Magazine 2004 Abstracts
Magazine
Ag Mag Readers Speak Out: Is Advertiser Influence A Concern? • Stephen A Banning, Louisiana State University; and James F Evans, University of Illinois Urbana at Champaign • This study continues an examination of power relationships within the agricultural magazine publishing triad: advertisers, periodicals and producer readers. It particularly focuses on the views of producers in regard to the agricultural periodicals they read and the agricultural marketers that advertise in those periodicals. A mail survey was used to learn the opinions and observations of producers in a nationwide sample. Results indicate that producers are quite discerning and insightful in what they read. With regard to this study, a majority expressed concern about advertiser-editorial relationships. Results of a credibility index revealed much room for improvement. Authors suggest that farm publishers and advertisers should reconsider their relationships if they wish to address readers’ concerns and improve their credibility.
It’s “real” but not “simple”: Developing a Focus Group Method to Measure “The New Simplicity”• Michael Bugeja, Iowa State University • Meredith Corporation, publisher of More and Better Homes and Gardens, requested development of a focus group instrument and method to measure “the new simplicity,” a trend behind the success of Real Simple. Magazines rely on face-to-face focus groups as a qualitative method to ascertain reader tastes; however, the process is not always cost-effective. This study documents the development of a survey tool as preliminary indicator of cost-effectiveness before a company invests in consultation and facilitation.
Representation and Effects of the Portrayal of Women of Color in Mainstream Magazines • Juanita J Covert, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Travis L Dixon, University of Illinois Urbana at Champaign • This research examined the depiction of women of color in mainstream women’s magazines and the effect of counter-stereotypical portrayals on readers. A content analysis revealed White women were overrepresented while Latina and Black women were underrepresented compared to U.S. Census data in magazine articles, particularly in managerial and professional occupations. An experiment found that an increase in the frequency of counter-stereotypical depictions in magazine articles increased readers’ occupational expectations for women of color. Theoretical implications are discussed.
Teaching Magazine and Feature Writing by Example: Using Pulitzer Prize-Winning Stories in the Classroom • Edward Jay Friedlander, University of South Florida • This paper compares and contrasts all of the Pulitzer Prize-winning feature story authors by age, education and experience, and the winning stories by type of story, story structure, story lead and story ending. Between 1979 and 2003 the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing recognized 25 journalists who produced packages containing 45 separate stories. Most stories were magazinestyle multi-part profiles, using chronological structure and summary endings. The typical journalist was 40 with 17 years of experience. Nineteen of the 22 winners with degrees had degrees in journalism. Although the Prize-winning journalists were unlike university undergraduates, most winning stories were equivalent to a university-level classroom magazine assignment.
Bridging The Gap: Agenda-Setting and ethnic disparities in coverage of health care • Cynthia M Frisby, University of Missouri at Columbia • To better understand how health behaviors are covered, a traditional agenda-setting methodology was employed to determine if stories published in four women’s magazines might explain disparities in health behaviors exhibited by African Americans. Data show that out of 275 stories on health behavior topics published in African American magazines, few focused on health-behaviors that put that population at risk; HIV/AIDS (.07 %), diabetes (.01%), cancer (.08%), and heart disease/stroke (.02%). Implications for magazine editors, writers, and other influential media personnel are provided to ensure more and better coverage of health behavior-related stories, especially in magazines aimed at African American women.
Henry Luce, Head Cheerleader for American Hegemony? Time Magazine’s Coverage of Indonesia, 1965-1966 • Daniel Marshall Haygood, University of Tennessee • Critics have accused Henry Luce of using his Time, Incorporated media to promote his vision of America and its duty to spread democracy and capitalism around the world, particularly to China. This paper looks at Time’s coverage of Indonesia during the mid 1960s and asks whether the coverage reflects the fierce anti-communist views of Luce, even after he retired as managing editor of Time’s Incorporated’s publications. Did Luce leave an anti-communist legacy at Time magazine?
