Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

My model represents the indie genre in my magazine. I looked into who would be an iconic figure in this genre of music and deemed Florence Welch (from Florence & The Machine) as the perfect character to compare with my artist.

Appearance, Costume, Attitude:

Although Laura is using an offensive hand gesture, which is a generic convention of this type of magazine and genre, there is nothing extreme or outstandingly odd about my artist.

I think that my magazine represents the indie genre between the ages 15-25 and reflects the social group of a younger audience of both sexes of middle class and more than likely of a creative/artistic nature. The majority of my target audience will probably be white, as this is the social group that is attracted to this sort of magazine. I use other images on my contents page of artists in front of Graffiti walls and street art - this reflects the growing art and fits in with the social group of my target audience. Graffiti is becoming a more widely respected art and is being increasingly used in magazines such as NME, Kerrang! etc. These magazines target a similar audience as Output and so represent the social group I am targeting.

Laura has very similar hair to Florence as both of their hair has the ruffled look and is of a similar colour and length. Similar hair styles and similar fashions will show that Laura belongs to the same genre as Florence. Although there are no set trends in order to fit into a genre, there is a certain look you have to try and achieve, so Laura's hair length and colour will show similarities between the two artists.

Both artists are wearing long tops that cut off just below the waist.

Both artists show attitude in their poses. Laura shows attitude through her use of offensive hand gestures and Florence shows attitude through a shouting-effect pose. Both poses draw attention to that image but in very different ways. Laura's attitude intrigues you to the rebellious side of her, suggesting that she could be an interesting character to read about, whereas Florence's attitude of shouting gives a more artistic approach or perhaps an insight as to what she may be like performing on stage.

Both artist's pictures are taken in a photography studio and so have no real background. The lighting in Laura's image is darker than that of Florence, however, in my magazine, the picture is brighter and has had some of the colours brought out to make the photo look more professional.

Overall, i think that these elements of the photos represent a typical indie artist. However, in Laura's photo there is a slight hint of a rock chick showing through, but that is a twist that makes her unique in the indie genre.