Lifestyle magazines deal in entertainment and leisure, they tend to be gender specific and have a mode of address to that of a peer. They tend to target specific age groups within genders. The lifestyle magazine market is an oligopoly, which means that a small group of publishers dominate the market. Publishers tend to spread their titles and so can pick up the readers, as they grow older. Magazine companies survive through dual stream revenue, and the money is mostly obtained through advertising and so therefore the right audience are needed for the advertisers.Gender is the cultural definition of male (masculinity) and female (femininity) determined by society. The ideologies surrounding the term gender change over time and so therefore are also debatable. Definitions of gender are often promoted through the media and therefore are connected to dominant groups of society and so contain dominant ideologies, which tend to be from male, white middle class people.Representations are the process by which ideologies are articulated and communicated through the media. The media do not present the world 'as it is'; they re-present the world, normally according to dominant ideological values.Lifestyle magazines have to stick to the dominant ideas of gender within society otherwise the magazines would be inconsistent. Men's magazines tend to contain a lot of objectification of women, and men read magazines for entertainment as opposed to women who read them for information as well. Both men's and women's magazines tend to privilege male roles within society. Dennis McQuail stated that the reason that people read magazines was for four main reasons; the need for information, the need to maintain a personal sense of identity, the need for social interaction and the need to be entertained and diverted.The front cover of the February 2002 edition of FHM with Mariah Carey on the front cover promotes the ideology that women are objects for men to use as they please. This magazine promotes certain ideologies about a man's world, which can be seen from the front cover and from articles present inside the magazine and the contents page. These are the assumptions that the magazine makes about its readers. The masthead is modern and blocky which communicates modernity and a sense of code. The strap lines also promote sex and sexual relationships by saying things like, 'Drugs! Groupies! Donuts! Have sex like a rock star!' or 'Win a V8 super car! Impress mates! Pull women' this implies that women are material objects just like cars. This magazine is mainly directed at young single men around the age of 18-24. The contents page of FHM is a double page spread and has a lot of pictures to attract the reader's attention to specific articles. Most of the articles are about music, drugs, being a man and women. There are some articles about gadgets because the readership of this magazine are expendable and do not have that many responsibilities and so can spend their money on obtaining the latest gadgets. The pictures of women that are present within the magazine are mainly scantily clad, which can arouse the readers, this does not show a conservative view of women. As the magazine doesn't show a conservative point of view the reader gains pleasure, as it is a type of voyeurism.Esquire is another men's magazine I looked at the February 2002 edition so as to compare the two magazines. Esquire has similarities and differences to the ideologies promoted in FHM. On the cover of Esquire the shape of the font is different, it is more stylish and sophisticated, this implies that the men who read this magazine should be more stylish and sophisticated than other men. The model on the cover of esquire is a man but he is used as an identification figure rather than an objectification figure. The model is Will Smith who is a celebrity and so the readers identify with him and aspire to be him. The audience for this magazine are probably slightly older about 18-30 and therefore their ideologies of gender will be different as they are an older audience. The ideologies of this magazine are of a man who still has all the gadgets that a younger man would have, but he is more sophisticated therefore has more money. The readers probably have some more responsibilities than the readers of FHM, this is shown through the minimalistic front cover of esquire and the articles inside are about politics and men's secret groups such as the Freemasons who are a world wide group of men who help each other out. There are articles that seem sick and twisted but interest men like the article on the blood sacrifice in Haiti, which goes back to the archetypal caveman image through their instinct for gore and their love for killing things.The magazines making a conscious effort to influence their audience through the media carry out these ideologies. This is done through the manipulative model up to a point, but the audience is not completely passive and can give some resistance to the magazine. Therefore the magazine works through the hegemonic model, which recognises that the media is controlled by a relatively small group of people therefore it is their ideologies that are represented in the magazines.Through the representations that are present in these magazines they show that the representations are not conservative and are in fact the exact opposite. This is because it is a safe way of playing out the ideologies present within society and so the men do not play out their wants and desires in real life they just read about it instead.
