Lifestyle Magazines and Women's Identity : Can Cosmopolitan magazine play a role in women's narratives of the self and assist in identity construction?

In our postmodern society, media plays a prominent role, which offer their consumers a vast array of different ideas and discourses, which are ways of talking, and portrayals of identities, which are ways of being. By recognising the fact, that media is embedded and reconstructed through everyday life, this study aims to explore what it really means for people living in a mediated environment, which includes their use of media as a resource for identities. In this work, the focus will be on the popular lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan. In contrast to the stereotypical, feminist notion that women's magazines indoctrinate their readers into patriarchal society, Cosmopolitan magazine is known for delivering the editorial message of an independent and powerful, female identity which is sexually liberated and challenges traditional ideas about gender and women's roles in our society. The aim of this ethnographic inspired reception analysis is to investigate into the readership of Cosmopolitan magazine and find out whether this magazine can play a role in women's narraives of the self and ultimately assist in their identity construction.