Task 2: Magazines and Audiences, Part 2

The magazine cover I have chosen is June 2011’s Cosmopolitan. Cover girl for the magazine this month is Lea Michele. The target audience for Cosmopolitan is usually mid/late 20s – early 30s females, however I think because Lea Michele is on the cover it changes the target audience and includes older teenagers, this is because teens are more likely to recognise Lea as Rachel Berry from American TV series Glee.

I think that Cosmopolitan have tried to vary, expand and appeal to their target audience by using: relatable articles, bright pinks and coral colours, bold lettering/ font and celebrities well known to the target audience and all these components attract majority of female readers. The article ‘368 love-your-body bikinis, super-sexy shoes and dresses to die for’ relates and appeals to the target audience, it makes readers want to read the article and the bright style of font is attractive and eye-catching.  Also the tagline ‘ For Fun Fearless Females’ suggests the target audience and is written in bright pink against a white background on the binding of the magazine which makes it stand out. Another way which the cover has attempted to appeal to the target is by  using a Puff, they have filled in a shape with the same bright pink used on the cover and written ‘28 Celeb men strip naked for you!’ in bold, white capital letters.

One generic convention of the magazine is the bright, bold text/ font which have been used in the body text and the headline text’s font. It’s eye-catching and all the colours are girly, bright and fun which also relates to the target audience. Another generic convention of Cosmopolitan is the fact that there is only one main photo and all the rest of the information is text, on the cover of magazines such as ‘Take A Break’ there are many smaller photos in which link with the text/ articles however this magazine is purely text, which could suggest there isn’t many relatable photos, or it could draw the reader in to turn the page and see the photos along with the article. Some of the font on the magazine cover enhances specific parts of the magazines articles for example the article title ‘love-your-body bikinis, super –sexy shoes and dresses to die for’ the words bikinis, shoes and dresses are all in black font against a white background surrounded by other pink font makes each item that appeals to the audience stand out. Finally the line in the article ‘super-sexy shoes’ stands out as it is an alliteration which is a way language has been used to have an affect on the way it is said and the way it has an affect on the audience.