According to the Internet, children are 27% of the entire population and fall in the DE Social group. My magazine will serve as a source of escapism and will be cheap, so anyone of any social class can afford it. Before planning my front cover, I created multiple magazine covers of different styles, to see which one was the most effective at persuading the consumers to buy it and was suitable for my target audience. I aim for my magazine to be engaging and to be radical, in order to influence more females to get into gaming since that is stereo-typically a males activity.

Before planning my magazine contents and adverts, I looked at examples of famous gaming magazines and noticed that game characters are predominantly male. The main aim of my magazine is to promote more females into the gaming industry, in which Gramsci’s cultural hegemony is being contradicted as I am trying to influence gender equality as gaming is stereo-typically a boy’s activity. I have thought very carefully about the sizing of my magazine, and I have decided on an A4 size of magazine because it will be able to fit into the consumer’s bag.  

For my adverts, I intend to help people stay connected, especially during the current Corona virus pandemic. Therefore, I intend on creating an advert based around a game that has online features because Maslow’s hierarchy of need identifies that people have a need of belonging, so through creating friends from online gaming, this need can be satisfied. My other adverts will be on a new gaming console because, like the online game, satisfies the need of belonging. My final advert is a game store because for many teenagers, it is a necessity and using Katz and Blumler’s Uses and Gratifications theory, the need of escapism can be satisfied as well as the need of relationships, which can be achieved through going online on gaming devices. My adverts will include females in order to empower them and they are presented as powerful, which contradicts Jean Kilbourne’s speech “The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women”, where she explores how women are wrongly represented in the media.

I have created Marian (the central image of my front cover) to appear radical to create the interpretation that women can be like men, in the fact that they can take on the adventure and action as well. I’ve also designed Marian to have masculine features to remove her sexuality and make her like male characters, as usually female game characters have exaggerated features. This contradicts Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, where women are seen as a sex symbol. I have put Marian in a masculine pose, to challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women should be equal to men. Marian is also wearing clothes strategically covering her bottom, challenging the concept of voyeurism. I’ve also included no makeup on Marian to challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women and men should be represented truthfully, as not all females are the same as what is represented by the dominant ideology.    

The cultivation theory says that by creating more media challenging the dominant ideology, you will be able to change people’s theories. Within my magazine, I am aiming to cultivate cultivating the idea of equality for both males and females. This is shown by the common occurrence of females doing more male orientated activities, such as Marian (a female) being a female rally car driver, challenging the dominant ideology that only men can participate in car racing.