Have you ever noticed the different language used in fitness magazines between men and women?
Well I have! Looking at hundreds of magazine covers I have noticed that men are predictably the same as they are for women. They are the same yet still different in their own particular gender manner. On the cover of these fitness magazines I have noticed some similarities and differences:
- clear and obvious stereotyping
- both rely heavily on visuals
- use minimal target words to attract the readers
- both use photoshop to portray an ideal body
We live in a society where the media has a big influence on promoting physical appearance. Fitness magazines are just one part of the media. The media uses language and visual techniques which try to convince their target audience to buy their products. Let's look at how they do this.
MALE STEREOTYPING - ABS, QUADS, BEACH MUSCLES, ROCK HARD ABS
Culturally, from a mostly western culture, and from a stereotypical viewpoint, the 'attractive' male body is considered to have huge arms, large upper body and six pack abs. Fitness magazines use specific adjectives, and include techniques such as hyperbole, alliteration and metaphors to convince their target audience that their product will provide them with the information needed to develop the 'perfect' body.
Now let's analyze women's fitness magazines.
Female stereotyping - Slim, burn fat, butt, sexy
The world's view of the women's 'perfect' body is targeted towards the whole body. The language and images used on the fitness magazines use 'softer language'. When you hear the word 'slim' or 'sexy' you immediately think of something more serene or feminine, whereas when you hear the language used in a men's fitness magazine such as 'instant muscle' or 'iron abs' you would imagine a more strong, powerful or masculine picture.
Society has always had an ideal image of bodies throughout modern history. Our generation defines beauty using fairly strict and well defined parameters. Even though the parameters differed over time , there has always been these concepts and expectations of beauty for both genders.
These magazines use quantification such as 'gets ABS in 7 days', 'lose xx pounds in x days' - i.e. unrealistic physical achievements which the reader falls for and 'wants' to believe he/she can achieve.
Some of the men’s fitness magazines are using a reference to ‘having sex with women’. The magazine cover below depicts how including ‘sex’ on the cover will attract an interest to more men into buying these magazines. I think this is a very eye catching technique and will be able to trick the target audience, but I do not think that using women or sex is an appropriate way of targeting an audience to buy the magazines.
Alliteration - awesome, amazing and alright!
Alliteration is commonly used amongst all types of magazines and is particularly relevant to fitness magazines. For example, ‘flat, firm fab’, ‘slim, strong, sexy’, ‘fat to fit’, and ‘burn body fat fast’. Alliteration is used to create rhythm, to help you remember, to create emphasis on certain words and to create a mood. All of these concepts are used in magazines so that the target audience will want to buy the magazine. Why? Because alliteration is a form of a more enjoyable way to read and hear things. It calls attention to specific words. Alliteration helps the reader relate to what the magazine author is trying to tell them. It tells them in a very concise and rhythmic way. So, instead of saying ‘how to burn fat’ in 20 different ways, alliteration grabs the readers attention and helps the reader understand what the magazine can offer in very minimal words. Alliteration is usually portrayed in a very big and colourful font which is very eye catching. As I mentioned before, this makes the reader have a higher chance of remembering the magazine which they will consider buying it the next time they see it.
Some online reviews on Amazon.com wherein people were commenting about the content provided in fitness magazines. Based off of these reviews, I learned that in general more than half of the pages in these fitness magazines are ads. The front cover of fitness magazines are focusing on promoting ways to loose weight, get abs, etc which gives the reader an impression of what they are expected to see on the inside of these magazines. Most of the readers who have commented on this particular magazine, seem to be very disappointed with the lack of content concerning the articles on the front cover.
The magazines’ authors use similar concepts every issue they publish, but they slightly change the wording even in the same fitness magazine. For example, an October issue will say ‘fight flab’ and the next month is will be ‘burn fat’. These are two very similar concepts but using different wording to discuss the same topic. This makes people believe that they are getting a magazine with new and different information. In reality, the fitness magazines are just including repetitive information that is pretty much useless.
Have you noticed WHAT attracts a specific audience to a magazine?
Looking at men’s fitness magazines in particular, I have noticed that the men’s typeset is much more ‘clean’ and not fancy. The magazine cover uses mostly three basic colours, black, white and red. White is used for the background, black is used for the majority of the text on the cover and red is used only for the words that the author wants to create emphasis on to grab the reader’s attention.
However in a women’s fitness magazine, I have noticed that there is more variety and brightness in the colour choice. White is used at the background, pink is used for the magazine title and small texts, and blue and yellow are used for the key points.
After analyzing men’s and women’s fitness magazines, it can be seen that in many aspects they are stereotypical. The way that fitness magazines portray gender is displayed by colour, language and linguistic techniques such as alliteration, typeset, visuals and more.
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