigs
were seen as the most
Artist interviews important
Gossip element, because of
this, I chose the artist
interview to be the
headline.
I also used the other features but made their
size be in order of how much my audience liked
them. For example: the reviews feature got the
least page space and the artist interview
feature got the most page space

10. This part of the survey was intended to
help me decide on the basis for the
colour scheme of my music
magazine, especially the cover.
I had already decided
White and black
that I would
Red incorporate all of
Aqua these colours into my
Green magazine. The
results determine
which will be the main colours. The results
obviously show that Aqua was the most
popular colour in the survey, due to this, I
chose it to be my main colour in the colour
scheme. As Red was the second most popular
colour, I decided to make it the focal colour
in the colour scheme for my double page
spread.

11. This part of the survey was intended to
help me decide how often I would
release my music magazine.
Monthly was the most
Weekly popular with my
Bi-Weekly participants as over 50%
Bi-Monthly chose it over the other
Monthly options. They also
mentioned that they
prefer magazines to
come out every month as
they are a much higher
quality.
This helped me decide that my music magazine
would be released once a month, so 12 issues a
year, all very high quality and vast.

12. This part of the survey was intended to
help me decide the price my music
magazine once it hit the shelves.
Surprisingly, the majority
of my participants
£1-£1.50
wanted my music
£1.50-£2 magazine to cost more
£2-£2.50 than £2.50, which is
£2.50 or more more than the average
price for a music
magazine.
But my participants insisted that the more
magazines cost, the better quality they are.
These results supported my previous
decision of making my magazine monthly, as
playing more than £2.50 for a weekly
magazine would be to much. On the other
hand, a monthly magazine would be ideal.

13. Overall, my media product does represent and appeal to many
different social groups. From using the SEG table and choosing
my groups (ABC) I was able to make my magazine suit this
audience through references, price etc. I also attempted to
represent the stereotype and social group of “Hipsters” I did this
through the use of vintage sub-culture and the many different
sub-genres of my music magazine aside country
(Folk, alternative, Indie etc). Lastly, I represented social groups
through my decisions, as seen in earlier slides, I conducted a
questionnaire early in the pre production process where 15
people gave their opinion on the genre, the main elements, the
colour scheme, the release schedule and the price. All of these
results were taken into consideration and I have stuck by them
while in the process of creating my music magazine.