Deconstruction of Heat Magazine

The weekly gossip magazine Heat is notorious for their juicy stories of celebrity icons. Heat magazine, published by Bauer which has a circulation of around half a million.
Heat magazine as well as other gossip magazines specialise in keeping celebrities in the public eye. Without them celebrities such as Katie Price and Peter Andre would have been forgotten, with gossip magazines they are 'reinvented'.

However, gossip magazines do not always do good. In fact in most magazines women are viewed in a nasty light and are often sexualised to target the curiosity of the consumer.

The primary audience for Heat magazine tend to be women aged 18 to 35, whilst the secondary audience tent to be women aged 35 to 55. Alonside this they also tend to be white, urban, female, working class who have an interest in celebrity gossip.

 

To attract the target audience, Heat magazine uses bright, saturated primary colours such as reds, blue and yellows and also high key lighting. They do this to anchor the codes and conventions of a gossip magazine. As well as this they also have many photographs on the cover (there is a high ratio of photography to text), again another key convention of a gossip magazine.

 

 

The masthead is stereotypically aimed at the female audience. Heat uses a clear font which is recognizable to their audience. This creates a strong brand identity.

 

Throughout the magazine there are many pictures and photography that is cluttered. It is aimed to catch the readers attention by using different style pictures and sizes. Also the variation of the font and sizes anchored to the images draws the attention of the reader and makes it clear what text goes with what picture.