Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The image to the right is of Evelyn and Christina (from left to right), both are members of the band 'Girls generation' which I made up and used for my music magazine. The picture on the left is from a Japanese music magazine 'Junon' and they are from a boy band 'Kat-tun'.

Kat-tun's postures are more towards the left hand side, Evelyn and Christina's posture are more towards the middle. Kat-tun's picture shows that they are fun and interesting whereas they take picture with an angle. Although Evelyn and Christina's photo shows reality because they are 'real people' and it also shows some furniture behind them. I think this makes my photographs look more natural.

The angles of these two images are not quite the same as Kat-tun's picture was taken with a medium long shot, however my image was taken with a medium close up. I think Kat-tum's image looks more active which comes from the pose of their legs and my picture looks more real and it is a good distance of shot which makes the audiences feel more familiar and easier to communicate with.

The background of both of the images are in the similar light colour which gives a pale background and makes the audiences focus looking at the photograph. It is also a trend to take pictures with light background in Japanese style magazine which gives the audiences the impressions of fresh and new.

In Kat-tun's picture, both of them are wearing dark clothes which gives the picture a contrast with the light background and they stand out more in the image. However, in my photograph, Christina isn't wearing dark clothes because I wanted to make her contrast with Evelyn. It was because they both look similar and I think that she wears different colour clothes would make it easier for the audiences to identify between them.

The expressions shown that all of these people look cute and having fun. I think that these expressions work well for the genre of my magazine because Japan always gives impressions of cute. The smiley faces make the audiences feel the happy and enjoyable mood when they look at these pictures.All these people in both of the pictures looks tidy with make up and their hair has been done up and modern clothes on which symbolises that Japanese culture is modern and they look tidy and trendy. This gives the audiences a general idea about Japanese by looking at the pictures.

I think these representations of females and the Asian race challenge the traditional stereotype of females. Nowadays, females are getting stronger and they start to be more independent without their partners. Other than that, considered that the genre of my magazine is Japanese style, this may encourage the audiences to buy my product because the curiosity of other cultures and lifestyles, which may increase the size of my target audience.