Social Demographics

Social Demographics; a word I was not intensely familiarised with, until my critical analysis class on Thursday morning. This subject which caught my attention in class made me wonder, how a social class which we are categorised into, creates a divide through a social path we may want to pursue in. It all comes down to our race, gender, income, how educated we are, and the area we live in, which create our individual social economic grades. As I was listening to Alexia Economou in class and scribbling down the notes, I could not help but wonder; do these social economic grades and grade listing really justify the type of people that we are. And what I mean by this is if I was an A Grade-(which is also known as the upper middle class person which only caters to 2.7% of the population in Britain) does that mean I would only read The Times and The Observer on a daily basis or could I still be an upper class person and read a publication designed for the working class such as Heat Magazine. Magazines such as Vogue cater to the upper class and the upper lower class. Through the advertisements they use in their magazines which feature designer labels such as Yves Saint Laurent and written articles based on subjects like Gianfranco Ferre life in fashion; the editors are creating a magazine written to capture a fantasy and a dream / imaginary vision in their writing which the lower class thrive on. As I took the hour journey back home on the bus; I found myself flicking through Another magazine and Wonderland. Two magazines which I have not analysed before. These magazines made me think about which publications the stores tend to use to market their products. The market research which goes into finding the right publication majority of their consumers reads, also comes down to social demographics. As I flicked through the magazines I was not at all surprise that I did not come across an advertisement featuring Primark. Another magazine mostly features ads for Miss Sixty and Vivienne Westwood. You can generally see that they cater for the more artistic customer who may be into photography- Again by reading Another Magazine you can see the difference between Another and Heat or Another and Glamour. Although as I soon became aware of; these two magazines are exceedingly different to a magazine such as Vogue. There is a sense of reality and realism in these publications where vogue is surreal.