- How does your media product represent particular social groups?
- Who would be the audience for your media product?
- How did you attract/address your target audience?
The setting for the artist on the front of my magazine indicates that they are a studio band as it seems as though they are in some sort of studio surrounding, this means they sound brilliant after editing the songs and putting extra effects to their songs. Could also suggest they are more confident in studios recording than live on the stage. I portrayed my characters in my magazine as confident and very attractive to draw in that target audience so they support the band and also giving me money once I start to sell my magazine. The confidence is also being shown through the positioning and the fact the artist is smiling, means he is confident and enjoys what he has to do and loves creating music, the direct address from the guitarist on the front also implies the confidence of being a big star in the music industry. The body positioning, slanted back, leaning to the side and his hand out, implies he is laid back but cares for his music indicated by the guitar he is holding. There are some parts which relate to stereotypes such as the black costume and the hairstyles of the band members, black represents rock as it is a dark colour, rock is a rough genre to relate to and the black portrays the dark side of the genre, some rock music talks about life experiences which usually is dark and depressing for the stars. Rock stars use black mise-en-scene for concerts. I have chose to represent him in this way as it is stereotypical and my target audience will know exactly what genre I'm aiming for just by the look of him.
My target audience will be teenagers or young adults who enjoy rock songs, I have chosen this genre as I can relate to it and I know the typical conventions of the genre. I found out what my target audience will be as a done research via surveys or questionnaires. I found out that the target audience agree to the same stereotypes mentioned above and that they think rock stars are generally more angry looking in their facial expressions as they are more 'passionate' and 'dark', my magazine front cover challenges this convention. But some say soft rock would require more happy and upbeat rock stars I attempted to use sharp colour scheme to catch the eye of anyone flicking through magazines in a store such as WHSmiths Also the bold, contrasting colours help catching the eye of the audience, when they read the cover lines, they would be encouraged to read the full story inside.
I attracted my target audience with cool and creative images to use for my magazine which are interesting to look at, there is also a range of these edits all over my magazine which keeps the target audience engaged at all times further encouraging them to read on and buy the magazine.
Although my band members do exactly relate to the band in the picture (Kiss), this still does not mean they are not rock stars. The rock genre is split up into many different areas such as, indie-rock, Nu metal, electronic rock, soft rock etc. and all areas have their own target audience. My area of rock is Nu metal which don't dress up in make-up and black leather, it is more laid back, but still wear black T-shirts and black jeans or chinos. Generally the Nu metal bands where casual clothing, Nu metal is electronic side ofthe rock genre with unique sounds. My survey showed me that most of the rock fans enjoy Nu metal rock, so I have tried to portray Nu metal in my magazine.
