Celebrity Salvation of Heat Magazine: A Critical Discussion about the Appeal of Celebrities

Appeal of Celebrities Dissertation – This dissertation project explores the reasons as to why celebrities appeal to the public in various different ways. It has special focus on the redesign of Heat magazine, and how by incorporating a celebrity focused format, rather than its former entertainments magazine style, it managed to save itself from bankruptcy.

The reasons for this topic are to gain an understanding of the reasons for the failure of a magazine with such strong editorial values and interesting features; in contrast with the success it enjoyed after embodying celebrity saturated material. Applying the method of content analysis in order to demonstrate exactly how much of Heat is consumed by celebrity news, the methods of interviewing and self-completed questionnaires are employed in order to provide a balance between subjective and objective data.

Significant trends were discovered in the research between factors which influence celebrity appeal, in correlation with the success of Heat magazine. The research project concludes with theories which have evolved over the course of the study, some which have been in some way proven true, and others which have been reconsidered.

The mass media and celebrity are areas of great complexity and the key intention of this research project was to produce a current piece of original study and contribution to this widely discussed subject.

The affect of celebrity in relation to the mass media is a diverse area of study. With regards to a topic so ambiguous, several denotations can be abstracted from a single text. With this in mind, the vast selling point of celebrity presents an abundance of questions dealing with the roles of personality within media texts.

This research project aims to seek out the reasons as to why celebrity holds such a unique selling point, with special focus upon the metamorphosis of Heat magazine. During its first year, Heat was advertised as the ‘ultimate weekly entertainment fix’, and was a specialised magazine appealing to a significantly narrower audience. Failing to reach out to the masses, poor sales figures proved Heat to be unpopular and saw its short lifespan coming to an end.

However, a huge campaign was launched to promote the revamp of the magazine with almost overnight success. The key factor and central attraction became celebrity gossip with the slogan adorning the front cover changed from ‘the ultimate weekly entertainment fix’ to ‘this week’s hottest celebrity news’ (Heat). Suddenly enjoying soaring sales figures and enormous interest from women in particular, Heat was
amongst the top selling magazines in Europe.


  • 10,000 words – 60 pages in length
  • Excellent use of literature
  • Good data analysis
  • Well written throughout
  • Includes Questionnaire
  • Ideal for media and communications students

Introduction

Methodology

A Study of Existing Celebrity Theories

Correlations between Reality TV and Heat’s Success

Presentation of Content Analysis Results

Interview and Questionnaire Insights

Conclusions

Appendix

Appeal of Celebrities Dissertation
Appeal of Celebrities Dissertation

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