Evaluation Task 2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine represents the social group of punks. Although few people are associated with this group nowadays, in its original incarnation, the punk subculture was primarily concerned with concepts such as rebellion, anti-authoritarianism, individualism, free thought and discontent. Punk ideologies are usually expressed through punk rock music, punk literature, spoken word recordings, punk fashion, or punk visual art. Some punks have participated in direct action, such as protests, boycotts, squatting, vandalism or property destruction. Punks expressed nonconformity through their fashion choices, as well as opposing both mainstream culture and the hippie counterculture. Often displaying aggression, rebellion and individualism, some punks would also create visual art or have tattoos which would express socio-political messages. Partly as an anti-consumerist statement, punks would wear a lot of second hand clothing. Punk subculture featured a common attitude of opposing the term selling out abandoning ones values and/or a change in musical style toward pop or more radio-friendly rock in exchange for wealth, status, or power or adopting a more mainstream lifestyle and ideology. A network of independent record labels, venues and distributors has developed, as an anti-establishment and anticapitalist attitudes are such an important part of the punk subculture, although some punk bands have chosen to work within the established system of major labels. However, a do it yourself attitude is common in the punk scene in terms of music recording and distribution, concert promotion etc. Some punk bands have also promoted religions such as Christianity and Islam, although most are atheist or agnostic. Many punks are also committed to libertarian socialism or anarchism as a serious political ideology, and are sometimes labelled as peace punks or anarcho-punks. Because some well-known punk bands sang about general anarchy but did not embrace anarchism as a disciplined ideology, bands such as the Sex Pistols are not considered part of anarcho-punk. The first band to introduce socialism to the punk scene was The Clash. Some of the original Oi! bands (a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the UK in the late 1970s) expressed a rough form of socialist working class populism mixed with patriotism. They sang about unemployment, economic inequality, working class power and police harassment. My magazine covers all of these ideologies in its content, graphology and the type of bands featured, although after researching into UK Tribes, I have found that my magazine also crosses over into three other alternative social groups slightly. These are young alts, metalheads and scene kids. My genre is similar to that of young alts in that they are experimental with fashions and are unsure of what they want to be. Tribe icons include Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Green Day, which fit in with the genre of more current punk rock. However, young alts differ to punks in that they are

non-judgemental, love a lot of mainstream fashion and music, and are easily influenced by those around them, rather than disagreeing and rebelling against what they see. I think my magazine may appeal to them in terms of style, but does not necessarily represent them entirely. Metalheads may also be interested in my magazine, as they are keen on mixing all kinds of metal, punk and rock music, new and old, and frown upon the musical influences of emos and indie scenesters. However, they, too, are different to punks, for example in what they wear, and although they may be keen on purchasing my magazine, are not defined by this. Musically, Scene Kids love a mix of electronics and hardcore punk guitars, and although they have a different style to punks, they are very outrageous. They can be found lurking in friends houses drinking cheap booze and smoking badly rolled cigarettes, and so may be interested in the rebellious nature of punks, although they do not tend to act out. They believe that they are united until death in the strife and afflictions of commercial and mainstream, in which they must fight daily and tend to complain about how the world lacks loyalties; unlike its gang. This supports the punks belief of anarchism, which my magazine embodies, but once again my magazine does not represent scene kids entirely. I researched into existing punk bands when creating my own artist, so as to conform to the style I wanted to achieve. The band I created, The Simple Things, is similar to both 80s post-punk/new wave bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash etc. but also current pop-punk bands such as Green Day, blink-182 and Sum 41.

Important features I had to consider when recreating a band of this style included choice of costume, colour scheme, background, poses etc. For example, the image (above, right) of Siouxsie and the Banshees was taken outside, included the use of instruments, and the band members chose to look away from the camera rather than directly at it. My artist (above, left) conforms to this style by also doing these things, but is slightly different with regards to clothing choices as I wanted to attract a modern day audience, and so asked my models to dress in clothing they would normally wear the clothing worn by my artist is similar to those of more current bands such as Green Day, blink-182 and Sum 41 (below). Both images were taken in black and white (or in my case, edited to look as if they were) and both bands feature one female member and two male.

As I wanted to base my magazine on the style of an 80s punk fanzine, I applied a threshold effect to my photos to conform to this style. The image of The Clash (below, right) looks as if it has been drawn with a marker pen, and so I tried to make my images look similar. My image (below, left) conforms to the style of the Clash image because of the effects used, the plain backgrounds and the models choice of poses which are strong and engaging. The two images differ in that there are no instruments included in The Clash image, the haircuts and choice of clothing are different and there is a female included in my image. However, this is due to the fact that I was aiming to appeal to both a modern audience and people interested in punk music, and so this doesnt have a massive effect on the outcome and still works.