Forming the "cosmoworld" and finding its essence

This dissertation thesis on the issue "How Cosmoworld Forms and What It Is" deals with the formation and content of a magazine for young women named Cosmopolitan. The aim of this work is to ascertain, whether the type of the woman constructed by this magazine is the emancipated one, to uncover how the magazine defines itself or, put more aptly, how it helps to maintain traditional stereotypes attributed to womanhood. In the introduction, the author pursues the basic theoretical concept and methodological tools suitable to apply in analysing media like Cosmopolitan. The very research into the process of production of the magazine and its content is covered in the second part of the thesis. Using the means of discursive analysis, the author attempts to resolve the type of womanhood re/constructed by the magazine and to work out what are the backdrops or frames which the magazine sets womanhood in. Further, we see the author researching the very creation of the magazine (the ethnomethodological observation in the editorial office), identifying the rules followed in writing articles for Cosmopolitan. Having analysed the content of Cosmopolitan and the process of its production, the author has come to the conclusion that Cosmopolitan re/produces a woman who sees her liberation and emancipation in sexual freedom..