News Release

Northeastern University study analyzes cover trends of People magazine

Suggests covers have become more negative over the years, glamorizing crime, deviance and drugs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Northeastern University

Over the last 25 years, the cover themes of People magazine shifted away from celebrity careers and become preoccupied with the stars’ personal problems – illnesses, crime and family/sex issues – as well as the lives and crimes of serial killers and social deviants, according to a study recently released by Northeastern University.

The findings, to be presented at the meetings of the American Sociological Association in Chicago, suggested that in 1974, more than 51 percent of all cover stories focused on celebrities’ career accomplishments. However, by 1988, only 20 percent of People covers portrayed celebrities’ career achievements, opting instead to feature some aspect of their personal lives, often in a negative light.

Along with musicians like Michael Jackson and athletes like Nancy Kerrigan, People began featuring violent criminals for the first time in the early 1990s. In 1992, the celebrity magazine published a cover story titled “Lethal Lolita” which told the story of Amy Fisher. Other criminals glamorized on People covers included Jeffrey Dahmer in 1994 and Susan Smith in 1995.

“Featuring villainous celebrities may represent only part of a larger trend in American popular culture, in which nastiness has come to assume a prominent position,” says Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center and Professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University.

“However, the September 11th attacks on America may have generated renewed interest in celebrating the exemplary behavior of heroic rather than villainous individuals, in particular, focusing national attention on the courage of those who risked their lives to rescue victims of terrorism.”

Using 1,253 People cover stories as the basis for his study, Levin, along with James Alan Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of criminal justice, and Northeastern University graduate student Jason Mazaic, studied the characteristics of and changes in cultural celebrities over the magazine’s first 25 years of publication.

Researchers recorded information for each cover on a separate coding sheet. Each sheet included the race, age, sex and occupational status of the primary celebrity, the theme of the cover copy and the overall tone – whether positive or negative – of the cover including its images and copy. Only covers that featured a distinguishable human being were subjected to analysis.

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Northeastern University, a private research institution located in Boston, Massachusetts, is a world leader in practice-oriented education. Building on its flagship cooperative education program, Northeastern links classroom learning with workplace experience and integrates professional preparation with study in the liberal arts and sciences. For more information, please visit http://www.northeastern.edu.


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