Magazine 2003 Abstracts
Magazine Division
Media Coverage Of Sexually Transmitted Infections: A Comparison Of Popular Men And Women’s Magazines • Aimee Barrows and Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Indiana • Sexually Transmitted infections (STI) have been increasing steadily since the late 1980s in the United States. This study comparatively examines coverage of sex and STI’s in two men’s and two women’s magazines. The results show that, overall, STI information is in short supply. Several differences between men and women’s magazines in covering sex and STI’s emerged. Some of these findings are consistent with the evolutionary psychology perspective on gender variance in mating behavior.
An Analysis of Vietnam War-Related Coverage in Good Housekeeping and Mademoiselle Magazines • Julie Collins, Drake • Of 35 magazine/war studies located, none examined how women’s magazines covered that war. Here, feature articles about the Vietnam War in all issues of Good Housekeeping and Mademoiselle from 1960-1970 were analyzed. Overall, coverage of the Vietnam War was scant, “fluffy,” and opinion-driven. Few factual articles were run. Mademoiselle did the better job of coverage, with more in-depth features on the war.
Working Women in Mainstream Women’s Magazines: A Content Analysis • Juanita J. Covert, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study examines whether dominant gender stereotypes about working women exist in women’s magazine content, thereby supporting the cultural ratification model. It also considers whether portrayals of women disconfirming those stereotypes are likely to weaken the stereotypes by employing subtyping and subgrouping theories. Findings demonstrate cultural ratification and it is argued that some portrayals (in Glamour and Good Housekeeping) that discomfirm stereotypes are likely to weaken stereotypes while others are not (in Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, and Woman’s Day).
No Business like Show Business: Tracking Commodification over a Century of Variety • Scott Fosdick and Sooyoung Cho, Missouri • Since 1905, Variety has thrived as a business magazine serving the producers of popular entertainment. As such, it is a rich chronicle of pop culture. This content analysis uses the concept of commodification, borrowed from the field of critical studies, to explain shifts in the mix of coverage from 1906 to 2001. It finds significant evidence of commodification, which correlates strongly with increases in coverage of recorded entertainment and decreases in coverage of live entertainment.
Making Connections: Exploring The Interactive And Integrative Dimensions Of Magazine Influence • W. David Gibson, Rutgers • In the menagerie of mediated communication, the magazine is frequently seen as a rather mundane beast — tame, predictable and taken for granted. Yet, while much attention has rightly focused on the expanding capabilities of the “new” media, there is also crucial need to fully appreciate the ongoing interactive and integrative contributions of a more traditional and familiar medium, the magazine. Both by editorial intent and by force of circumstance, magazines exert connective powers that shape and reshape the communication environment.
Henry Luce’s Anti-Communist Legacy: A Qualitative Content Analysis of U.S. News Magazines’ Coverage Of China’s Cultural Revolution • Daniel Marshall Haygood, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Critics have long accused Henry Luce, a fervent anti-Communist, of using his stable of Time, Incorporated media vehicles, particularly Time magazine, to promote causes and governments with which he supported such as General Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist government in the Chinese civil war and pro-American regimes in the Korean and Vietnam wars. The common theme throughout was always to fight Communist regimes around the globe, and Luce developed his staff, including reporters and managers, along this ideological line.
Gender Images in Global Versions of Gentlemen’s Quarterly • Hong Ji, Ohio • This study intends to explore the gender images displayed in global versions of Gentlemen’s Quarterly, a men’s magazine. Non-advertising pictures of people in eight zoned versions of GQ are content analyzed. The study finds that the GQ depicts its men and women “glocally.” Each version prefers male and young models to different degrees. Males are less explicitly exposed than female models, and females show more subordinate markers than males in each version.
Selling Silicon: The Framing of Microcomputers in Magazine Advertisements, 1974-1997 • Jean P. Kelly, Ohio • Guided by social construction of technology theory and framing theory, this study investigates the “frame building” process by which the microcomputer became a common and trusted appliance in offices, homes and schools. Using content analysis of 233 advertisements appearing in select consumer magazines from 1974-1997, the role of marketing in defining uses and values of computers was investigated.
‘A Working-Class Hero Is Something to Be’: The Narrative Legacy of September 11 • Carolyn Kitch, Temple • Within 24 hours of the September 11th attacks, a specific narrative about heroism, and a particular American hero, had emerged in news media. In the form of a prototypical fireman, working-class manhood became a media symbol of national strength and determination. This cultural construction, which occurred in journalism as well as other types of media, intertwined nationalism with ideas about gender and class, in a heroic civilian story that foreshadowed a military one.
