Each monthly publication consists of nearly one hundred full-page advertisements.In the February 2004 issue there are only eight images of African Americans(including one image that exposes only the model's legs)four images of Asians,and three images of multiracial men and women.As is the case in the Botox advertisement,most of these diverse images are grouped together in the same ad,while images of white men and women proliferate throughout the magazine.“Advertising is especially persuasive when it offers the new through familiar imagery”(Kitch,2001,p.160).The dominant imagery in O magazine is not the advertisements or the products placed within the sparse editorial pages.Readers are influenced by Oprah Winfrey and what she represents socially and culturally.Therefore,they approach the publication in search of self-identity and self-awareness through the illusion that it is attainable through economic mobility and material wealth.Despite the absence of diverse material,there are several indications that the consumerist view is funneled according to an editorial hierarchy.
Oprah's ongoing interest in dieting methods and exercise techniques is reflected in the advertising as well.There are a variety of ads for diet programs such as Atkins,as well as those for power bars and healthy snacks.While issues of diversity abound on the Oprah Winfrey Show,they are virtually absent in the January,February and March 2004 issue of O.Such an omission seems especially noteworthy,and may certainly aid in O's construction of their preferred reader.Winfrey,as an African American and privileged member of an elite society,has assumed the role of mediator“between the black masses and the white folks who are really in charge”(Hooks,2000,p.91).Hooks further argues that with the emergence of African Americans into a society dominated by patriarchy and capitalism,“Allegiance to their class interests usually supersedes racial solidarity”(Hooks,2000,p.96).From this perspective,class then becomes not a caste system but a commodified object available for purchase by upper middle-class groups.From its conception O magazine has urged readers to“see every experience and challenge as an opportunity to grow and discover their best self”(The Magazine Guys,2004).Through visual and pictorial content and advertising,O prescribes,offers and endorses the best of the best of life for the reader searching for personal and material improvement.
From columnists Dr.Phil and Suzie Armand to celebrity interviews with Jennifer Aniston(February 2004),Madonna(January 2004)and Sarah Jessica Parker(March 2004),O magazine furthers the construction of a white middle-upper-class reader.Analogous with Essence,O avoided a celebration of both the King holiday in January and Black History Month in February,opting to instead feature white female entertainment icons,Madonna and Jennifer Aniston,respectively.
This research study examines the construction of readership in Ebony,Essence and O magazine,three popular magazines that purport to be a vehicle of identity and awareness for their target audience.Upon evaluation we find that Ebony and Essence both challenge the hegemonic process with the incorporation of cultural artifacts that call upon collective memory to form reader association.Stuart Hall's concept of encoding and decoding is relevant here in that the consumers of both publications,also members of a patriarchal society,negotiate the media messages,allowing them to resist stereotypes and internalized norms.In some cases the magazines actually construct oppositional messages,challenging the dominant hegemony that audience members embrace as resistant readings.In Ebony and Essence,the primary method of reader construction is language in the form of testimonial rhetoric and black vernacular.Both work as cultural identifiers that manifest notions of shared meaning and collective ownership among African Americans.Language,as communicated by Bell Hooks,“is a place of struggle”(Hooks,1990,p.46)for the minority who in order to remain productive and maintain individual space in the dominant society,must navigate the landscape of two-dimensional communication.In contrast O,The Oprah Magazine constructs a readership firmly entrenched in the dominant hegemonic culture.Celebrating a culture of consumption and excess,O encourages readers to fulfill themselves through conspicuous consumption.While Ebony and Essence construct an alternative space for their readers,O maintains that fulfillment and self-realization is the embodiment of fashion,make-up,gold-plated stationery and Manolo Blahnik stilettos.Such is the publication's luxuriant language,the constructed reader,a middle-upper-class white woman,attracted to the magazine by its representation of a“luscious”lifestyle that implies holistic individual and social mobility.
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