Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As you can see my image on my front cover has similarities to Q's magazines. The model Brandon Flowers is wearing a black suit with a neck tie; although he is faced at an angle he is still looking directly to the camera. With my image I also placed my model at an angle and got him to look straight at the camera. The reason I did this was so that it connected with the readers. If the image was looking at them when they picked up the magazine then they would feel more 'connected' with the magazine and therefore buy it. This is a technique used by all magazines which helps to sell their magazines. The lighting on my image is darker than the other image, this is because the background is black and so I lit the image to give it a glow and define him from the darker background. Q did not need to do this as the image has been placed on a white background and so it is already light. My models facial expression is similar to that of Q's magazine it is a straight serious image portraying that my artist is serious about music. This photoshoot was taken in a bedroom, it was hard to edit some of the items out of the shot and so making it darker helped to blank out some of the background. He is holding onto the beam in the bedroom with his body positioned in the openings of the beam. So that it did not weird having the photoshoot in the bedroom on my double page spread I placed a caption by the picture which said he wanted the photoshoot here so that his fans could see the real him.

Both magazines possess a male artist on the front however this does not mean that the gender is one sided. Q magazines main reader is male at 68% with the percentage of women reading Q magazine at 32%. Even though my magazine is not gender based I feel that it would appeal more to males due to the blue colourings however so that females are not left out I used gold and white colours to add a feminine touch. The reader age of my magazine differs with Q magazine. Q magazine has an average reader age of 29 whereas mine is 16. This is because teenagers are mostly into mainstream music, aiming this at the older generation would not be appropriate as they prefer more complex language and mature bands, whereas my magazine focuses on artists in the charts which the older generation may not necessarily know or heard of.