Cosmopolitan: Get Naked!

"Get Naked! 25 Fun Ways to Go Nude" is one of the headlines on the cover of the March edition of Cosmopolitan that is supposed to lure in women as they pass the magazine shelf in the store. Maybe they thought that "THE SEX QUIZ" in caps and bold would do the trick. Cosmopolitan, otherwise known as "COSMO," is said to be "the lifestylist for millions of fun fearless females who want to be the best they can in every area of their lives." For me, it is just a magazine of ridiculous surveys, polls, and lists that can make the time go faster while I sit in the waiting room at the doctor's office.

I feel like reading articles titled "10 ways to let a guy know you're interested" and "7 sexy must-haves" is a waste of my neocortex brain. However, one positive thing I find about COSMO magazine is that it is a model of the aesthetic shift from discrete to convergence. If this magazine did not exist and I was truly interested in everything that is currently in it, I would have to look at self-help and advice columns, read entertainment articles, look at fashion images, look ad advertisements for products, and read celebrity biographies all in different locations. Where as COSMO provides a little of everything in one location. One principle represented in COSMO is ownership. Cosmopolitan owns their magazine, but there are other people involved as well. Advertisement is huge when it comes to magazines. Companies pay COSMO thousands of dollars to place their ads in the magazine. They do so because they have faith in the magazine to reach an audience and therefore to have that audience view their ads. COSMO uses many different persuasive techniques to get readers to read their magazine. One is hyperbole. They use headlines such as "The most dangerous thing a woman can say yes to" to get viewers to want to pick up the magazine and see exactly what THE MOST DANGEROUS THING A WOMAN CAN SAY YES TO. The most used technique used my COSMO as well as most magazines is beautiful people. They use well known celebrities such as Beyonce, Drew Barrymore, Taylor Swift, and Julia Roberts to get the attention and interest of viewers.

Overall, I think COSMO is an informative, fun, interesting magazine for most teenage girls or young women. However, for me, I would rather not spend my time reading a magazine that seems to think it knows what turns my boyfriend on...