Essay Plan formulating

I really wish i hadn't lost my notes. Stupid stupid stupid
blehhh

What is the role of printed media in an increasingly digital centric world
Is there still a place for printed media in the digital age

I really hate phrases like that though, the digital age, the digital world, they sound weird like a grandmother trying to work a vhs player or something

rephrasing....

What purpose do printed magazines serve in the current climate....
What purpose do printed magazines serve in a world dominated by online media/social networks etc.
Are printed magazines still relevant
Have printed magazines become irrelevant since the rise in online journalism/media
Since the rise in online magazines and news media have printed magazines become obsolete/are printed magazines becoming obsolete
Has online news media rendered printed magazines obsolete
What is the relevance of printed magazines
How have printed magazines remained relevant in an increasingly digitally dominated industry?
Why are printed magazines still relevant in an increasingly digital industry
What makes printed magazines relevant in an increasingly digitally dominated industry

With the continuing rise in popularity of online news media and magazines, how does the printed magazine business stay afloat?
As the online news industry exponentially grows, what keeps the printed magazine industry afloat?

Honestly I could probably spend the whole day just rewording this and it wouldn't get me any further so lets leave it there.

Plan.
So the introduction, I think we established would be a general history of magazines, particularly the magazines I'm looking at, for the first half, and then then later on in the introduction look at the rise in the internet and online distribution of media and news, about 3/400 words for each?

After that I will look into my questions each as subheadings, and dependant on the question will compare the printed and online versions of examples, how it is in magazines and how it is different online and to what extent this dooms or benefits the printed medium
yeah
and ill use examples i've found, comparisons between the magazines in terms of gender, publisher and 'class'
also i may look for first hand input from people in the publishing industry, of which i have found a connection through a friend to a publishing company in sheffield, so that might be useful, it would save having to do a pointless survey to try and get something first hand, although i guess a lot of my research is first hand because its taken form the magazines, i don't know it might be interesting

waffle waffle

I've gathered some basic jumping off point quotes for some of the questions

why do celebrity magazines create celebrities in order to tear them back down again
In the very short introduction to journalism I found this

"At it's most successful, the celebrity system is even capable of inventing it's own stars, through specially connected media events."

Which I think would start it off quite nicely and then I'll go on to reference the part in starsuckers about tearing them down again and then I'll cite examples of it happening, and analyse how it happens on the internet faster and with fewer boundaries.

Why does reporting on these invented celebrities suffice as news, while actual news and events takes a back seat role, often eclipsed by the posterior of a Kardashian
or something along those lines
Quote again from introduction to journalism

"Today the instinct to amuse is driving out the will and depleting the resource for serious reporting and analysis"

Then another mention of the invented celebrities and make believe news followed by one or some of these

"Often this alternative 'reality' appears to outpunch reality itself in today's mass media"

"This tradition in newspapers has always blurred the line between fact and fiction, information and entertainment"

"In the same period that journalism has learnt to make light of the boundary between fact and fiction, it has also become increasingly absorbed by the entertainment and sales potential of celebrity." 

And I'll go on to look at how the internet expands on this blurring, and reference the surge in popularity of clickbait as the modern yellow journalism
Oooh thats good, so I'll end the section with that bombshell and then start the next one about yellow journalism and how its many magazines only means of survival, but explore how fancier magazines don't resort to this, the effect on its sales and audience and what it uses instead
so
How has yellow journalism become and remained a widely used tactic in the sale of magazines

AAAAH
so I just found out that the term yellow journalism was coined to characterise the rivalry between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, which , the former, is the founder of the Hearst corporation!!!!!! ! 1 1! !!! woooooooooo
Why did I not know that it should've clicked sooner
But that means I can use this paragraph to introduce my exploration into the Hearst Corporation and my comparison of its magazines

thanks google books

Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies By W. Joseph Campbell

So with yellow journalism I'll look at magazines that do use it and the extent to which it is still used in the Hearst Corporations publications, and what it has evolved into, and its prominence online 
did Hearst win the war? His company still publishes magazines, but Pulitzer has loads of accolades and museums and stuff, and the Pulitzer prize

Anyway if I'm not careful this section could be an entire other essay 

Then I'll go on to comparisons in the validity and truth of news reported, maybe in the same section as yellow to limit waffle
Are printed magazines more reliable and valid because of the permanence of print?
Does the printing of an article increase our perception of its validity
Yeah I'll have this combined with yellow because it follows on nicely from the last quote about the boundaries of fact and fiction.
So then I'll talk about magazines literally inventing news, and reference starsuckers again, and then explore how this is much harder to control online and look at how the time it takes to print a magazine can increase the legitimacy of the news, or wether being committed to print means anything at all anymore.
Then yellow journalism and how it all began to just sell papers and win, and now its just our accepted reality.
This section is getting a little diffuse I shall have to work on it and find more stuff

