Cosmopolitan magazine sells sex to its audience - Essay Example

The rest of the paper analyzes aspects of the issue and the magazine in general, including format, audience, coverage by subjects and content, advertising, ideologies and cultural stories, and the overall worth of the magazine to pop culture (Hearst Communications). II. Format The standard page size of the print magazine is 290 x 210 millimeters, and within this page all of the contents of the magazine are bound, including all articles, photos, advertisements and the cover and back pages (“Cosmopolitan Specifications”).

What differentiates Cosmopolitan from other print magazines is presence of digital and online formats, to complement the print format that is widely distributed physically. The digital versions are identical to the print ones, except that they are made available via the popular digital media distribution formats, namely the iPad, the Kindle, and the Nook. These are on top of the online versions to be had via the web browsers, which include the preview version on which this analysis is largely based (Hearst Communications).

The layout of the front page is centered on the model for the month; in this case the picture of Kate Upton is front and center in the front page, with the Cosmopolitan banner in yellow, and the rest of the cover background in pink. Around the cover photo are the headlines of the different stories featured on the magazine issue, surrounding Kate Upton. The emphasis of the articles is on the readers' egoistic and sensual interests. A key feature of every issue, of course, is the pictorial of the model of the month.

In this case, the pictorial of Kate Upton for the November issue is already included in the website. The website pictorial is notable for including advertisements for featured products, in this case lingerie. The lingerie worn by Kate Upton has corresponding brands and prices. This way of advertising is a common format for the magazine, more of which shall be discussed in the advertising section of this paper (Hearst Communications). Among the key defining aspects of Cosmo are the tones that are geared towards women in terms of color, and the use of the word “sex” in capital letters at least one time in the cover page every issue, in the most prominent part of the magazine cover.

Past cover pages confirm this, with at least several article titles bearing the word sex in them. The format is always that of a glossy magazine with the topics inevitably including sex and sex stories purveyed by the magazine all over the world (Zimmerman). III. Audience The audience, it is clear, is made up of women buyers and consumers of the magazine, fans of popular culture, and media in general. The semi-naked photos of Kate Upton likewise invite the males as an alternative audience, even as the primary focus of the articles and the advertisements are women.

An analysis reveals that general circulation is about 3 million, with an audience base that extends to 64 countries, corresponding to the 64 international versions that are made available to different audiences by nationality on a monthly basis. The audience extends from teenagers to adult women in different parts of the world, with emphasis on the middle class (Zimmerman). IV. Subjects Covered, Content Summary As discussed in the format, the subjects covered revolve around female grooming and beauty interests, the opposite sex from the point of view of women, and always