Website Analysis
Magazine website analysis 1:
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/
This website is for British GQ magazine and overall, it is
stylised and presented as a website targeted towards a male adult audience. At
the top of the website under the company name is a banner that covers different
sections of style and lifestyle. When looking closer at these categories we can
see that one of them is entitled ‘grooming’ and this word appeals to a more
masculine audience as opposed to the category being called beauty which
it most likely would have done if it was on a website for a female fashion
magazine. We can also observe a category called ‘watches’ and this is implying
that watches are a fashion product associated with males, and this reinforces
gender stereotypes as watches are often associated with the working man and the
breadwinner of a household. We can see another category called fitness and this
implies that the magazine is trying to attract an audience who care about their
health and have an emphasis on maintain an alpha male status achieved through
peak physical fitness. It can also be said that this website is targeting a middle-class
male audience due to the advertising of expensive watches and the inclusion of
a culture tab both of which require the audience to understand economics as
well as world events. The main story on this website is about Jodie Comer at
the time of writing this and the image attached to the headline takes up the
width of the website and this visually attracts the audience. She is wearing a
revealing costume and is laying on a bed so is presented from a male gaze
viewpoint when looking at Mulvey’s gender theory which would reinforce the opinion
that GQ is targeted towards a male audience. Moving down the website we can see
multiple different stories each with images attached to them and they cover
different subjects such as cinema to celebrities. The overall style of this
website is simplistic with a plain white background and stories neatly
organised into subsections which makes the aesthetic very appealing visually. There
is a prompt to subscribe to their newsletter as well as the magazine with both
print and digital issues and this is GQ’s attempt to counter the worldwide
decline in print sales for magazines.
Magazine website analysis 2:
This is the website for British Vogue, and we can see that
it is targeted towards a female audience as a result of multiple factors. The
overall layout is very similar to GQ with a white background and stories laid
out in organised sections with an emphasis on images to attract audiences’
attention over buzz words in the headlines. The banner that advertises the
sections of the website is located underneath the company’s name and features
subjects more tailored to a female audience. We can see a section called ‘Beauty’
and this implies that the target audience feel like they must conform to
expected beauty standards in the world in order to fit in and they build up
trust with Vogue and become reliant on these beauty tips. Another section is
‘runway’, and this implies that the audience are interested in idolising what
would be considered peak female beauty through models. Under the ‘vogue
business’ section, there are many stories about business, and some encourage
audience involvement whereas others contain lots of information about the
fashion industry as a business. This counters typical gender expectation of
females being housewives and by doing this, Vogue is inspiring a new generation
of women who can find top paid jobs in industries simply by reading about them
on this website. Lots of the stories on the website are centred around females
with many of the anchoring images featuring empowering images of females. Despite
this, the Vogue website still has a section entitled ‘shopping’ and this is
negative as it follows the stereotype of females being related to consumerism
and damaging fashion cycles such as fast fashion. The items on the website are
high end and that means they are expensive, and this suggests that the audience
for Vogue are wealthy middle class women who are concerned with conforming to
societies expectations of what beauty looks like through materialistic wealth.
Magazine website analysis 3:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine
This is the website for National Geographic magazine and
despite this not being a style magazine company, there are still some
similarities between this website and the others. There is less of a focus on
the company as an industry and instead the website takes a more informative approach
and aims to educate a mixed audience. The website takes less of a visually
simplistic style by featuring bright images as well as block-coloured banners
and this gives it a more ludic tone which targets a younger audience who are
engaged through visual stimulation. An older more educated audience are also
engaged through the informative stories on offer as well as the campaigns and
petitions featured on the main page. There is also a story which label David
Attenborough as an icon, and he is to the older generations who grew up being
familiar with his work in nature and the anchoring image makes him look
empowering and shapes him as an idol. Under the ‘lifestyle’ section of the top
banner, the website gives its audience a way to improve their lifestyles to
better the environment and themselves as people. Under the ‘health’ section of
the website there are stories for improved diet as well as stories that you
cannot get to unless you subscribe for them and this costs £19 for the year
which goes to a good cause. For more of an educated audience, there is a science
and nature section where you can complete quizzes and get more scientifically
based knowledge which is aimed towards a middle-class audience who would care
about the environment as well as having attended university. When you click on
the NatGeo shop, you are redirected to the Disney store as National Geographic
was purchased by Disney in 2019 and the contents of this shop are items aimed
at children, and this is because Disney has a target audience of young people.
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