Is their remaining purpose subtle advertising alone? Advertising what? And how does it carry through to online?
Mostly first hand, looking at what percentage of the magazine is openly advertisement and what is subtle advertisement, how the companies are linked and how it's all in the interest of a few people getting rich
What they sell, glossy magazines have more adverts, they're selling lifestyle, aspirational, usually unknown models selling known products, selling an image, products that make an aspirational lifestyle, buying magazine in order to copy this and get lifestyle, reference basic primal urge to copy the successful for evolutionary success, same with male glossy magazines, sell product and lifestyle, as well as showcasing the powerful and successful
Trashy mags sell celebrity, life, stores, gossip, things to discuss, discussion of other people, they sell bitching topics, to bond with existing inner circle using an outside stimulant, sell achievable reality rather than aspiration, sell bad news and what not to do in order to be prosperous
so here i have to look at consumerism theory and such
this wiki is a good start
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirational_brand
thanks wiki

In the context of fashion magazines, the "aspirational model" offers readers continuing (and continually changing) fashion, beauty, and physical ideals to which they can aspire but, perhaps, never actually achieve. Criticized for this approach, magazine editors have claimed that their readers do not want to see "real-life" models or the way that beauty products and clothes look on "real women"; that they buy the magazines in the first place because they prefer the aspirational fantasies, and in the second, because they continually hope that by following the advice or buying the products, they will achieve the ever-changing looks that the magazine promotes via the models and photographic/technological wizardry.

Conspicuous consumption is the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power — of the income or of the accumulated wealth of the buyer. Sociologically, to the conspicuous consumer, such a public display of discretionary economic power is a means either of attaining or of maintaining a given social status.^[1] The development of Veblen’s sociology of conspicuous consumption produced the term invidious consumption, the ostentatious consumption of goods that is meant to provoke the envy of other people; and the term conspicuous compassion, the deliberate use of charitable donations of money in order to enhance the social prestige of the donor, with a display of superior socio-economic status.

Veblen Goods In economics, Veblen goods are types of material commodities for which the demand is proportional to its high price, which is an apparent contradiction of the law of demand; Veblen goods also are commodities that function as positional goods. Veblen goods are types of luxury goods, such as expensive wines, jewelry, fashion-designer handbags, and luxury cars, which are in demand because of the high prices asked for them. The high price makes the goods desirable as symbols of the buyer's high social-status, by way of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure; conversely, a decrease of the prices of Veblen goods would decrease demand for the products.^[1] 

Thorstein Veblen, introduced term, useful books?
maybe worth looking at the theory of the leisure class from 1899 to find the roots of what we see in magazines now?

So i cant really quote that I guess I'll have to find a better source, but, very useful very very useful.
I think this will be the tastiest segment.

and for magazines selling celebrity
http://www.wonderwall.com/movies/magazine-stars-the-best-selling-celebrity-covers-12252.gallery#!wallState=0__%2Fmovies%2Fmagazine-stars-the-best-selling-celebrity-covers-12252.gallery%3FphotoId%3D51135

I guess I can hypothesise what I think is happening and then prove or disprove it with my first hand research and triangulate with supporting and opposing quotes


I think after what do magazines sell it should be what sells magazines, maybe this is the last one before I go onto the present day and future bit
is it the cover that sells magazines?
Looking at best selling covers

http://mashable.com/2013/08/15/magazine-covers/#LTBUyWy4Uaqb
http://www.magazine.org/asme/magazine-cover-contests/asmes-top-40-magazine-covers-last-40-years
https://www.texture.ca/en/2014/10/09/top-10-magazine-covers-time/

its interesting, the same ones keep cropping up again and again

Looking at the actual hard stats, find out what sells, why it sells, how much it sells, who buys it, if they still do, how the figures change, what makes them fluctuate, does this happen now when big news is reported instantly, before we even get to buy the magazine or its even printed, after the fact, how does this effect sales, what makes a specific issue more popular, is it just glossys or trashy too

I think I'm running out of wordcount

So conclusion probably should go here
That will result in what i write earlier on but i'll wrap up with some stuff about the future of print

action plan

so thoughtbubble is kinda interfering a lot with my plans, as it was unexpected, BUT i need to put a significant amount of time into it otherwise the time i have spent will be wasted as i wont be able to use it for 603, so it basically needs the majority of my attention, and then as soon as its over ill focus entirely on cop because ill have already done a large chunk of 603

So my plan is

by the end of this week i need to have a clear structured essay plan and some more work on practical, not visual mostly the structure and words, found things from the magazines to make the found poems, more material to work from.

