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Reading Women's Magazines: An Analysis of Everyday Media Use
This book focuses on women's magazines, on how they are read and the role they play in their readers' lives.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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January 14, 2019
This author is Dutch and looks at magazines in the Netherlands as well as Britain. She interviews two lady readers in depth - one her own mother - and sees how their reading time and material varied over a longer period of being wives. She also got an agency to survey people who were willing to be interviewed more briefly, some men who read women's magazines, all of whom turned out to be gay men reading the gossip mags. Women from Indonesia were included.
The more mature women tended to have been reading romance books but put them aside when babies arrived and they could not concentrate. Magazines, as we are told with great repetition, can be easily picked up and put down. They contained various housework tips, recipes and clothing patterns. Some also contained short fiction and interviews.
More recent mags included gossip reads (one about royalty and others about film stars) and a feminist mag. The respondents were asked why they read what they read.
The author spends a great deal of the book describing what she is about to tell us, before telling us her findings, and then summing up her findings. I really thought this came across as padding and as though the author wanted to sound highly intellectual in contrast to her subject material.
I would suggest a more useful approach would be to analyze the spread of magazines discussed, including some older copies, and list the proportions of what each contains. Are they 20% adverts or 50%? 10% household tips and patterns? 40% gossip? How much of each is photos? Is a free gift included? This would be especially helpful to women like me who almost never picked up such mags in our lives, and tend to see them as a vehicle for advertising rubbish. I leafed through the odd women's mag in the hairdresser's and have been astonished by the amount of ads for products women had no choice but to use, like sanitary towels. And the amount of ads for hair or cosmetic products which seek to convince women that they are not beautiful without artificial help. No respondents were asked about their opinion of the adverts.
I only remember two articles ever from women's mags. One was in a cheap'n cheerful mag, about a street in Salford, Manchester, which was a friendly neighbourhood when a new bride arrived, then went downhill as residents changed and the newcomers had no connections with the area. The family ended up taking a loss on their house to move. The other article in an upper crust mag was by an African top model who described in detail how she had been forced to undergo FGM as a young girl. She wanted to spread awareness to stop the practice.
However, our author does not describe any articles in detail, so we do not see any potential for worth or social benefit, just women generally disparaging articles, interviews and problem pages as light reading or, in one case, too strident feminism. But I am glad a researcher chose to look at the topic of women's daily lives. I did notice several misspellings, including psychic a few times when psychological or psychiatric was required.
Last chapter on research process.
References P 213 - 219. I counted 71 names which I could be sure were female. Index P220 - 226. I read this book from the Dublin Business School Library. This is an unbiased review.
You may also be interested in: More Work For Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan.
The more mature women tended to have been reading romance books but put them aside when babies arrived and they could not concentrate. Magazines, as we are told with great repetition, can be easily picked up and put down. They contained various housework tips, recipes and clothing patterns. Some also contained short fiction and interviews.
More recent mags included gossip reads (one about royalty and others about film stars) and a feminist mag. The respondents were asked why they read what they read.
The author spends a great deal of the book describing what she is about to tell us, before telling us her findings, and then summing up her findings. I really thought this came across as padding and as though the author wanted to sound highly intellectual in contrast to her subject material.
I would suggest a more useful approach would be to analyze the spread of magazines discussed, including some older copies, and list the proportions of what each contains. Are they 20% adverts or 50%? 10% household tips and patterns? 40% gossip? How much of each is photos? Is a free gift included? This would be especially helpful to women like me who almost never picked up such mags in our lives, and tend to see them as a vehicle for advertising rubbish. I leafed through the odd women's mag in the hairdresser's and have been astonished by the amount of ads for products women had no choice but to use, like sanitary towels. And the amount of ads for hair or cosmetic products which seek to convince women that they are not beautiful without artificial help. No respondents were asked about their opinion of the adverts.
I only remember two articles ever from women's mags. One was in a cheap'n cheerful mag, about a street in Salford, Manchester, which was a friendly neighbourhood when a new bride arrived, then went downhill as residents changed and the newcomers had no connections with the area. The family ended up taking a loss on their house to move. The other article in an upper crust mag was by an African top model who described in detail how she had been forced to undergo FGM as a young girl. She wanted to spread awareness to stop the practice.
However, our author does not describe any articles in detail, so we do not see any potential for worth or social benefit, just women generally disparaging articles, interviews and problem pages as light reading or, in one case, too strident feminism. But I am glad a researcher chose to look at the topic of women's daily lives. I did notice several misspellings, including psychic a few times when psychological or psychiatric was required.
Last chapter on research process.
References P 213 - 219. I counted 71 names which I could be sure were female. Index P220 - 226. I read this book from the Dublin Business School Library. This is an unbiased review.
You may also be interested in: More Work For Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan.
Displaying 1 of 1 review