Magazine

After looking at US Weekly it would seem that the target audience would be girls who are in their late teens up to women in their late twenties. The articles are mostly gossip about celebrities and it seems to signal that everyone who reads should be following every story. It is also a magazine that encourages these women to bring out their sexuality by showing (mostly) actresses in skimpy clothing and having ads such as “Skinny Girl Margarita.”

Seeing that I am not a girl or don’t care for celebrity gossip reading US weekly made me feel completely out of place and I understand the idea of signaling. An advantage of this is that it will bring the people who read the magazine back for me. For instance, there was an article I read about Elton John and his partner having trouble adopting twins from the Ukraine. The article went on to say that they were able to adopt one of the brothers however the other was still in the adaptation agency in the Ukraine. People who read these kinds of stories will be drawn back to the magazine. The celebrity stories are great for advertisers because a lot of people care about celebrities and advertisers know this. By having a variety of ads the magazine can draw the same readers to new products or ideas.

The consumers are at a disadvantage because they have to page through the countless ads that the magazine has out in US Weekly just to find the stories they want. They must also page through pictures of picture perfect bodies that they (the reader) may not have. The magazine adheres to a demographic of people who seem to be in shape and for those who wish they could be in shape. The magazine does a good job at it but it almost seems like US Weekly is being a bully to a generation of young women who want to be nothing but perfect. To the average reader it may not seem like this just because the average reader doesn’t look at it from an outsiders view. However, as an outsider I feel that US Weekly is almost an exclusive club that I am on the outside from everyone involved including, the writers, the editors and even the advertisers.