I also need to have finished my heady leggy comic, ready to assemble on monday.

So ill split my time equally between those two, and halloween of course

Then next week I have to focus on thoughtbubble again as its the penultimate week remaining

I will finish my cat zine, make new covers for my other zines, do the colouring book, make the badges and other ephemera and basically make all of the work I'm going to sell

Then the following week I can spend just printing and packaging and doing logistic type tasks, which is low octane enough that I can split the week equally between cop and thoughtbubble

Now the only problem left is that I start training for my new job at the dentist on monday, every evening, so we'll see how this goes

watches

wondered why all of the mens magazine websites have a section for watches

googled it

found this article

reading it now

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/14/men-wristwatches

EDIT:

halfway through reading this article i wondered who wrote it, it seemed to be fighting the corner of watches, is it the watchmakers son

it is not

but it is the former editor of Esquire

CONSPIRACYYYY

questions and notes

so i made a major cock up, or a cop up if you will, and lost my tutorial notes, no idea where they went, they were in my notebook and now they arent, but hey ho life goes on, maybe theyll show up
i think i recall the main points

we narrowed down a question along the lines of what is the role of printed media in the world of social netweorking and communication
because then i can go on to ask all of the questions that need encompassing into one blanket title
the comparisons, rather than taking their own section in the essay, will be used as citations to back up my points as first hand research, triangulated with found sources
we have established that higher end magazines are selling lifestyle and lower are selling celebrity because the audiences live aspirationally and realistically respectively

so questions

- why do celebrity magazines create celebrities in order to tear them back down again
- why does this occur less frequently in higher end magazines
- to what extent does manipulative language feature in different magazines, high low men women,
- when did the obsession with celebrity start
- can one separate article from advertisement
-does the printing of an article increase our perception of its validity
-can online media have the same weight as printed
-with news able to travel instantly online will printed news media become obselete
-how reliable are the sources of news, compared in different mags, and has news become more or less reliable with the influence of the internet
- why do publishers still make printed magazines if most of the content is available online, and all of it could exist online
- how has the internet affected the industry already
- who are the key figures in the printed magazine industry and what potential vested interest do they have in keeping it running
- haves sales figures changed http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/article/1333599/magazines-abcs-top-100-glance
- what is the difference in language use between mens magazines and womens magazines
- what is the difference in language use between higher and lower end magazines
- is the magazine a self fulfilling industry (cirlce jerk)
- it is still possible to control the quality, validity and suitability of the news being distributed with online media platforms being so widely used
-how has the imediacy of the internet affected our perception of celebrity, can they be build and crushed before the story has even got to print
- what could the future hold for print magazines

an initial brainstorm
more questions, or more edited questions to come

a quote for the road, from useful new website i found, media week, talks magazines in business terms

Underlining the point, Colin Morrison, the author of Flashes & Flames, notes the decline of one of the biggest sectors of the past 15 years: "The six best-selling celebrity weeklies, which fuelled media company profits in the years before they were upstaged by Twitter and YouTube, together now make the same profit once generated by Bauer’s Heat magazine alone."

Found poetry blog fun

http://verbatimpoetry.blogspot.co.uk/

i liked this one because a few times when reading freecycle updates Ive thought about how they read like a strange poem

06 July 2015

Jeep for sale

Calls only, I don't do mores code
I don't text
be a man and call me.

No title no title no title
don ask

yes it is a 1986
so yes
it may have some rust
if that bugs dont buy it
that how It is

no you may not come work on it
if you buy it take it home do what you want
may run May not,
i don't know

Will not drive jeep to your place
no joy rides
no cash no test drive

Trades welcome
need to be man stuff
no toy race cars,
or over price atvs,
or rolls of used carpet
or doll houses
no junk

Jeep not for a teenage girl's first jeep,
jeep built to be driven by a man

offers ok.

Relevent?

I read this the other day

taken from Felix Feneon's three line obituaries? I don't know I need to do more research but its been said that he was the master of the tabloid haiku, which sounds just perfect.

