Readers or Consumers? Identity Portrayal in Italian Lifestyle Magazines

Lifestyle journalism is a form of media operating at the intersection of identity and consumerism, a place where multiple identity-related factors come into play. Magazines, one of the first instances of lifestyle media, have historically been able to shape culture through their recommendations, gaining a relevant spot in the media universe. Within the Italian lifestyle media landscape, Cosmopolitan is the only magazine which caters to young women aged 18-34, representing an interesting case study when it comes to analyzing how current portrayal of consumerism and national identity are represented in the magazine. Despite research has analyzed how American lifestyle magazines have shaped consumer identity in the past and the influence of branded advertising on Italian editorial content, little has been said about how Italian lifestyle readers are addressed within articles containing product recommendations, and how such articles represent and possibly shape culture. This research aims to explore the role of recommendation articles in mediating between cultural traditions and global consumerist trends. To achieve the goals described above, the research question investigates how Cosmopolitan's recommendation articles construct their readers' identity, especially focusing on the role played by consumerism and Italian identity. The study is developed as a qualitative analysis, interpreting results using MCDA (Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis) on 20 selected recommendation articles about fashion, beauty, and lifestyle, analyzing the magazine's printed edition from March 2024 to April 2025. Latent and implicit ideological meanings and structures are uncovered by analyzing the interplay of text and images in the articles. The articles were selected by using purposive sampling, as they needed to include specific product recommendations and have a length of at least 300 words. This research focuses on how consumerism and Italian identity are portrayed within Cosmopolitan's recommendation articles. The main findings show that consumerism is portrayed as a solution, identity-shaping, driven by social media, and finally as a normative practice; Italian culture is portrayed as an aesthetic, outdated, and in relation to the international environment. Ultimately, the magazine constructs a reader identity which is aligned with global consumer trends while selectively incorporating Italian cultural themes and references. The recommendation articles construct the readers' identity by blending consumerist references with relevant cultural phenomena, especially social media trends. Overall, Italian culture is commodified and selectively used, while consumerism emerges as a normalized and empowering behavior. The study contributes to understanding lifestyle journalism as a vehicle for cultural negotiation and identity construction in contemporary Italian media.