Page 111 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

100 • Sport, Media and Society

Then, specific aspects of the content will be considered: the editorial, the contents
and the composition of pages.

The Magazine Cover

The cover of the magazine is its first point of contact with a potential consumer and
functions both to identify itself and the target reader for that magazine. Features of
the cover, such as the title, the images, the layout, the graphology, the texture of the
paper and the cover lines, operate as explicit and implicit markers of the identity of
the ideal reader. Text and image work together, asking the reader to interpret them
in a particular way.

The Title

The title of the magazine crystallises the expectations of the readers, summing up in

one or two words the meaning of the magazine. Health and fitness magazines tend to
provide exercise and nutrition advice, so the straightforward information-giving na-
ture of some of the titles, like Health & Fitness, connote seriousness and trustworthi-
ness. Some titles explicitly narrow down the potential pool of consumers by gender:
Men’s Health, Women’s Health. Others do the same thing more subtly by implying a
gendered reader through a combination of fonts, colours, words and images. Zest, for
example, implies a bubbly personality type likely to be associated with femininity.
The title is written in a block white typeface with the letters placed unevenly on the
page, so that they appear to bounce. This gives the impression of light-heartedness.
Alongside the title is the slogan: ‘Health, diet, fitness, looks: feel 100% confi dent’.

This emphasis on looks and feelings helps construct an indirect address to a het-
erosexual, female consumer, which is underscored by other signifiers on the cover

of the magazine like the image of a smiling woman, lettering in shocking pink and
indications of content like ‘Diet Success Couple’ and ‘Blast Fat Sculpt Curves’. The
titles of Ultra Fit and Runner’s World do not contain a direct address to a gendered
reader, and the slogans that accompany them (‘Diet and fitness plans that work’;

‘World’s best-selling running magazine’) are factual and informative. Nevertheless,
both magazines have an image of a woman running on the cover, which has the effect
of feminising the broader address of the title.
While some of the slogans are very clear, others are more playful. The ambigu-

ity of the seemingly flippant, but simultaneously no-nonsense, slogan on one copy
of Men’s Health, ‘Tons of useful stuff’, uses banter both as an indirect address to
its masculine readership and as a guide to the contents. Easthope (1990) suggested
that banter was one marker of masculine style, and this is similar to the humour
that Benwell (2004) called ironic discourse in men’s magazines. Similarly, Women’s
Health consciously plays on the well-worn advertising cliché ‘New and Improved’ to