Blog 5: Magazines

1) Magazine Title: Madame AIR FRANCE

2) Magazine Type: Fashion

3) Cost (magazines that are delivered as a part of a subscription will not have a price): Free

4) About what percentage of the magazine is advertising? 95%

5) Describe one story in this magazine:

"Keeping love alive" talks about a book called, "In Praise of Love" by a French Philosopher Alan Badiou. It advertises his book about how nowadays, women seem to think that if they spend more than three years in a monogamous relationship they might as well check into a retirement home. But the essence of love is self-fulfillment over the long term. He talks about the predominant romantic notion of love and focus on the idea that physical attraction help to fuel the mechanism of consumer society and that does not allow us to progress beyond the narcissistic stage of love. Instead we should overlook that and see the hedonistic satisfaction that goes beyond just appearance.

6) How would you describe the readers (audience demographic) for this publication?

Anyone who is interested in fashion no matter if its men or women, young or old.

7) What kinds of products are advertised in this magazine?

Do they seem to target the intended audience? How? All types, perfumes, colones, clothes, watches, destination tourism places. It is intended for people who travel a lot and also one who likes to keep up with high brand name fashion.

8) Count the men/boys and women/girls in the photos and illustrations

57 women, 6 men.

9) Are men and women portrayed in similar or different styles (activities, dress style, formality)? If displayed differently, in what way are they different?

The men seems to be portray more different than women. There is more women models than that of men. Most men is either authors or judges in a fashion runway. Also one interesting advertisement had a men getting step on by a women shoe which portray a sense of power if the women were to own those pair of shoes.

10) Looking at the photos (both editorial and advertising), does there seem to be representation from a variety of ethnic groups? A variety of ages? A variety of social classes? Describe what you found. Interestedly enough there wasn't really much diversity in the models as I thought. Most of the model is of European/Caucasian and I found one African American women model and about one single men model. The ages mostly in the young 20s and middle age models. And as for class, it seems to portray more upper middle class to high social class status.

11) If you were called in as a consultant to help this magazine increase its circulation, what would you suggest?

I would add more historical fashion stories of how these fashion became a trend and where the idea came from or how much work it took to make it. It would give the audience a better understanding to buy and appreciate what they are buying if they are going to spend that much amount of money on a product.


12) Did anything that you learned about this magazine surprise you? If so, explain.

The "Keeping love alive" was an surprisingly interesting article to read because it talks about how appearance shouldn't matter as much as real love, espeically in a fashion magazine? Ironic. Also I would expect there to be more diversity in these magazine but what can I say, I picked it up at the airport in France so I should expect it to target mostly Europeans.