Magazines and the Worlds They Create

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how two parallel magazines, "Shape" and "Men's Health," with similar market bases, target women and men with similar interests and from similar lifestyles and age groups. It compares the different ways the magazines conceptualize their readership and how the magazine's advertising attempts to influence the targeted reading populations, despite the mutual parallel between the target audiences in their interest in living a fit lifestyle.

From the Paper:

"Both magazines discuss fitness, nutrition, going out, and what to wear when working out and going out on a monthly basis, in both male and female incarnations. One of the most pernicious stereotypes that cling to women's magazines, as noted by Mary Kay Blakely, in her essay, "Help or Hindrance" Women's Magazines Offer Readers Little Fear, Failure" is that such women's-targeted magazines as "Shape" are alleged to hinder women's pursuit of independence. Yet "Shape" magazine, and other female fitness magazines of its ilk, all often show women pumping iron, riding mountain bikes in the great outdoors as well as in great gyms, and show examples of women pushing themselves beyond their available limits on the playing courts as well as in terms of weight loss."

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