Is There a Maxim Effect? Men’s Magazine Covers “Sexed-Up” for Sales • Jacqueline Lambaise, North Texas and Tom Reichart, Alabama • Since its 1997 American debut, Maxim magazine has featured a scantily dressed woman on its cover every month and circulation has skyrocketed to 2.6 million readers. The popular press has charged Maxim with changing the men’s magazine landscape, noting that GQ, Esquire, Details, and even Rolling Stone have hurried to mimic the newcomer.
Magazine Professors vs. Editors: Are We Teaching Students What They Need to Get Jobs in the Magazine Industry? • Carolyn Lepre and Glen L. Bleske, California State-Chico • This study was designed to fill a gap in the literature by analyzing the attitudes of magazine editors and educators toward various skills that recent graduates should exhibit when applying for magazine jobs. As expected, there was a noticeable gap between educators and editors. Educators rated 18 of the 23 skills, courses, and educational experiences significantly more important than did the editors.
Deeper Than the Fictional Model: Origins of Literary Journalism in Greek Tragedy and Aristotle’s Poetics • Charles Marsh, Kansas • This paper demonstrates that the narrative structure of literary journalism originated not simply in the novel or short story but, rather, in Greek tragic drama. In ancient Greece, the adaptation of mythology from oral tradition to tragic drama necessitated structural changes – a process called “literary transfiguration” by anthropologist/mythologist Claude Levi-Strauss and “displacement” by literary critic Northrop Frye. The first and greatest critic of mythology’s displacement into drama was Aristotle, in his Poetics.
Cultivation and Social Comparison of The Thin-Ideal Syndrome: The Effects of Fashion Magazine Exposure on Body Image Disturbance and The State Self-Esteem of College Women • Josephine T.C. Nino, Southern Taiwan University of Technology • This study examined the media effects on college women’s cultivation of and social comparison to the thin-ideal, body image disturbance and state self-esteem, using an experiment, with natural stimuli (fashion and non-fashion magazines). Subjects were 130 White college women (age 18-28) randomly assigned to the fashion and non-fashion groups. Five out of twelve hypotheses were supported.
Combining Mass and Class:’ The Story of O, The Oprah Magazine • April L. Peterson, Washington • The proof is in the numbers. And, O, what numbers! When it debuted in the April 2000, O, The Oprah Magazine sold 1.6 million copies, nearly selling out. As of December 2002, 2.3 million subscribers welcomed the magazine into their homes. And how about those ad numbers? The muscular 318-page debut issue featured 166 pages of ads. Moreover, in 2001 the magazine earned more than $140 million in advertising revenues.
Advertiser Pressure And Editorial Favoritism In Consumer Auto Magazines: A Content Analysis • Quint Randle, Jennia Parkin and Brad L. Rawlins, Brigham Young • This study sought to provide evidence of advertiser pressure and editorial favoritism in the two largest circulation auto magazines. Through a content analysis, it examined the relationship between advertising pages and several types of editorial coverage during 1995 and 2000 in Car & Driver and Motor Trend magazines. It was hypothesized that as advertising increased so would editorial coverage.
Media Perspectives: 2001-2002 Canadian and U.S. News Magazine Coverage of the War on Terror • Amanda Rudloff, Ohio • The purpose of this study is to attempt to identify the reactions of both American and Canadian news magazines to the “War on Terror” which followed the September 11, 2001 attacks. The study was conducted using framing as a theoretical outline and the sample consisted of feature articles on the War on Terror which appeared in Time and Maclean’s from September 2001 to September 2002, which encapsulated the time from which the event that precipitated the War on Terror occurred, through the time when that event was heavily revisited by the news media.
“Like Feeding Time At The Zoo”: Analysis Of U.S. Newsmagazine Coverage Of The Iraqi Kurds • Melissa A. Wall, California State-Northridge • This study employs qualitative frame analysis of US newsmagazines’ coverage of the Iraqi Kurds just after the first Gulf War in 1991 when they were urged by then President Bush to rise up against Saddam Hussein who quickly suppressed their rebellion. Afterward, the U.S. set up a relief operation establishing military encampments for the Kurds that were guarded by the coalition forces.
Shifting the Gaze: Male Objectification, Nudity, and Generation Y Lifestyle Depictions in Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly • Andrew Paul Williams and Kaye D. Trammell, Florida • Recently magazines increased the use of male models as objects of desire. Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly (A&FQ) takes the trend to an extreme. Content analysis explored the level of male objectification in one-year A&FQ sample. Images included semi-nude models (25.6%), of which mostly were male (62.1%), supporting the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was supported in that men (31.7%) and women (12.9%) were objectified. Other frames examined levels of objectification were also measured.
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