Practial

So I've formulated an adjusted plan for the practical aspect

Instead of having three large gallery pieces each demonstrating the entirety of one magazine I'm thinking now of doing preparatory work that does emcompass the aesthetic of a magazine into one image and then using all of these to make a booklet that folds out into an A2 poster.
Also, one of the bits I liked about my first drawing was the accidental poem I made from splicing words out of the text, around the arrow where it says new lease of life, under the knife

so, as I like to have an text based element in my work and I do like playing with words, I think I'm also going to make it follow a structured found poem as the magazine unfolds

I found this video last year of fold out booklets and I think it would work quite well



A2 fold out poster from Linda Leunissen on Vimeo.

Research and things I need to do

• Decide which magazines to look at, and to what extent publishing companies are involved. I think they should be, the question seems to dictate so
  do lifestyle magazines demonstrate manipulative techniques in order to ensure their own prosperity
  should I add some focus on publishers?
  do the publishers of general lifestyle magazines use manipulative techniques in order to ensure their own prosperity

• Is the question right? maybe i should have a title and subheading 
• Read correct chapters of texts, magazine books, find books about publishers? Abandon celebrity culture books, less useful, find books about all magazines rather than just womens magazines
• Do i have a stance? Like a theory or whatever, like a feminist reading of blah blah, do i need one? 
• Buy magazines and first hand analyse them 
• Research bosses of publishing companies, lives, histories, bias
• Research deeper into histories of selected magazines,
• Draw from other magazines, add to body of work with smaller preparatory images on other magazines
• Research manipulation techniques, use of language, language and gender, persuasion etc.
• Research history of yellow journalism
• Research validity of stories comparatively
• Research target audiences for each, ask about their interest in chosen magazine and its topics, do the magazines actually reflect the interests of the people or do the people reflect the dictation of the magazines. 
• Plan how this will be structured, current thoughts are:
   a chapter about the magazine industry as a whole and the history of the chosen magazine, context and such,
  a chapter for comparing and analysing cosmo and esquire,
  a chapter comparing the two trashies, both first hand research backed up with theories of language and gender and manipulation etc.
  then maybe another chapter on the influence these publications have and examples of it existing quotes backing up that it infultrates our conciousness blah blah balh,
  or maybe a part about how its beginning to lose its impact? and the transfer of much of this information to the internet?
  decrease in sales since online content has become increasingly popular, which in turn would lead to the same content being even more influential than it previously was in its print form

A plan of sorts..

So if I'm gonna compare different lifestyle type magazines first I need to decide which ones..

Should they be parallels? 

2 'male' 2 'female' oriented?

i think FHM is pretty interesting because of how it seems to have changed over time, but thats not really what I'm looking at so maybe just a section about how these magazines have changed and developed with reference to FHM, perhaps introduction?

So for fancy women theres 

vogue, which is too fashion

 Elle, which according to wiki is the worldwide most popular

Cosmopolitan, which I think its quite a good equivalent to GQ and spans all assumed female teritory with less of a focus on fashion than vogue, I think theyre roughly equal in their contents….

Also it's worth considering Esquire vs Cosmopolitan because they're both published by Hearst Corporation so maybe it would be more of an equivalent than GQ. I haven't read it though so I don't know the content breakdown, but their tagline says The Smart Man's Guide to the Best in Style, Food, Gear, Culture and more… so I suppose that sounds about the equivilant to Cosmo, cos GQ is more fashion. 

So Cosmo vs Esquire? 

should i be looking at the online content as well?

I think I probably should

on that note, the two websites are remarkably similar, very clickbait, GIFs and autoplay videos, they even have basically the same subheadings

Cosmo - Entertainment, Beauty, Love, Fashion, Worklife

Esquire - Style, Watches (?!), Gear, Food & Drink, Culture, Women

Okay theyre a little different, but its all just different words for stuff

Oddly the male magazine doesnt have a work section

And watches? what the hell is that? its just a page of watch adverts, that isnt journalism 

Are watches just a much bigger deal than i thought?

I mean I found that whole magazine about watches yesterday

a whole new world… 

So according to wiki Esquire was made because Apparel Arts was so popular but that was mostly just sold to businesses to give advice to their customers. "to become the common denominator of masculine interests—to be all things to all men." in 1933
So thats cool
Is that still the case now 
 It later transformed itself into a more refined periodical with an emphasis on men's fashion and contributions by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alberto Moravia, André Gide, and Julian Huxley. 
now thats interesting, is this how it's still perceived now? Are the contributers of modern day Esquire to one day be the equivalents to Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald? 
Who knows..

Anyway

Lets look at GQs website

I can't believe it they have a watch section too.. Although it makes more sense in this one cos fashion..

GQ - Comment, Fashion, Watches, Entertainment, Girls, GQ Style, MOTY (?), 100 Most Connected.

