Magazine Cover Review

   Magazines Studies

    In the world of media studies you can cover study many different things, ranging from movies, to magazines. Magazines are one of the most interesting things on the field. The study of magazines is composed on factors such as how the magazines look like, what they talk about, and the target audience. There too are countless of magazines that each cover at least one of these factors, and so they will be given as an example.

    The first factor once again is what do these magazines look like, how do they catch your attention? and it will also be explained why these are strong strategies from these publishers, in a world were magazines are now competing a lot against mobile devices. A popular example is Oprah, a magazine that generally uses the same person on the cover, this strategy alone, while it may seem like an odd design, can allow the fans, and even interested newcomers, to automatically know what to look for, while in search of these magazines. The magazines just simply radiate the popularity and familiarity with this trick. Another good example is Motortrend, which uses really big and red-bold letters to catch your attention, it is a simple trick, but the use of bright, strong colors can easily stand out in between the other numerous magazines. Of course, this is just one of the many examples out of the three strategies.

    On another branch of the field, another strategy used by the magazine publishers is what they talk about. Sometimes, magazines prefer to target a specific audience, this can be seen in numerous types of magazines, for numerous types of people. An example of this is Better Homes & Gardens, which simply sticks to decoration, building, and also keeps it very simple and sticks to it. Now, the magazine does have a target audience, which would also work for the third strategy, said audience being probably house moms. That being said, this isn't the only magazine which sticks to only one subject, another example is easily Southern Living, probably made for curious northerners, but it does something very well - sticking to the same subject they're talking about, and doing a really good job at it by covering multiple things such as foods, projects, vacations, and even uses southern advertisement. That's a good amount of examples so far for the second strategy.

    On the very top of the field, there is the next strategy, which is the target audience of the magazines. Every magazine has a target audience in mind, but because there is too many examples, it will be kept short. One of the best examples is probably Men's Health, which, as the title suggests, focuses on men. The reason why this is a good example is because, not only is the title already a way of saying that this must be read, by men interested on health, but it also does a really good job at talking about this and looking appealing enough to maintain its target audience. The examples listed above could also technically count as one for this third strategy, since this is arguably a must-have by every magazine in order to stick out and maintain on float.

    To finalise with, there has been research done across the web, and here are two examples of magazines that keep up with at least one of these strategies, courtesy of Chances are you won't bother to... (Scherer, Michael). One of the two examples would be Rolling Stone who he explains is one of the only places where the future of magazines resides on, one of the ways this magazine keeps on float is by staying on trend with what is happening of the days of publishing, an example recently being racism. This alone is already a good strategy to grab the attention of the consumers and maintain a target audience. Another example would be USA Today, which while it was bashed on the article, it can still be given credit to as it does utilize very good strategies at maintaining its target audience (ex: mid-age Americans). That being said, while the magazines may not be doing as hot in a world with phones, CNN, or the internet to name a few examples, it is impressive that some magazines are maintaining its popularity. All thanks to these numerous strategies, such as the ones listed above accompanied with good examples, too.