How depictions of race and a magazine's mission have changed over time: a summative content analysis of cosmopolitan magazine covers

Abstract

In media imagery, women are often viewed as sexual objects rather than depicted as human beings, a term coined as the objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). However, women are not a monolith and intersectional layers where the experience of a White woman differs from that of a woman of color exist (Crenshaw, 1991). With intersectionality, those with multiple identities are often left out of the conversation leading to intersectional invisibility (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008). Due to mass media's ability to “influence their audiences to perceive social roles,” magazines are a lens through which these problems in representation are prominently displayed (Lull, p. 50). Without accurate representation of those with multiple identities, stereotypes often abound. Texts are believed to “[signify] hegemony and ideology and broadly investigate their relations to audiences of different race, gender, class and ethnicity,” (Fursich, 2009, p. 241). Because of this argument, the varying depictions of Black and White women on the cover of magazines can be correlated to what a society believes to be the hegemonic norm. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to analyze those depictions on the magazine's cover and within cover lines, as well as their change over time, while taking into account the magazine's shift in mission, through a summative content analysis of Cosmopolitan magazine covers from 2011, 2016, and 2020.