I undertook a sustained analysis of the November issue of 'Cosmopolitan' magazine, looking at how the magazine creates a sense of belonging for its readers. I bore in mind that post modern readers play with gender identity and so can pick and mix the meaning of the representations in the magazine.
Firstly, we looked at the cover of the magazine and discovered that Taylor Swift was used as the November cover girl; a strong independent woman who is admired by many people in our society. The image displayed on the cover shows Taylor with her hand on her hip wearing a long, dark, sparkly purple dress, with a long slit up the side, presents her as a confident, glamorous and assertive figure- something that the Cosmo readers can aspire to. A slightly low camera angle in used to help portray her as a figure to look up to.
We conducted a semiotic analysis of the fonts and colours that were used on the over of the magazine. We learnt that Cosmopolitan is aimed towards a female audience through the use of the pink, purple and pale blue colours used. Its media pack supports this idea as it states that more than 14 million readers each month are female. The fonts range from clear bold sans-serif font to fancy, decorative feminine fonts.
As Janice Winship says "A magazine is like a club. Its first function is to provide readers with a comfortable sense of community and pride in their identity." Cover lines such as 'Taylor Swift on Feminism' proves that the magazine is directed at a female audience, as well as this it is stated in the media pack that Cosmopolitan is 'The Bible for Young Women, wanting to live fun and fearless lives.' Cosmopolitan used cover stories that would entice women such as 'The great sex act even Christian Grey only fred to do once', this allowed women to read about private and intimate things.
After further analysis of the magazine, we learnt that the stories that were covered all centred around fashion, lifestyle, sex and celebrity gossip; all these being topics were are interesting to the regular Cosmo readers. As well as this Cosmo tries to address issues such as feminism and reveal opinions that role models hold; such as Taylor Swift who praises Emma Watson for her powerful speech on feminism to the UN. The discussions of these issues in Cosmo allows female readers to believe that they are able to hold their own opinions just as these celebrities do. A feminist/Marxist reading of women's magazines in general suggests that women are told what to thin by magazines which distracts them from more important issues, yet Cosmopolitan contradicts this view in articles like 'Women Hating= Not Cool' by bringing those issues into the spotlight.
A comparison with 'Women's Health' magazine is significant because this conforms more consistently to the Marxist theory. The cover lines for Women's Health are more didactic, using imperatives such as 'Shed One Size' and 'Burn Fat'.
The cover girl, Frankie Bridge from The Saturdays should be portrayed as a role model to the reader as her well exercised body is exposed on the magazine cover. This also conforms to the Marxist idea of interpellation (mis-recognising yourself), as women who read this magazine want to imagine themselves as Frankie Bridge which is an unrealistic aim. The articles in the magazine are presented like an instruction manual; telling you what to do, eat, how to act and when by playing on your insecurities, this relates to Judith Butler's theory that "Gender is a performance and gender and lifestyle magazines provide the performance."
Furthermore, Gramsci's 'uses and gratifications' theory can be applied here in that the readers are using the magazine media to conform to a hegemony; a given set of beliefs and ideas that we should all accept and live by. For example, the cover story about Strictly's Frankie Bridge is followed by a set of instructions on how to "get flat like Frankie".
In comparison, our analysis of 'Men's Health' magazine revealed slightly different dominant discourses. The cover lines confirmed four key discourses; quick-fix problem solving, displayed in cover lines such as '5 minute energy boosts'; Male narcissism and anxiety ('1 instant age eraser'); new male sensitivity ('21 women you need to have in for life' the women featured include Angela Merkel and Emma Watson who all display empowerment, helping to teach the reader 'to be a real man'); male superiority ('how to hit on a supermodel').
However, despite gestures towards being 'new men', the cover pictures are always in black and white, this is because the editors assume that the heterosexual readership will feel more secure with this as the black and white male torso which has connotations of being less sexual and more mechanical. This supports the idea the magazines reassure readers that they have made the right lifestyles choices.
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