We have been studying lifestyle magazines looking at 'Men's Health' and 'Sugar' magazines. Men's Health has recently overtaken FHM as the most popular magazine for men in the UK with about 250,000 sales a month. We discussed the reasons behind this and what it said about our culture and shifting trends within British life. This led to a discussion about masculinity and the influence of America on British culture. Sugar meanwhile has lost sales in a competitive market after a long run of success. We looked at reasons for the fall in popularity and felt that the internet version of the magazine with its interactive element may be a root cause.
We conducted research to find the media packs for each publication. This allowed us greater insight into the intentions of the editorial team and allowed us to see how an audience was constructed. As magazines gain a large part of their revenue from advertisers we saw how magazines targeted a specific audience which advertisers then paid to reach with their adverts.
We are studying advertising next so we will look at what kind of products are advertised in differing lifestle magazines.
The timed essay required you to use your research and knowledge acquired during lectures to compare and contrast two front covers commenting upon visual codes, language, layout and design and the target audience for each magazine. Remember to go from the specific to the general in your response. This means use textual evidence then discuss the connotations and then expand your point.
For example;
Men's Health has an image of an unshaven, heavily muscled man in his late twenties, stripped to the waist who looks similar to Robbie Williams. He is grinning cheekily directly at the camera, arms hanging loosely at his sides emphasising his ripped torso and has a 'suedehead' haircut. This would appeal to British men who see Robbie Williams as an icon who they can relate to. They will aspire to have the same muscular physique as this model but he is also someone who would be familiar on any building site or gym. An American cover model may be clean shaven and have white teeth showing with a preppy haircut. Indeed a recent trend in the American issues is to have an iconic sportsman such as Lance Armstrong or even, for its 20th anniversary edition, a politician who the audience may aspire to be such as Barack Obama. As the UK version tends to follow American trends, how long will it be before we see Freddie Flintoff or Frank Lampard as cover stars ? Sugar has moved towards celebrity cover stars over the last two years which has coincided with a loss in sales. They are perhaps trying to copy the success of celebrity magazines such as Heat and Now. A young model with nice hair,fashion and make up used to be the norm and fitted with the idea of an older sister dispensing advice who the target audience could aspire to be...
Remember to use sales figures and look at global trends as the institutions behind the magazines are global. An interesting comparison is looking at the front covers of Men's Health in Malaysia and Russia and analysing how they represent the culture. There are also interesting questions about American cultural imperialism. It is not just the UK who are the 'Fifty First State of America' (an old New Model Army song liked by ageing media teachers). 88% of the audience who buy the magazine are men. An intriguing discussion is why do 15.000 women buy the magazine each month ?
Good luck.
