Page 115 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

104 • Sport, Media and Society

constructs an address to the reader that is based on a fragile identity, one that desires
the hegemonic masculinity of the cover image but does not yet identify with it. Men’s
Health tells readers to step into their desired identity by reading the magazine.
Cover lines on Women’s Health construct a different kind of address. While there
remains a focus on body shaping, slimming, sex and stress, the magazine appears
to promise all these without effort: flat abs no crunches; easy steps for less
stress; lose weight without feeling hungry. Bordo (1990) has discussed the
paradox of consumer capitalism that wants us to possess controlled ‘producer’ bod-
ies but encourages us to consume limitlessly. The magazine promises to resolve the
paradox by seeming to suggest that in the act of consuming Women’s Health, we will
attain the controlled body we desire.
The address of the magazine is the result of the intertextual combination of sig-
nifiers. The central image and the cover lines work together to construct a viewing

position for the reader to step into and make sense of the signification. For example,

the cover of Health & Fitness uses turquoise and fluorescent orange lettering. The
central image of a woman occupies half of the cover space lengthwise, and the colour
of her bikini picks up the orange of the text. The words ‘Health and fi tness, slim
without the gym, Stuck in a food rut?, are you sabotaging your happiness’
take up the other half of the cover. The text is physically linked with the image as
the ends of words run over the body of the woman. The additional use of yellow to
highlight certain words (e.g. hot looks, in a bubble positioned in the centre of the
page, overlapping the model’s chest) is refl ected in the yellow bikini trim. Over the
model’s hips are the words ‘Help me stop snacking’ and ‘I hate my big bottom!’ (ref-
erences to reader makeovers), and the words ‘Nell McAndrew Back in shape after
her baby’ are printed on top of the model’s flat stomach. In these ways, the image is

integrated into the textual messages, and the reader is asked to make a connection
with the promise of the magazine’s contents and the joyful, slim woman depicted.

The Editorial

Magazines often have an editorial column, which presents a direct address to the
reader presumed to be from the magazine’s editor. Analysing the editorial enables us
to elicit the characteristics pertaining to the imagined speaker (the voice of the maga-
zine) as well as the addressee (the reader). The editor’s letter in Zest starts with ‘Want
a better body? Me too.’ The female editor makes it clear that dissatisfaction with
one’s body is the normal experience of femininity, shared by the producers and con-
sumers of the magazine. By acknowledging this commonality, the magazine neatly
constructs a sense of community with its female readership. The conversational tone
underlines this connection.
The editorial of the UK version of Men’s Health uses a range of references that
are likely to be shared among the readership to construct an imaginary universe for