Cosmopolitan Magazine Research Task

Cosmopolitan Magazine Research By Zoe Hilton and Miguel Pilgrim

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine targeted to women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine. In the late 1960’s, it became a literary magazine and eventually became a women’s magazine. The contents from the magazine include articles on relationships, health, sex, self-improvement, celebrities, fashion and beauty. Published by Hearst Magazines, Cosmopolitan has 63 international editions and is printed in 36 languages and is advertised in more than 100 countries. Nowadays, the magazine features articles such as sex, relationships, beauty, fashion and health. Cosmopolitan is now the world’s biggest selling women’s magazine all over the world with distribution in more than 100 countries. Some international editions are published in partnerships like licenses or joint ventures, with established publishing houses in each local market. 

Cosmopolitan’s publisher is ACP Magazines. ACP Magazines is Australia's leading magazine publisher and the magazine arm of Nine Entertainment Co. ACP Magazines publishes over 60 titles in Australia which sell nearly 100 million individual copies each year. They include some of the longest-running and most successful magazines on the world such as The Australian Women's Weekly, Woman's Day, Dolly, NW, TV Week, CLEO, and Cosmopolitan. ACP Magazines has expanded into nine other countries, principally in New Zealand, Asia and the United Kingdom.

 

Rate card

Pages - £27,444

Double Page Spreads- £53,790

Cost of magazine - £3.20

Circulation- 400,000 per month

Number of Ads in magazine- 63

Number of single page ads- 59

Total Money made from Advertising- £ 3,071,526

Money made from circulation- £1,280,000

ABC1 women aged 18-34 - 489,000

Median age- 28

Total Readership- 1,571,00

Target Audience/ Audience Profile

Cosmopolitan is targeted to women age 18 to 35, mother’s and career orientated women. The social class targeted in A, B and C. They successfully target their audience with information on relationships and romance, the best in fashion, beauty and adding some of the latest on women’s health and well being. As well as information of what is happening in pop culture and entertainment and what females want to know about.

The issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice

They 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 or corporation that seeks to sell a type of product in numerous markets. And the vertical integration, meaning a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. And conglomeration, meaning a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses together into one corporate structure. The Cosmopolitan brand is horizontally integrated, because of their brand being all over the world and they are associated with other media companies, giving them support and more advertisement.

The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange

In recent years, Technology has helped the media industry in many ways. It has helped with production, such as specialist computer software used to produce magazines. Software such as CorelDraw is very good for designing graphic pieces such as magazine pages. This software makes it very easy to produce media texts because it is easy to use and encoders can be trained to use it easily.

Technology has really helped distribution too, because before, magazines had to be distributed by road. Couriers and delivery vans had to drive from the publishers and take the magazines to the shops and newsagents. Of course, these methods are still being used. However, most magazines now have an Online Version, which means that distribution is almost free, because the magazine can be published straight to the internet, and reduce the costs of distribution such as Fuel prices and road tax.

Threats to the magazine

Technology has also introduced threats to the magazine industry. Although the internet has helped to distribute the magazines because the cost is less, it also means that people will tend to read online rather than paying to buy the actually hard copy of the magazine. Now that mobile phones are advanced enough to allow the use of the internet, readers can read the magazine on the move. This poses a threat to the magazine because it reduces the number of people paying. A way of fixing this problem is Online Subscriptions. Readers can read the magazine online, however, they have to sign up and pay monthly or weekly.Online magazines also show less content than the actual magazine. Online versions tend to show more photos and videos than Text.

How does Cosmopolitan represent particular social groups

Cosmopolitan targets A, B and C social groups. One magazine costs around £3.20, making it one of the most expensive women’s magazines. They only advertise expensive hair and beauty products and clothes. The readers are represented as being highly fashionable members of society. Their topics include diet and fitness, horoscopes and cash and careers, representing the lifestyle of the higher class of society.

Music Magazine Contents Page Mockup

Music Magazine Front Cover Mockup

Magazines Forms and Conventions

All magazines have forms and conventions. These are techniques used to attract the audience and make the magazine interesting to read. The most obvious form and convention is the Masthead. This is the main title of the magazine, obviosuly this is important so that the reader knows what the magazine is.
Then the other forms and conventions come as follows;
The Main cover Line is the headline of the magazine, this is similar to a newspaper, the most important story or article is displayed partially on the front page to attract the audience's attention.
The Main cover lines is backed up by a photo of the main article. This photo could be of a band or particular artist, or any other thing depending on the genre of the magazine.
Puffs are used to boost the magazine's status, things like "the greatest magazine ever" are often said to make the reader want to buy the magazine.
Plugs are used to hook the audience and catch their attention. This could be a Competition Notice on the front cover or a Special Offer. "FREE Music CD Inside!". This makes the reader or audience want to read on to find out what it is.
Strapline is a secondary headline, usually under the main headline, to further explain what the main article or story is about. This Anchors the meaning of the headline.

