Bust Magazine

9 Pages 2194 Words

Communication and Popular Culture

BUST magazine is meant to be an alternative outlet for women who are sick of the images given to them in the more established and conventional women’s magazines.
BUST offers quite a different set of values than most young women’s magazines. BUST values the woman as an independent person that does not need to answer to the prescribed cultural values usually given to them. The woman who reads BUST is not getting advice on men or how to lose weight. She is reading about other women and issues related to women. BUST signifies women who are independent, young and sexually liberated.
BUST is a magazine that is targeted for younger women with an interest in feminism. The reader of BUST is more likely to be part of an underground subculture that the typical reader of the mainstream Cosmo or Glamour magazine. BUST tries to reach a crowd that is somewhat more into independent music, movies, film and politics than the average reader of typical women’s magazines are. BUST is targeted at women who most likely live in more urban areas and have at least some college education. The average reader is most likely between the ages of 18-30. BUST readers are also representative of straight, lesbian and bi-sexual women.
The issues come out seasonally. Each issue tries to focus its articles on a main theme, such as the mother issue, the sex issue and the marriage issue. Since it comes out quarterly I don’t think trends are emphasized as much as the written ideas are. These written words stand out as being long lasting and repeatable whereas many ideas in Cosmo are short-term and fade quickly.
Big names are found on the cover of BUST although they feature many lesser-known people on the inside pages. BUST is doing this to attract a mainstream audience to look at the magazine. I think BUST does this for two reasons. One is because of money. BUST is struggling to stay in print. Big names will draw m...