Womens representation in magazines - looking at Glamour and Cosmopolitan.
by
ruthcandrews2 (student)
Ruth AndrewsMS3 Investigation and Production5605
Women’s representation in magazines - looking at Glamour and Cosmopolitan.
‘The women’s magazines industry is understood as a monolithic meaning-producer, circulating magazines that contain ‘messages’ and ‘signs’ about the nature of femininity that serve to promote and legitimate dominant interests.’
‘Understanding Women’s Magazines –Publishing, Marketing and Readerships’ by Anna Gough-Yates, 2003, P.7
For my MS3 media investigation piece, I have decided to research into the representations of women in fashion and lifestyle magazines, Glamour and Cosmopolitan. I am interested to uncover why these magazines appeal so highly to their target audience and whether these representations can be viewed as negative - that such magazines ‘produce a narrow and limited notion of what it means to be a woman’ or whether they empower and inspire women in the contemporary UK.
An introduction to the world of women’s magazines began in 1963 with the first edition of The Ladies' Mercury, which ‘promised to answer any questions relating to ‘Love etc.’ with ‘the Zeal and Softness becoming to the Sex’. The magazine was, ironically, made by a man. John Delton, the editor of The Ladies’ Mercury stated that his magazine will ‘respond to the most charming and entertaining issues related to love, marriage, behaviors, fashion and women's humor.’ It was this edition that first featured the famous column of questions and answers where the readers would send a letter to the editor and discuss their everyday and love problems.’ This is a clear reflection of the many aspects covered in women’s magazines today and can be seen as the foundation which many successful and prosperous magazines have built upon. It provided a print industry specifically aimed at women, ‘a paper room, of their very own.’
Glamour is a published by . It was founded in 1939 in the United States, it was originally called , concentrating on stories of the stars. It expanded over the years and now covers a range of features including fashion and beauty, contemporary articles and celebrity interviews and gossip. In the UK Glamour magazine’s media packet it states, ‘GLAMOUR magazine is the fastest selling women’s magazine in the UK. Launched in 2001 it was hailed as a 21st century magazine and within six months was selling more copies at UK news stand than any other monthly magazine in its sector.’ Upon researching further into the press pack I found that the magazine targets women aged 18-49 (a broad market allows the magazine to feature something for everyone) 65% of the readers were from the ABC1 demographic and 428,514 copies of the magazine were actively purchased each month.
GLAMOUR‟S unique selling point is that it is a high quality fashion, beauty, celebrity and lifestyle magazine published in a ‘compact format, at an accessible price’ The magazine does indeed follow the generic conventions of the previous description. It features page after page of predominantly designer fashion, in style guides, adverts, promotions and articles. However this does bring to question of why it contains such luxury content at such an ‘accessible price’ (£2) If Glamour’s readers could afford the £1,700 handbag with a double page review, then why does Conde Nast not price the publication higher, such as their other high fashion magazine, Vogue. This highlights the ideology behind the editors, and the magazine itself – although the audience may not be able to afford the expensive products, they still have an interest in them and perhaps reading the magazine brings a piece of this luxury to their lives. These women probably fit into the psychographic of ‘Aspirers’ who are materialistic and seek status, orientated to image and appearance. This can be supported further when looking at the models used to advertise the brands. They are represented as slim, striking and with perfectly styled hair and makeup, bang on trend every month. Looking again into Glamour’s press packet this is made clear as, GLAMOUR readers collectively spend £1.2 billion beauty products per year, 82% of GLAMOUR readers agree that beauty is an essential part of the whole fashion look and 88% of GLAMOUR readers agree that wearing make-up boosts their confidence. In ‘Understanding Women’s Magazines’ by Anna Gough-Yates, she addresses this problem as a negative product of consumption of magazines such as Glamour. ‘Early feminist accounts of women’s magazines and their interpretation of the relationship between the texts and their readers’ self-perception were concerned with the ways that magazines offered ‘unreal ‘ ‘untruthful’ or ‘distorted’ images of women’. This can be seen in Glamour as the representation of women as airbrushed and perfect is quite different from the everyday student, mother or working woman that picks up the magazine. Anna Gough-Yates almost asserts this as a crisis, that ’Women’s magazines were a key site for the development of a self-identity that undermined women’s essential, real feminine identities.’ This suggests that due to the magazines women essentially an obsession with aspiring to be as flawless as the women shown in the magazines.
