Cosmopolitan Magazine Analysis 705j12

Cosmopolitan magazine IMOGEN PARSLOW

All About Cosmopolitan Magazine Cosmopolitan is an international fashion magazine for women. It was first publishes in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, it was soon after transformed into a literary magazine. A literary magazine is a magazine that commonly publishes short stories. It then eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960’s. Cosmopolitan magazine is also known as Cosmo. It contains articles on women's issues, Relationships, Sex, Health, Careers, Self improvement, Celebrities, Fashion and Beauty. Cosmopolitan is published by Hearst Magazines. Cosmopolitan has 64 international editions, it is printed in 35 different languages and is distributed in more than 110 countries.

All about Hearst Magazines The Hearst Corporation is an American multinational conglomerate group in New York City. Hearst was founded by William Randolph Hearst. He is an owner of newspapers. The company has holding that have expanded to include a diverse portfolio of media interests. Hearst is one of the largest diversified communications companies in the world. Its media ownerships include 15 daily newspapers and 36 weekly newspapers and more than 300 magazines worldwide. They also includes 31 television stations including A+E Networks and ESPN Inc. As well as Business Publishing, Hearst are in the television production, newspapers features distribution and real estate ventures.  

Hearst and Cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan is the world’s number one women’s magazine brand – with 60 editions worldwide. At the heart of every feature, blog, tweet or video is the ethos that Cosmo must inspire women to be the best they can be – on their . Whether that’s by empowering them through campaigns, giving them the confidence to ask for that pay rise, offering honest relationship advice, or helping them to hunt down those heels, Cosmo engages with our reader on a deeper emotional level than any other brand, providing solid, intelligent advice she really trusts. As a result, Cosmopolitan is the most widely read monthly magazine in the UK – one which is as in touch with its readers now, as it was when the magazine launched in 1972; a fact we’re very proud of. Cosmo’s a lifeline for ambitious, go-getting women, mainly aged between 18 and 35. Cosmopolitan’s reader loves fashion and beauty and wants to know the smartest ways to make them work for her. She values her relationships with her friends and family, and wants to make the most of her hard-earned career. She might not always feel 100% confident – about her body, her relationships or her life – but that’s where Cosmo comes in. The magazine has a combined print and digital circulation of 258,448 and its website, cosmopolitan.co.uk, engages more than 6.5m unique s per month, not counting over a million obsessed Twitter and Facebook followers.  

Target audience of cosmopolitan. 

The target audience for cosmopolitan magazine is:

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Modern women.

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Ages 18-35 years old.

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Living in the city.

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Good income.

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Love fashion.

Masthead of Cosmopolitan Magazine. 

The cosmopolitan masthead is large and always the first thing that you see when you look at the front page. The masthead is always pink which sets the colour scheme for the magazine. This shows us that pink is the main colour that will be used in the magazine which also shows us who the target audience. By cosmo using pink it is a feminine colour which shows us cosmos target audience is females. The magazines masthead has been put into the skyline of the page and it is what catches your eye at first. It is the main icon on the page and covers up a lot of the page. Cosmopolitan is a well known, successful company with the synergy of its logo also being well known. Cosmopolitan is always a well known magazine.

Iconography of Cosmo magazine. 

In almost all of the editions of cosmopolitan magazine they use a big image on the page and then they write around that. By using a large image it is appealing to the audience because it is always what catches your eye. They vary the shot types they use in these front covers images. In almost all of these big images mainly on the front cover they use a well known celebrity. This will increase the sales because many people will be a fan of this particular celebrity. In the front cover I analysed it was a picture of molly from the Saturdays. This picture makes molly come across as extremely feminine and girly due to the way her make up is done and the choice of her sophisticated, elegant dress. The use of direct mode of address in the image creates a strong connection between the image and the reader, her posture suggests she is blowing a kiss to the reader and it is almost as if it is directed and them individually.

Logos and Advertising. 

On the new updated version of snapchat they now have a page which is called the ‘discovery page’ on this you can read a variety of magazines and news pages. Cosmopolitan is one of these. Here cosmopolitan have used web 2.0 for advertising. This is called synergy. It has made a lot more people aware of cosmopolitan and drawn a lot of people to the magazine. It is a good way to the magazine and show people what cosmopolitan is all about.

Issues Raised by Media Ownership. 

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There are some issues raised by the media ownership such as the horizontal integration. This describes a type of ownership and control. It is a strategy used by a business that seeks to sell a type of product in a number of different markets. Another issue raised by media ownership is vertical integration, this means companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Conglomeration meaning a combination of two or more co-operations engaged in entirely different businesses together into one corporate structure. The cosmopolitan brand is horizontally integrated with Hearst corporation, because cosmopolitans brand is all over the world meaning they are associated with Hearst corporation, this gives them and more ment.

The Technology that has been introduced to change levels of production and distribution. I think that in many ways technology has helped with the production and distribution of magazines. Technology has helped the distribution of Cosmopolitan magazine because before magazines had to be distributed by road. Couriers and delivery vans had to drive from the publishers and take the magazine to the shops. These methods are still being used however it is being used to a minimum. Most magazines have now gona onto an online version, which means the distribution is almost free because the magazine can be publishes straight to the internet and reduce the costs of distribution such as fuel prices and road tax.

How has technology impacted the magazine. Technology has also introduced threats to the magazine industry. Even though the internet has helped to distribute magazines in the way of being more cost effective, it also means that people will tend to read it online rather than paying to buy a hard copy of the magazine. Now that mobile phones are advanced enough to allow the use of the internet, reader can read the magazine on the move. However this poses as a threat to the magazine because it reduced the number of people paying. A way of fixing this problem is by is by offering online subscriptions. This means that readers can read the magazine online however they have to sign up and pay monthly or weekly.