Media as Brands

CW2 Media Audiences U0103755 Deadline 9th May

Can media texts be seen as "brands" that express identity? Discuss with reference to the following: FHM.

In this essay I will firstly introduce the magazine iam discussing, and talk about ideas of representations and gender in their issues, and also how it in effect they market themselves as a brand that articulates identity.

FHM magazine stands for "For Him Magazine"; its core target audience is males 25-35. The magazine is produced monthly at the cost of Ð'Ј3.40 per issue.

FHM is now on global release as it publishes 27 different editions around the world in every continent, each with its own unique content. The UK version sells approximately 600,000 copies per month making it one of the most popular magazines in the country. For their company Emap under an umbrella of 58 magazines it is the most popular. (Figures from Emap website)

Its content varies inside as it is essentially seen as a lifestyle magazine. Every month it has recurring themes of reviews and articles centrally focused around the opposite sex and hobbies the magazine assumes the audience has.

A way we can look at the notion of identity is through representations given through the magazine. Since the magazines are aimed at men, we can assume that the magazine has underlying issues about gender. Therefore FHM would like to express itself through masculinity to create a meaningful link to its audience. In the following I will show how different men and women magazines are completely different in content and identity.

Contemporary ideas of masculinity and femininity will be different to those of previous generations. Current themes may be stereotypical but to study it using binary oppositions gives it greater meaning; men are seen as masculine, dominant, strong, aggressive, intelligent, rational, and active. Whilst women are the opposed, they are feminine, submissive, weak, intuitive, emotional and communicative. As well as theses factors men and women are also seen to like different things, men like cars, technology, getting drunk and having casual sex with strangers whilst women like shopping, make-up, social drinking with friends, and having committed relationships. However, it is also clear that these lists are not truly representative of what men and women are really like. You all probably know a woman who likes cars and can be aggressive or a man who doesn't drink and cries at weepy romantic comedies.

These stereotypes exist, to a certain extent, because they are easier than getting to know every man and women they would like to know. Advertisers are especially prone to using stereotypes to sell products for the same reason. They assume that all women or men are similar to make targeting audiences a simpler process.

We can use advertising as a starting point when considering representations of gender in lifestyle magazines. By looking at some of the adverts it is clear to see how gender stereotypes are employed and maintained by advertisers.

Using stereotypes of men and women, men should drink beer followed by spirit chasers whilst women lightly sip on wine. Following the notion that men are Ð''hard' and women are Ð''soft' it can be seen that the alcohol adverts in certain lifestyle magazines use this to advertise their products.

In FHM, they feature an advert for Jack Daniels whiskey with the line "the invite said bring a friend". The image features no people, just a close up of a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a glass of ice. The "friend" in this case is an alcoholic drink. The advert may be suggesting that men see alcohol as a replacement for real people, or that men prefer drinking to socialising.

In comparison, the women's magazines focus on the potential for alcoholic drinks to bring people together and ease social interactions. Marie Claire feature an advert for the liqueur Disaronno which includes the tag line "share the square" and an image of an attractive man and women both holding the same glass tumbler, their fingers touching. This emphasises the idea that feminine gender roles require friendliness, closeness and the ability to communicate.

A much clearer and less confused image of gender can be seen by looking at cigarette advertising in these magazines. Although women are apparently allowed to drink with the males they are certainly portrayed as not allowed smoking with them.

FHM included a Marlboro adverts with the line "Welcome to Marlboro country". The FHM adverts featured an image of a deserted, outdated petrol station in the middle of an expansive flat landscape. Like the Jack Daniels campaign, it shows masculinity to be about solitude.

In direct comparison there are no adverts for cigarettes in any of the women's magazines I looked in. In fact, both Glamour and Cosmopolitan included adverts for Nicorette showing a woman in a bathroom attacking an oversized cigarette with her scales. This advert is clearly intended just for the female audience and focuses upon things seen as important to the target audience, namely their weight.

From the evidence above FHM magazine is clearly enforcing a lifestyle completely different from the opposite sex. In both men's and women's magazine it seem there is no agreed ground to which is a reasonable lifestyle, there has to be a binary position to work. Not only in the adverts do they converse about male identities, they is plenty of articles which implement the stereotypes mentioned before, mainly seeing women as sex objects. Consistently in every issue there are features on women, some celebrities, in minimal clothing. As they also interview them as well, this always talks around the one subject... of sex. Their style of questioning iam sure would not be of taste to many people as there is no substance to their literature, for example one of the many similar question asked to a "pin up" when talking about her photo shoot in the desert was, "When you weren't in front of the camera, did you ride camels, and if so did it excite you in the same way riding ponies excites teenage girls?" There are many examples like these which revolve around sexual innuendo. FHM seems to write and create a man who seems to be very confident and successful with girls, drinks copious amounts of alcohol, fashionable, and have knowledge of all "bloke" stuff e.g. football and weapons of war.

One reason that explains why FHM and men's magazines appeals so much is from Stuart Hall's book Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. He talks about the subject of Psychoanalysis invented by Sigmund Freud. He explains that in the process of identification