Ah, MOTY is men of the year..
Differences are intriguing to observe
its very much about following other successful men
Also the choice of the word 'girls' where Esquire chose 'Women'
Is this to do with target audience age range?

Let's try Men's Health, it's more specific but anyhoo

Workouts, Muscle, Fitness, Nutrition, Weight Loss, Health, Style, WATCHES

WATCHES AGAIN!
What is this some kind of watch selling conspiracy

Glamour - News, Fashion, Celebrity, Hair & Beauty, Features, Magazine

no watches
men are weird

Company - Fashion, Celebs, Beauty, Music, Careers, Travel, Compnay HQ, Chat, Play

Red Magazine doesnt really have an online presence, just a website offering different ways to subscribe.
Interestingly though, at the bottom in big letters. HEARST CORPORATION.
Theyre everywhere

So let's look at the trashys
I still don't know who's publishing them

Zoo - News, Guide, Girls, Sport 
much simpler..

FHM - News, Style, Man Food (?), Kit, Entertainment, How To, Health & Fitness, Girls
Girls again, is it the target age group?

Hello! - Celebrities, Royalty, William & Kate (is both really necessary), Fashion, Weddings, Health & Beauty, Lifestyle, Entertainment 
Very weird

Heat - Celeb News, Star Style, Entertainment, Get Happy (?), Win, heat radio, heat tv, Offers
get happy is basically clickbait buzzfeed news and games

Published by Bauer Media, who seem pretty big in magazines and radio
They have the nature interest things
Bird Watching, Angling Times, Country Walking trout and salmon etc.
All the cars
All the music magazines, Kerrang, Q, Mojo, Planet Rock
and Empire
AND
MORE USEFULLY
they own Closer, FHM, Grazia, Heat, The Debrief (!? totally thought that was like independant online) and Zoo!!!!!!
aaaAHHHah breakthroughssss

SO
Hearst Corporation -  Cosmopoliton VS Esquire
Bauer Media - Heat/Closer/Hello VS FHM/Zoo
meaning i can study also into the history and management of the two comanies and analyse their bias

eheeeeehehe yay

but theres also Star which is my favourite because its just the worst, which is a Murdoch!
so maybe i could allude to star as well
oddly as well it seems to be the oldest of the womens gossip magazines that still exists, started in 1974
BUT it was sold in 1990 to the American Media inc... what else do they own ?
among other things they own Star, OK! and Mens Fitness
not as subject lucrative as Bauer media but maybe more interesting bias and back story with the murdoch involvement, but maybe theres too much to write about both

The problem is the more i research the more research there is to do and the project is expanding and expanding and i dont know if 9000 is enough words for it all

Publishers and first issues

I'm looking into who makes the most popular lifestyle magazines, or whatever ones I'm considering using.
to see if their ethos and techniques overlap
to explore their bias
to figure out who is at the top and whatnot

also its interesting

HEARST CORPORATION owns:
Elle
Cosmopolitan
Esquire
Good Housekeeping
Harpers Bazaar
(cool picture of the first issue)

on a side note a lot of these magazines are very very old, like they started in the 1800s and stuff
that could make a good bit of exploration, maybe a chapter, maybe a paragraph
a tangential study into how the magazines have changed and developed and how they are also basically still the same….
something to think about..

1894
became womens magazine in late 60's
first published 1886

i love this one

it looks like the 80s but it was 1939

comparatively, its a point to consider, that the more higher class glossy magazines seem to have their roots in history, theyve existed for like a hundred years, whereas the tackier magazines have less historical background

eg. 

first issue 1999

1996

2002

1988

Grazias wiki article… 

From its start in 1938 to September 1943 Bruno Munari served as the art director for the magazine and for another Mondadori title, Tempo.^[9]

..interesting

ahaa finally found a picture, i think it says 1943.. 

1995

GQ, was formerly Apparel Arts and then Gentlemens Quarterly

again cementing my hypothesising of fancier magazines having historical grounding

isnt this fascinating

Zoo started in 2006 on the back of FHM, which began in 1985

interestingly FHM seems to have undergone a massive deterioration over time

its first issue looks like a gentlemenly magazine not dissimilar from GQ 

whereas now… 

interesting...

2004, I guess the first purely trash male magazine? 

depends when FHM got trashy

loaded 1994

its difficult to imagine gary oldman being in a ladmag nowadays..

or even being described as a lad

or being in any way affiliated with lad culture

i think this ones my favourite
its like the most succinct description of how i ignorantly perceive Mens Health
do you have any real friends?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones_(i-D)

i-D magazine is pretty interesting
apparently i-D is regarded as the first emoticon
also the old covers are great

Elle was founded in France in 1945. In the 1960s, it was considered to "not so much reflect fashion as decree it", with 800,000 loyal readers and a then famous slogan: "Si elle lit, elle lit Elle (If she reads, she reads Elle)

See this is interesting because my whole point was like how magazines control our perceptions of life and reality and all that, like how they literally shape our lifestyles by telling us what they want us to do
perpetuating an ideal etcetc..

