Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

The social group my magazine represents are modern, young people that follow hip hop culture. This is a subculture that not only depicts music but also hip hop fashion. We can trace hip hop back to the 70’s where the culture of such music was brought to light from the streets of New York. My magazine is a representation of this urban culture and I have demonstrated this with the image of a young black boy wearing a leather jacket. This denotes the image of 1970’s Kool Herc a hip hop DJ and artist from the 70’s.

Thus the image I have chosen for the front cover of my magazine is a representation of the values and lifestyle of a hip hop artist. This essentially will draw the attention of both females and males from urban social backgrounds that are exposed to hip hop. It is important to note that hip hop culture from the 70’s has evolved and has created a number of different followers that may appreciate this movement. For example young people of today have created their own styles and depiction of what hip hop represents. Although I have picked a young black boy for the cover of my magazine it is important to be aware of other artists that have widened the audience type. If we look at the likes of Vanilla Ice in the 80’s or Eminem in 2000’s the foundation of hip hop has stayed the same however the nature of this culture has adapted and moved with the times. My magazine represents this by speaking of influential artists such as Michael Jackson who was a firm believer of equality of all races and was an advocate of this through his music. Furthermore I have mentioned artists such as Rihanna and Chris Brown who are have adapted hip hop music and at times merged pop music with hip hop to reach less urban audiences. Anyone that is interested in such artists are likely to pick up this magazine to read more. This is an example of anchorage text, where it relies on the social group knowing who the stars are. The fact that my audience is young, my magazine has tried to represent  the fact that young people are fond of following what music artists are up and strive to discover new artists, and this has been made easier to them by social media platforms such as twitter, instagram, tumblr etc. and sites like youtube. This indirectly characterises what young people are interested in. In addition to this the use of a young male on my front cover and content page, represents the age group I am targeting which is that of 15 to 25.

By keeping the costume simple yet, “suave, slick and sharp” throughout my magazine, especially with the male model, in my opinion is one of the specific representations of this social group. When you look into modern Hip Hop culture, one of the main ethics behind it is going from nothing to something. When you look at artists such as Kanye West, and Jay Z which are two of the most iconic male figures in the Hip hop industry today, they tend to wear suits, leather jackets and furs, to represent the wealth but within their lyrics talk about having nothing and they’re rise to fame and fortune. My demographic group look up to this, they try to mirror this image. By using a style that is difficult to copy and pull off, my magazine illustrates the new younger followers of this social group, which differs from the connotations of the past. Old hip hop was about the struggles of life for example if we look at artists like 2Pac and Biggie Smalls who in their lyrics would talk about their rise to fame and fortune, but kept with the baggy clothing in order to show the world that they came from humble beginnings which is still very much respected by people and artists who fit this social group. However new hip hop have two sides now there are less baggy clothing and me suits and ties.
The reason I have placed such a focus on the male model is because the Hip hop industry is dominated by men, although female artists such as Lil Kim, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna have made their mark on the hip hop industry it is still very much a “man’s world”. I have tried to represent this by the ratio of male to female images; I have used 2:1.
Also the dramatic tone of my double page spread article is representative of the kind of interests this social group, it does not really reflect a demographic group but we can say that the main audience type is working class black boys. They are constantly looking for the next big thing. They consider themselves to be ahead of the game and trendsetters, as a result a magazine that features a new artist with a fiery personality and discussing her arguing with other big major artists is ideal, as it gives the target group the feeling of discovering them, they then begin to set the trend of following this artist and researching into their music and their connections. This ties in well with this particular group because of the fact that they are only interested in things that slip under the mainstream radar, they want to find out for themselves before everyone else does, as once something becomes widely known and popular with other social groups it's ditched because the feeling of originality is no longer there. As this magazine is for a specific group it does what a lot of magazines fail to do and that is empower readers to discover new artists no matter how small.

As well as that the use of language is also representative of this particular social group, the double page spread article discusses an artist called Frankie Banks arguing with other celebrities over twitter this is ideal because this particular group would again feel involved they may decide to go and follow this artist on twitter and research more into it themselves again feeling like they are discovering it, and feeling like they are setting the trend amongst their friends by being the one who knows about the most recent happening. Furthermore the use of slang is also very ideal; I have used words such as “beefs” when discussing the argument because this would be attractive to this hipster crowd, because they’d feel comfortable and familiar with the language, it is representative of them because its language which they would use amongst their friends and people of the same social group as them. The use of colloquial language as a mode of address creates a relationship with the audience and further highlights the target group.

This modern, young, urban breed of hipsters are known to be adventurous in their choices and enthusiastic regarding new ideas in order to stay away from mainstream ideas as I have mentioned before, however in this modern day everyone is almost addicted to celebrity culture and social media platforms that connect them to celebrities even more for example instagram and twitter. This addiction and this need to want to know the latest trends amongst urban celebrities makes this social group very conventional without them noticing. I have tried to represent in several different ways for example, my magazine has a very conventional front advertising artists and articles which the social group would be want to know more about, however when you get to the contents page you are then hit with individuality, the unconventional colour and text which challenges conventions of real media product and I created this by using different publications to create something new that is unique which is very fitting of this social group because they want to be fitting between ideas, or use different ideas to create one that is theirs and unique to their personality.