Audience Gratifications And Utopian Solutions That Cosmo Offer.

Cosmo is a market leading magazine and it offers its audience a whole load of gratification and utopian solutions to its audience. 

One of the main gratification theory is to inform and educate its readers. Cosmo do this in a grfeat variety of ways they have lots and lots of articles informing its readers about relationships to the latest fashion trends. An article that supports my statement is in the november 2001 issue they did an article called "Never be tagged in the same look twice". This article particularly looked at the latest fashion trends and also tells its readers where they may be able to go purchase the items of clothing that they are talking about which makes the reader feel better about themselves as they know what the latest fashion is and where they can acquire them. 


Another main gratification theory is to identify with the reader. They do this to make the reader feel like they are being addressed directly and this creates a relationship between the magazine and the reader the reader which will help both the magazine company and the reader as the reader will go buy more and more issues as they feel that the advice is helping and feel like they are being addressed directly and it helps the magazine company as they get profit from selling magazine to its readers. They do this by using the "Mode of Address" so they use "personal pronouns" to address the reader so talking to them and associating them within the article. This makes the reader fell good about themself as they feel they are being talked to directly. 


Another gratification theory that the industry use is to entertain the reader. They do this to uplift the readers mood and make them feel better or to put them into a better mood. They do this in a variety of ways and concepts for example in the november 2011 issue there is an article called "X-Factor on the couch" this article allows the reader to relive the main moments of the past x factor series and entertains the audience with texts and edited pictures from the show. 


Another gratification that is to offer the read to escape their normal lives as sometimes life can be stressful and the magazine offers the reader a getaway from reality to a world of its own and by the magazine using "personal pronouns" it makes it more personal and the magazine produces articles such as "inside men's mind" this allows women to fantasise about men and "escape" their normal lives. 


The last gratification theory that the industry uses is the one that allows social interaction so the reader can read around the article then go and discuss it with her friends etc. The magazine allows this to happen by posting articles such as "drive your man wild" this will allow the reader to be a) entertained and b) allows the reader to go talk to friends about the article and have a common point of interest. and allows social interaction to happen. 


The industry also use richard dyers utopian solutions theory which consists of the following: 


One of the theory is to get the reader from Isolation -> community this allows the reader to read an article then go talk about it with friends which means they have a common talking point and can feel apart of a community. like i mentioned before the article "drive your man wild" will give the reader something to talk about with friends and feel a part of a community. 


Another theory is to get the reader form Confusion -> Clarity this allows the reader to read an article that they might have been confused with the topic but the topic clarifies them and they now understand what to do in certain situations. and article that shows this is "Inside mens mind" this article allows women to help understand how the mans mind "works"


Another theory is to get the reader from Boredom -> Excitement this allows the bored reader to be entertained and excited from reading an article with in the magazine. A example of an article that does this is "when you wanna bitchslap his mum" this article will entertain and excite its reader. 


The final utopian solution theory is to get the reader from loneliness -> social networking. The industry does this by using synergy to work with twitter so after the reader has read an article they can discuss it with similar people on the medium of twitter which allows the to interact socially online.