1945

I'm tying to define my question, but it is difficult

I feel like I know exactly where my visual side is going, but I've scarcely even begun with the writing.

At the minute for the visual part I'm thinking of making the end product just enormous drawings, as was suggested to me, and their context would just be like gallery space work, ykno like those illustrators who just make work to be looked at that isn't a product or anything. It'd be nice to do something like that, have a little break form the rigmerall of product range and distribution. Also I think the way I've been working is best suited to that. I think the drawings should be A1 and just drawn straight onto the paper similar to the smaller ones, just slightly more planned. For this to happen I'll have to make several more smaller preparatory drawings, at least one smaller one per magazine I explore, so in the end I'll have this body of smaller pieces of work that I could form into a booklet which would be hypothetically given out to gallery goers as an acompanying souvenir.

I dunno maybe that'll work

But what am I actually exploring I can't just look pointlessly at magazines.

So what do I think.. opinions and stuff

Okay I think theyre manipulative first and for most, but maybe this is just a trait of  tabloid magazines, or maybe its more obvious and heavy handed in those.

Am I comparing?
If I'm comparing am I comparing tabloid and glossy magazines, or mens and womens magazines, or all different lifestyle magazines? or fancy magazines and trashy magazines for both men and women?
am i looking at language? imagery? content? design? all of these things?
how do i find the balance between being too diffuse and too specific
in Peep Show that dancer told Mark that if he cant sum up all his aims in the first line theyre too diffuse
then again she was a fictional stripper, so maybe her word isnt gospel

what even are my aims

christ what am i doing

okay….. so I want to explore magazines, thats a start, i am interested in….
the way they use language? to manipulate?
I guess first of all i want to find out if they are manipulative
or is that overalll
maybe thats what I'm doing, an investigation into the manipulative tactics of magazines and to what extent they are in use in different examples…..
that sounds a bit waffley and vague...
Do magazines use manipulation to encourage purchasing
Do magazines manipulate their audiences to ensure sales
To what extent are manipulative techniques used in different lifestyle magazines
How do lifestyle magazines maniuplate their audiences into continually buying magazines

too biasedddddd…..

do lifestyle magazines demonstrate manipulative techniques in order to ensure their own prosperity
that one sounded okay

can this work as an investiagtion? the project? can it be structured like that and not fail?

I suppose so as long as theres peoples quotes to back it up and whatnot
it would be mixed first hand research and my own analysis, combined with found information about manipulative techniques and then other peoples findings of how these are used in magazines

i think that can work

and i can involve the language and gender debate with looking at how they manipulate differently to different audiences.

yeah?
yehamaybe………

i dont think itll be a problem once it gets going i jsut need to know how to start………..

so with regards to chapters and strucutre… if i explore lifestyle magazines i first need to pick some..
I think there should be an even split in intended gender orientation, and maybe two lower quality ones and two higher ones, one for each gender
so eg
star and zoo
cosmo and gq

maybe different age groups?

Sugar, Cosmo, Good Housekeeping

http://www.whsmith.co.uk/dept/magazines-lifestyle-09x00016
thanks whsmith, useful
ordered by popularity too, how perfect

i think I should probably choose popular ones, to get a view of the general consensus of the masses, this isnt about niche groups, it is the masses,

on a side note this is a real magazine http://www.whsmith.co.uk/products/watchtime/9012000025328

Starsuckers was very very pivotally useful.

Here are the notes I made.

Start young, convince people happiness and success lies in the entertainment industry

Jake Halgern 'Fame Junkies'

in study about hypothetical magic button boys picked to press the one for fame almost as much as the one for intelligence, and girls did choose fame button more.