Cover Price- This isn't really something that is used to catch the audiences attention, but to show the price of the magazine. However, it does have to be clear otherwise the audience may not see it and buy the magazine for a diffrent price.

Bar Code- the bar code is also next to the Cover Price, which is also accompanied by the issue number. The issue number tells the audience what the magazines number it is. For example, monthly magazine running for 24 months would be Issue 24.

Music Magazine Front Cover Mock Up

This is my mock up for the music magazine front cover.
It is very basic as i am just trying to have an idea of
what the general layout of the front page will be.
I will have the main feature photo covering mostly
all of the page, with some text written over it to caption it.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Above is my preliminary task, my school magazine front cover, and my REAL music magazine front cover. As you can see, There is a lot of difference between the two, mainly the fact that I used a lot more codes and conventions on my Main Task. The school mag front cover doesn’t really show much information; it just shows the masthead, date and a full page photo. My Music magazine shows a masthead, puffs, plugs, main headline, main feature photo, including other codes and conventions. Before I began to design my music magazine, I had looked at other music magazines to have an idea of what the reader expects when they are reading the magazine.  

I realised that my Preliminary magazine front cover was far too empty. It had a lot of space which could have been used. The colours were not very eye catching either, for example, the sky was blue and so was the school logo, which means that it did not catch the viewer’s eye. On my music magazine, I used simple colours which stand out such as Black, white and reds.

What have you learned about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What have you learned about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The first technology I used when I started the coursework is the internet. I had to research a school magazine, so I used the internet to find a school magazine front cover. I then used Microsoft Word to copy and paste a picture of the front cover in order to add notes and analyse the semiotics.

The next thing I used was a blog to present my coursework so that the teacher could see it online. I used www.blogspot.com which is a free blogging site. It’s good for presenting my work because it allowed me to add labels showing the different sections of the coursework.  The blog allows me show the work as It progresses because each posts is shown after the other.

When I had to do the preliminary task, I had to create a school magazine. For this, I had to use a digital camera to take some photos for the front cover.  I was familiar with the camera functions as i do photography, which helped me to get some good quality photographs.

Then when I had the photos I had taken, we had to edit them a bit to enhance them. To edit the photos I took, I used Adobe Photoshop Elements. This software is good for photo editing because it allows the user to enhance colour and add different effects to the photo.

I used Corel Draw to create my media text. Corel Draw is a graphics software used in the magazine industry. At first I found it difficult to use because it was my first time. But I got used to it eventually. Corel Draw is mainly text based because it is used to create media texts. It allows me to create a page with the dimensions of my choice. In this case I use A4 for my front cover and contents page, and A3 for my double page spread.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that IPC (http://www.ipcmedia.com/) would distribute my magazine because they only publish one other music magazine.  My magazine is also generally aimed at both sexes, which is the same as most of the magazines published by IPC, this would increase the circulation. 

My magazine fits with the overall IPC brand catalogue because there is also another music magazine on there. However, my magazine is different to NME as it looks at solo artists, which shows more in depth news about solo artists than other music magazines.

Magazines make their money not just by selling it, but by advertisers. Companies pay the emagazines to advertise their products, and some of the profit made goes to the magazine producers.  To work out how my magazine would make it’s money, I had to produce a rate card.

Rate Card for music magazine
Age: 16-25
60% male readers, 40% Female readers
Magazine Price: £2.50
Monthly magazine
Circulation: 35,000
Cost per full page ad
£7,500
Total adverts
25


Total circulation profit
£87,000


Total Profit from advertisers
£187,500
My magazine would make £87,000 from the circulation per month, as well as £187,500 from it’s advertisers.

My magazine is not aimed at a very large audience, nor a small one, it is somewhere in the middle. The magazines with most audiences are usually the TV listings magazines, which are published mostly by IPC, which could be a problem when it comes to audience size. 

If I chose a different publisher for my magazine, it could create competition with IPC in the sales of their music magazines, however, IPC is the best distributor for me because the others concentrate on mostly either Mens magazines, or Female magazines. My music magazine is aimed at mostly both sexes.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation is the way we communicate using signs and symbols. All representations are always untrue when compared to the real thing. This is because the representation goes through a process of mediation.

My magazine is representing solo musicians aged 16 – 25 in the UK. When encoding my media text. I had to think about my target audience and what they expect to see on the magazine. So I had to thin about what sort of pictures to use, and what sort of language.  I had to do this so that the audience knew that the magazine was about Solo Artists in the UK.

I had to create a positive representation of these Solo artists, so that the audience enjoyed reading the text. To do this, I put in appropriate pictures such as the one on the front cover of the main Feature artists playing the guitar. The clothes he is wearing match the style of music the magazine is about.