A summary of the unit
1. Magazine Publishers
90% of consumer magazines in the UK
IPC Media (part of Time Warner Group), Bauer, Conde Nast, Dennis and the
National Magazine Company. These companies publish their titles internationally.
2. Two “audiences”
Profits from magazines come from cover price but also, crucially, from advertising sales. Therefore, the publishers of magazines have, in a sense, two audiences to please – the buyers of the magazines, and the buyers of the advertising space. In our class-work we found that in many cases, particularly for the up-market magazines (those with a very high percentage of ABC1 readers), income from advertising was often more than income from circulation.
3. How magazines understand their readers
Because of the need to “sell” their readers to advertisers, magazine publishers have an extremely clear understanding of who their readers are, both DEMOGRAPHICALLY (age, class, occupation, gender etc) and PSYCHOGRAPHICALLY (their beliefs, tastes, aspirations, and crucially, PURCHASING HABITS). Reading a publisher’s “media kit” for a magazine demonstrates the ruthless way in which the readership is packaged up and sold on to the advertisers.
4. The consumer/lifestyle mag as a link between consumers and producers of body products.
Because of all this, magazines have been understood, by many feminist analysts, to be a VEHICLE whose primary purpose has been to DELIVER a market to the capitalist organisations which make and sell consumer and body products. It has been argued that the growth in men’s lifestyle magazines in the last two decades is linked to body-product businesses looking to expand their markets by colonising the male body. (Capitalist businesses always have to grow and increase profits to keep their shareholders happy, so they are always looking to expand into new markets. This can be done geographically by expanding into new countries, or businesses can seek new markets within their existing range.) In this sense it is no wonder that David Beckham was taken up so keenly by men’s lifestyle magazines – he wore make-up, obviously liked clothes, and clearly exfoliated regularly!
5. Theories of audience
Arguments which say that the mags reinforce stereotypes or make women spend their money in certain ways seem to rely on a rather old-fashioned effects theory, where the meaning of the text is clear and single, and the audience passively accepts it. If not a “hypodermic syringe” model where the meaning of the text causes immediate behavioural changes (photos of thin women cause readers to go on diets), then the theory underlying it is a “cultivation theory”, where repeated exposure to such images leads to gradual changes in attitudes, (women come feel insecure about their bodies because they aren’t thin).
But there are problems with these models. It is difficult to argue that women are simply being duped by lifestyle magazines, or that men are simply having sexist assumptions about women as objects reinforced by men’s magazines. Readers may be more ACTIVE (rather than passive), and can perhaps read in more DISTANCED, or IRONIC ways that effects theories allow.
7. Technological convergence and media synergy
e-zines, online versions, radio stations, TV channels, blogs, club nights, reader content and e-paper are radically changing the magazine industry to reflect changes in audience demand, technological developments and the need for magazines to stay in profit. There will probably always be a place for print magazines but not in the quantities we have at the moment and some may become freebies in order to survive.
8. Keys to success in the magazine industry
The magazine market is volatile and many magazines fail within the first four years. To be successful they need: the vision of a strong editor (such as Conor McNicholas, NME or Jo Elvin, Glamour); to fill a gap in the market; a unique selling point that makes it stand out from the crowd; to provide a good vehicle for advertisers; use cross-media, multi-platform techniques that captivate and involve their readers and finally, a Brand that can keep pace with social and technological changes and remain a household name. Easy!
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