reality television created to feed the aspiration of children that one day they'll get onto television, making it viable, saleable and have a constantly refreshing source of willing victims

the key is making it seem attainable

based around creating an addiction to fame, then achieving 'fame and success' releases much craved dopamine, so people try to become famous because it will make them happy, or such is the belief

the earlier you start the more likely you are to become addicted, to anything, which is how the celebrity industry makes us care about what they're doing, infiltrating while young

to keep us hooked on the celebrities sometimes they need to change the type of attention we give them, hence why gossip magazines will build a celebrity and just as quickly tear them back down

smeaton baggage handler, man who jumped on man on train tracks, that guy a few years ago who was there when that woman escaped from that basement

began with evolution, people who liked being in groups survived because they had help and protection and the strength of many people combined, natural loners died at the hands of predators eg. and thus the trait to be naturally social was passed down to us. likewise people who copied others who were successful were in turn successful yet those who wanted to do things a different way often died, leading to the trait of copying and looking to successful people for guidance to be passed on to us. the rug to get lose to the alpha male as a woman was for breeding purposes and for a man to get leftover women and food. the loner or person not drawn to the alpha doesn't reproduce and we develop the trait to congregate around successful people
as a result of this we are appealed to on our most basic instinctive level with advertising and journalism. look at this person who is successful, buy the magazine so you can do what they do and be near to them and be social and survive

surrounded by famous faces, survival instincts tell us to copy them

exploiting our need to be close to the famous

parasocial relationships are ones based not on face to face communication but rather on what you know about the person despite having never met them. the only notable example of this other than that in celebrity culture is the relationship some people have with God
Professer Chris Rojek
it's created and fuelled by media and we ALL do it
the younger these relationships are formed the stronger they are

effective through instinctive processing

monkey test given two screens, looking at one grants them a sip of sugary juice, the other one grants them nothing but shows them images of female monkey bums and the dominant male. the monkeys looked at the latter more frequently, and since they were opting for that over the juice were in effect actually paying to look at the imagery because it is valuable social information

demand for bad news is greater than the demand for good news

gossip useful for figuring out how to handle situations when we are potentially put in similar ones later, preparing ourselves for future danger

we're more interested in learning how to avoid danger than how to become more successful, hence we are drawn more to negative news

pete doherty story giving homeless women £20 was twisted to him buying drugs from her, source was an 'onlooker'

anonymity of sources allows journalists to print whatever they want with no repercussions
fabricating news

'Flat Earth News' Nick Davies

Pierce Morgan, Andy Coulson, Dominic Mohan, Emma Bussey, Colin Myer, Rebekah Brook, Paul Dacre

PCC (research into more) run by newspaper editors so is completely internal

Max Clifford, important, research.

Control the truth, illusion

Live Aid was to sell albums and tabloids

Use of charity to increase power and fame.

Confidential

Looking into the history of gossip magazines, it appears to have been spearheaded by Confidential, an American magazine published from 1952 to 1978

http://gawker.com/5454839/when-gossip-was-gritty-confidential-magazine

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/confidential/confidentialaccount.html

http://mercurie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/naming-names-rise-fall-of-confidential_20.html

it seems to be very difficult to find copies or even online versions of the content itself, but i frequent many a fusty charity shop so I will be keeping a look out

I wonder what the first british tabloid magazine was, that would be easier to find

yellow journalism

When the term “Yellow Journalism” was coined in the late 1890s, it was used to describe the signature styles and methods used by New York City newspaper giants Joseph Pulitzer (The New York Word) and William Randolph Hearst (The New York Journal). Huge, sprawling headlines covered each of their newspapers with alarming exclamations of war, crises and money rewards. Powerful words such as “death,” “slaughter,” and “glory” were used on the front page whenever possible in order to generate public interest and curiosity. Along with bold headlines, the yellow journalism of the late 1800s and early 1900s consisted of twisted facts, fake interviews, sensationalism and colorful comics. Today, the term retains most of its old meaning, but it has stretched to describe any journalism that treats news “in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.”

https://manshipmassmedia.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/modern-day-yellow-journalism/

I think this yellow journalism business seems to have hit the nail on the head with what I'm trying to explore. Except I want to focus on how it's used in gossip magazines to manipulate a largely female audience. 

Ways of grabbing attention:
Bright colours
Bold Headlines
Strong words
Exclamation marks



http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/oct/14/starsuckers-tabloids-hoax-celebrities

Found this guardian article about some people who made up stories and sent them in to the tabloids.
They made a movie about the whole topic called Starsuckers, which I must watch
Found a video
I will watch this when I get tired of reading

this opens up another avenue of research about the reliability of the news they print, how much is actually true and so on.

names

I've been calling them trash mags or trashy press/magazines but this yeilds little result so in my research to find a new term I have now settled on gossip magazines or tabloid magazines.
This sounds much more proper than trashy mags

a post of resources on the use of language in womens magazines

this seems to be a popular topic

hurrahh

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:225148/fulltext01.pdf

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/cels/essays/sociolinguistics/White5.pdf (discource)

https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/womens%E2%80%99-usage-of-specific-linguistic-functions-in-the-context-of-casual-conversation (discource)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1987.1003_1.x/abstract

