Americans vs. Aussies

Everyone is going global nowdays including magazines. What makes it interesting though, is seeing the differences amongst these magazines and finding out, if possible why that is.

For most parts, the August issue of the American Cosmopolitan and the Australian Cosmopolitan are similar. The only differences is the content.There are clearly obvious reasons as to why the contents are differ. One reason is because the general audience who read these magazines come from different countries and therefore have different interests. Both of these magazines are targeted to be fashion magazines however, the American Cosmo prominently concern themselves with the topic of sex. On the other, Australia’s Cosmo is about fashion.

Just by examining the front cover of the American issue, all the cover lines are related to sex. For instance, ‘Erotic Sex: 7 Boundary-Pushing Moves All Men Secretly Crave (and You’ll Get Off On Too)’ and ‘How to Feel More Pleasure Every Day.’ And what makes these words stand out more is the choice of colors for this issue, that is, bright yellow and orange. This differs to the ‘least’ important cover lines relating to hairstyles, true-stories and a profile feature on Julia Stiles. It is hidden away with black coloring of the fonts. One reason I found as to why the August issue for America’s Cosmo is so sex orientated is because it’s ‘The Hot Issue.’ This connotes the idea that this whole issue is sex related and it definitely don’t disappoint in that. Despite this, even just examining the September issue of Cosmo, there’s still a lot of sex related articles in the magazine in comparison to the Australian Cosmo.

In contrast to this, is Australia’s Cosmo for the same month which feature one sex related article. The other cover lines include topics relating to relationship advice, health and beauty.

But I honestly do think that the people who read it do have an effect on what goes into the magazine each month. So does that mean American women are more sex orientated than Australian women? Regardless of that, I still think America’s Cosmo can tone down on the sex topics because when I flip through these women magazines I want to find variety. But when it’s just full of one topic, it makes me not want to read it anymore. In particularly reading this August issue of the American Cosmo made me feel as if I was reading through a soft-core porn magazine. It was quite off putting.

With regards to the layout, Australia’s Cosmo follows much of the main concept of the American version seemingly that the American Cosmo is the ‘original.’ Although, I do much prefer the Australian layout. The reason for this is because in the first section of the Australian Cosmo, it’s all about fashion and beauty so there’s a lot of images and little words. From a reader's perspective, I don’t want to be bombarded by large articles particularly when these magazines are meant for flipping through quickly. This differs to the American Cosmo where a few pages in, a feature article is present. This makes me not want to read it but rather skip it so it’s not the most appealing layout for the magazine.

Now I’m just playing favoritism here – not true. I think I just need time adjusting to reading the American Cosmo.