How Do Magazines Influence People?

After my recent research in London where I observed how people interact in the London Underground my next step was to then learn to research through the process of interviews. To try and get a full response to the questions that I asked I found I had to be less direct with my questioning. Rather than directly asking people if they think magazines directly influence them, I had to develop questions that people would answer more freely. From these answers hopefully I would be able to analyse whether or not people were influenced by what they see and read in magazines.

At first I felt quite uncomfortable asking people questions as it felt really false; however after the first person I interviewed I felt more relaxed. Questions that I asked were quite general and could be answered:  “How many magazines a week and which do you read?”, “If you were sitting in a waiting room what magazine would you most likely pick up?” , “What celebrities do you associate with products?”  , these questions along with others would hopefully give me an indication as to how much magazines influence people. I interviewed a varied selection of people such as students, grandparents, a nurse, a dancer and one thing that I did notice was that advertisements always seemed to be a reoccurring theme throughout my conversations with them.

During my interviews it was apparent that the ‘type’ of magazine would be slightly different depending on the age and profession of the person. Whilst the majority of female students preferred to read ‘Gossip’ magazines such as Heat, Now, and Ok! , people such as my grandparents tended to not deliberately buy a magazine but would read the one that would be a supplement to their Sunday newspapers. Students enjoyed reading magazines that were current rather than magazines feature magazines. I noticed that whilst the people enjoyed reading the ‘gossip’ mags, they tended to read them to keep up to date with what was going on in the celebrity world. I could imagine this being something that would be discussed in class or as they were socialising with friend, it suggests that some of these people would read these magazines so that they can be involved in conversations. It was as though if you had not read the latest new on a big celeb then you would miss out on a conversation and it could make people feel quite insecure. This negative response to magazines would suggest that some people only read them because their friends do; therefore it suggests people are concerned of what others think of them.

Advertisements continued to be discussed throughout the interviews, I asked people to discuss products and what or who they associate them with. This particular area got the longest discussion, people managed to tell me the ‘product faces’ for products or brands such as; L’Oreal, Gillette, Nike, M&S, Sainsbury’s and many more. People were openly aware of how advertisements are aimed directly at the readers they noted that different magazines have different advert within them. One person said “you would never find an advert for Gillette in a women’s magazine, the same as you wouldn’t see a make-up ad in FHM” other said that they would buy try a product if they liked the celebrity that was promoting it. People were aware that there was a fakery to these adverts however it often did not stop them from trying the product on sale. A noticeable fakery was a female celebrity promoting a hair product when in fact she used hair extensions, so no matter how much a person used that product their hair could never look the same.

One person I interviewed told me how they subscribed to Time magazine but they never opened it out of the cellophane as they found it an intensive read. After suggesting that they cancel the subscription I was informed that it was often harder to leave a subscription than to join it. This would suggest that often magazines lure readers in with discounted membership and then the readers often feel they are being shot changed. It was also suggested that the front covers of magazines can be deceiving an example was of a men’s magazine where the cover of a female celebrity suggested that she was nude inside, however on further reading this turned out to be just the cover image and the images inside were fully clothed and respectful. Often the stories on the cover of the magazine, particularly gossip magazines, are aimed at getting people to buy the magazine. Readers also suggested that they enjoyed reading about celebrities’ lifestyles and fashion; often readers suggested that they would look for inspiration from what the celebrities wear and then hoped to get a bargain and look like them. Again this gives the impression of insecurities and people almost being ‘spoon fed’ as too what is or is not the right thing to wear, say, or use.

Overall it is noticeable that magazines are very good at influencing what think and what people like or buy. The people that I interviewed were all aware of how magazines are designed to influence our decisions when buying something and most of them confessed to having bought something after seeing it in a magazine. This links back to my earlier post about advertisements and how they are designed to give a certain message to viewers. If I were to use this method again I would hope to gain a wider range of responses as I was aware that a lot of the results were similar. However if I used this method to research something for a design project, I would hope to discuss my questions beforehand with classmates. This would hopefully give me the opportunity to alter any question that perhaps to not give me the answers that I am looking for.