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/the-language-of-womens-magazines
yeah this is some buzzfeed quiz nonsense but it picks out actual words the magazines have invented

http://media.leeds.ac.uk/files/2011/12/Emily-Norval1.pdf
grazia glossys

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5Qi_Nau-P_wC&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=language+of+womens+magazines&source=bl&ots=d4q-jdTL3-&sig=oTrdVS7CNixkJ0GsT3JsmC4W0L8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFkQ6AEwCmoVChMItNbC1pKwyAIVAxceCh3ClQdu#v=onepage&q=language%20of%20womens%20magazines&f=false
historic

http://www.theoryhead.com/gender/more.htm
i hadnt yet thought about magazines with a younger target age, they must be even worse

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/look-how-mens-and-womens-magazines-write-about-money/

http://digilib.k.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/10226/vyb%C3%ADralov%C3%A1_2009_bp.pdf?sequence=1
this one looks pretty technical

language and difference

In the same vein as Lakoff I also recall studying Deborah Tannens theories of language and difference, in the one of language used by men and women

They are as such

• Status vs. support
• Independence vs. intimacy
• Advice vs. understanding
• Information vs. feelings
• Orders vs. proposals
• Conflict vs. compromise 
   

So again I want to analyse the language of the magazines in accordance with this to see how the female voice is used to manipulate the audience, and whether these are used in male oriented magazines and articles for women written by men 

Really I suppose a large amount of it is a study into language and gender with a secondary part on visual manipulation, which is essentially yellow journalism?

Language and gender and yellow journalism in the modern womens trash magazine.....

a title will come eventually 

isnt it weird how everything comes together

so i think i wrote previously on my blog that I was looking at a load of other topics for this project, two of which were presidential assasinations, resulting in my interest in the musical Assassins, and worlds fairs throughout history. I noted previously how weird it was that these two topics combined because Leon Csolgosz assassinated president William McKinley at the pan american exposition in Buffalo which was a worlds fair in New York in 1901.

So on the wiki article about yellow journalism is this little nugget hiding at the bottom

Hearst was a leading Democrat who promoted William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896 and 1900. He later ran for mayor and governor and even sought the presidential nomination, but lost much of his personal prestige when outrage exploded in 1901 after columnist Ambrose Bierce and editor Arthur Brisbane published separate columns months apart that suggested the assassination of William McKinley. When McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901, critics accused Hearst's Yellow Journalism of driving Leon Czolgosz to the deed. Hearst did not know of Bierce's column, and claimed to have pulled Brisbane's after it ran in a first edition, but the incident would haunt him for the rest of his life, and all but destroyed his presidential ambitions.[29]

Yellow journalism, my current topic, links right back to my other two previous topics!!!!
Ain't the world a remarkable place

I'm really excited about this 

everythings connected

woah mannnn

now lets enjoy this song in celebration 

Lakoff

I had a thought

So in A Level english language we looked at Robin Lakoffs conventions of female speech
they are as follows

Robin Lakoff

Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published an influential account of women's language. This was the book Language and Woman's Place. In a related article, Woman's language, she published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. Among these are claims that women:

• Hedge: using phrases like “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”,and so on.
• Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind...”,“I'd appreciate it if...”, “...if you don't mind”.
• Use tag questions: “You're going to dinner, aren't you?”
• Speak in italics: intonational emphasis equal to underlining words - so, very, quite.
• Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, and so on
• Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.
• Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
• Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
• Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. For example, “What school do you attend? Eton College?”
• Use “wh-” imperatives: (such as, “Why don't you open the door?”)
• Speak less frequently
• Overuse qualifiers: (for example, “I Think that...”)
• Apologise more: (for instance, “I'm sorry, but I think that...”)
• Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought - “Should we turn up the heat?”)
• Avoid coarse language or expletives
• Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn't it cold in here?” - really a request to turn the heat on or close a window)
• Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance, “I am so glad you came!”)
• Lack a sense of humour: women do not tell jokes well and often don't understand the punch line of jokes.

 Obviously some of them dont translate to written articles, but many could.
I wondered if this could be one of the ways female magazines attempt to manipulate the readers with their language choices. By speaking like another woman, conversationally, it would in theory be easier to persuade women to think and feel a certain way, because it would give the impression theyre speaking to another real life women, when really its just a flat page of text.
Also I think it would be interesting to compare the use of these conventions in articles written for women by men and articles written by women for women. It could be suggested if the male written articles contain things like this that they have researched conventions of female speech in order to use them manipulatively in the articles.