The Framing of Microcomputers in Magazine Features, 1973-1997 • Jean P Kelly, Otterbein College • This study investigates the “frame building” process by which the microcomputer became a trusted appliance. Using content analysis of 83 feature stories from select consumer magazines, the frequencies of dominant frames revealed that the technology was predominantly defined as a tool used by men to improve efficiency and organization. Three potentially influential historical landmarks were selected as independent variables to show how changes in sponsor agendas, consumer actions and technological advances influenced these frames.
Nostalgia Magazines as Gendered Communities of Memory • Carolyn Kitch, Temple University • This paper examines two nostalgia magazines, Reminisce and The Good Old Days, both with content contributed primarily by readers. Using narrative and discourse analysis and drawing theoretically on social-science research about memory, this paper contends that women—who dominate not only the older population, but also the stories in these publications—re-envision the past in ways that celebrate harder times as “better,” while highlighting stories of women’s strength and celebrating a female world of treasured belongings.
What the Stories Told Them: Implications for Readers of Women’s Magazines in Britain and the United States, 1920-1928 • Amy Mattson Lauters, University of Minnesota ;and Jensen Moore, University of Missouri at Columbia • This study explores the changing roles of women during the 1920s through the depictions of women in romantic serial fiction stories published in an American women’s magazine and a comparable British magazine from 1920 to 1928, in a time when suffrage and contraception were key women’s issues in the socio-political arena. This paper is based on the presumption that the media — in this case, women’s magazines —play an important role in maintaining the status quo in regard to gender.
The Construction of Readership in Ebony, Essence and O, The Oprah magazine • Lee Miller, Bonnie Brennen and Brenda Edgerton-Webster, University of Missouri at Columbia • Grounded in cultural materialism, this research uses a critical literary analysis to examine the construction of readership in three prominent African American owned and/or operated lifestyle magazines: Ebony, Essence, and O, the Oprah magazine. The authors suggest that these magazines profess to set a political and social agenda for target audience members to privilege them and their ways of experiencing patriarchal power by invoking self-definition, spirituality, and a heightened awareness of “sombodiness.”
Cross-Cultural-Generational Perceptions of Ideal Body Image: Hispanic Women & Magazine Standards • Donnalyn Pompper and Jesica Koenig, Florida State University • This study expands social comparison theory by examining magazine use along dimensions of gender, age, and ethnicity. Perceptions of magazines’ idealized body image standards among two generations of Hispanic women were gathered using the focus group and telephone interview methods. Findings suggest that respondent groups aged 18-35 and those 36 and older both compare their body image to magazine standards, but behavioral effects vary. Two significant patterns are discussed: 1) assimilated magazine standards, and 2) dissonance in homogenization. This is the first study to explore cross-cultural-generational perceptions of mediated body image among Hispanic women using the stated research methods.
Tainting of the Stream of Pure News: Collier’s Criticism of the Newspaper Press During the Norman Hapgood Years, 1902 to 1913 • Ronald R Rodgers, Ohio University • This research examines the criticism of newspapers by one of America’s major popular magazines Collier’s Weekly – from 1902 to 1913. This period constitutes the majority of the magazine’s daily press criticism of sensationalism and the influence of financial interests. Unlike earlier studies of Collier’s, this paper looks primarily at the magazine’s criticism before and after Will Irwin’s now classic 15-part dissection of the newspapers in America that ran in Collier’s over 15 weeks in 1911.
Relationship Portrayals in Advertising: Differences in Men and Women Magazines • Enas Salmeen and Zengjun Peng, University of Missouri • This study examines the sexual continuum in advertisements featuring both a male and a female model. A content analysis of two male orientated magazines, Esquire and GQ, and two women oriented magazines, Glamour and Mademoiselle, from 1990 to 1999 was conducted. A total of 1,470 advertisements were analyzed. Using the theoretical framework of gender and sexual appeals, the advertisements were placed into four main categories on whether they portray a relationship that is of a sexual nature, friendship, family, or neutral. Results show that men magazines use more sexual appeals in their advertisements, while women magazines tend to use sexual and friendship appeals.
Inventing Modern Family and Gender Norms Through Advertising in the 1920s China • Huaiting Wu, University of Minnesota at Minneapolis • No abstract available.
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