Media Products
14 May 2013 | Project 1 | Option 2: Media Products | | Jessica Viljoen | 13000822 |
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Media products are created with an audience in mind, and it is often the audiences’ interests that dictate the content of products that are available. In this assignment I will be using two distinctly different magazines, Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan, as a platform from which to work with to discuss how the content can be seen to define specific target market’s values with regards to semiotics, denotations and connotations.
As Tim Edwards states, “men’s style magazines are cultural texts and, as such, any analysis of their significance in terms of masculinity is essentially an analysis of representation” (1997: 134). Men’s Health is a men’s lifestyle magazine targeted at, you guessed it, men. In particular metrosexual men who are interested in leading a healthy lifestyle and taking care of themselves and their outer appearance. You could say that Men’s Health displays almost every prejudice and preconceived notion about men presented within the pages of the magazine. The way in which they target these men is by adhering to their particular interests and values which are personal upkeep and healthy living. They portray these values through their articles on fitness, nutrition, healthy lifestyles through fitness and nutrition and, to keep it a bit more interesting, articles on other things relevant and interesting and to men such as relationships, finances, travel and fashion.
Men’s Health lures men into buying and reading their magazine by placing healthy looking men who look like they follow a healthy lifestyle because they have chiselled abs and look desirable and sometimes have these toned men standing with gorgeous women to make these men aspire to be like them and to make them think that the way to be like those men on the covers is to buy the Men’s Health magazine as it will let them in on the secret to being sexy and desirable. “Magazines like Men’s
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Media products are created with an audience in mind, and it is often the audiences’ interests that dictate the content of products that are available. In this assignment I will be using two distinctly different magazines, Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan, as a platform from which to work with to discuss how the content can be seen to define specific target market’s values with regards to semiotics, denotations and connotations.
As Tim Edwards states, “men’s style magazines are cultural texts and, as such, any analysis of their significance in terms of masculinity is essentially an analysis of representation” (1997: 134). Men’s Health is a men’s lifestyle magazine targeted at, you guessed it, men. In particular metrosexual men who are interested in leading a healthy lifestyle and taking care of themselves and their outer appearance. You could say that Men’s Health displays almost every prejudice and preconceived notion about men presented within the pages of the magazine. The way in which they target these men is by adhering to their particular interests and values which are personal upkeep and healthy living. They portray these values through their articles on fitness, nutrition, healthy lifestyles through fitness and nutrition and, to keep it a bit more interesting, articles on other things relevant and interesting and to men such as relationships, finances, travel and fashion.
Men’s Health lures men into buying and reading their magazine by placing healthy looking men who look like they follow a healthy lifestyle because they have chiselled abs and look desirable and sometimes have these toned men standing with gorgeous women to make these men aspire to be like them and to make them think that the way to be like those men on the covers is to buy the Men’s Health magazine as it will let them in on the secret to being sexy and desirable. “Magazines like Men’s