Matt Sole

Q.2: How does your media product

represent particular social groups?

The social group my magazine was aimed at was teens and young adults, mostly male interested in indie music and films, I wanted to represent male teens in a less stereotypical, conventional way and more in an individual, unique depiction. By doing this I hoped to appeal to my target audience as they would be looking for something a bit different, and less mainstream, which my representation of teens would hopefully reflect.

The company would like to distribute my magazine was the Wire, which often covers indie music, film and upcoming bands and artists so it was important that I represented my models and social groups in a way which would appeal to the Wire, as they often use eccentric costume, mise en scene and shot types.

Target Audience

Front Cover

I chose the model for my front cover because they were the perfect portrayal of how I wanted to represent my target audience: a teenage male with individuality and not conforming to dominant ideologies.

He also generally dresses in non-stereotypical, unique ways, as seen on the front cover. The costume chosen for the front cover was the most eccentric one, with the bright colour and waistcoat with badges.

The mise en scene also included a ukulele rather than a guitar, more typically associated with male teens, so adds even more individuality.

I had the model looking away from the camera, but smiling. Unlike many other magazines, even within the Wire, which have the model looking directly, and confidently straight at the camera. This challenged the convention and made him seem more genuine, and less staged. This would help relate to and reflect my target audience.

The whole look of the front cover image, whilst he looks important, doesn’t look over-edited or false. He looks like a normal teen male with an individual, unique style, associated with the Indie culture.

Unfortunately I did not take enough images to show a diverse range of teens; however I had two female teens, and two of the male teen on my cover, this way I at least had both genders and also was still able to represent the individuality and unique, indie style that I wanted to. The two female teens were still not over-edited or particularly staged; they looked like two friends just having fun which again defies the convention of having heavily made up, edited females looking conventionally ‘beautiful’.

Other Images

The layout, fonts and colour scheme I used all had my target audience in mind

The black and white connote sophistication and the indie genre; the Wire typically uses black and white, pale colour schemes, however I also wanted to inject some colour into my magazine to reflect the young people in my target audience and also make my magazine a little bit individual and more appealing.

The font I used for my masthead chllenges the stereotype as it isn’t such a plain, formal font as commonly used in upmarket indie magazines; it uses more dynamic fonts and techniques such as --- and ---

House Style