european journal of
Article
Women’s magazines
and their readers: The
relationship between
textual features and
practices of reading
European Journal of Cultural Studies
14(2) 213–228
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1367549410389928
ecs.sagepub.com
Brita Ytre-Arne
University of Bergen, Norway
Abstract
Research on women’s magazines has provided important insights about magazine texts as possible
purveyors of ideology and pleasure, and about magazine reading as a social practice situated in
everyday life. While the methodological focus has shifted from textual analysis to ethnography,
very few studies actually combine audience studies with the textual analysis of magazines as they
appear to readers. This article explores the possible connections between magazine reading as
a social practice, investigated through a qualitative questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews
with magazine readers, and magazines as texts with certain characteristics, investigated through
reader-guided textual analysis. The aim of this approach is to gain a more profound understanding
of the relationship between practices of reading and textual features.
Keywords
audience studies, methodology, reading, textual analysis, women’s magazines
Introduction
This article explores the possible connections between women’s magazine reading as a
social practice situated in everyday life, and women’s magazines as texts with certain
characteristics. The theoretical and methodological starting point is a fundamental debate
in cultural studies and feminist media research: a debate about the status of audience
research versus textual analysis. Research on popular genres such as women’s magazines
has demonstrated that there can be substantial differences between the interpretations
made by audiences and the interpretations made by researchers conducting textual
Corresponding author:
Brita Ytre-Arne, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen,
PO Box 7802, 5020 Bergen, Norway.
Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
214
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
analysis. These differences can be considered as arguments against the use of textual
analysis in audience studies (Hermes, 1995), or as sources of fruitful research questions
(Gripsrud, 1995). Either way, the existence of such differences calls into question the
merits and limits of textual analysis, particularly as a part of studies which primarily aim
to understand how audiences use, interpret and experience media texts. What place
should analysis of texts have in this kind of research?
My main argument is that when it comes to a phenomenon such as women’s magazine
reading, there is something about the phenomenon itself that calls for a combination of audience research and textual analysis. In order to understand why women’s magazines are read,
it is necessary to analyse how real magazine readers experience them. Several scholars have
argued – with regard to women’s magazines and as a general point – that textual analysis
alone is insufficient for this purpose (Ang and Hermes, 1991; Currie, 1999; Hermes, 1995;
Radway, 1991[1984]). However, while analysis of readers’ experiences can yield fascinating insights, it is also likely to produce further questions, such as: ‘Why are magazine texts
suited for particular reading situations, sought by particular readers and read in particular
ways?’ In order to answer such questions, I believe that it is necessary to combine real readers’ accounts of how and why they read magazines, with analysis which at least describes –
and ideally enhances our understanding of – the texts in question, and the reading practices
in which they play a part. I propose a form of textual analysis that is reader-guided. Rather
than taking the researcher’s interests or assumptions as the starting point for textual analysis,
this method aims to focus on the dimensions that readers define as important to their experiences. This approach allows for close examination of the interplay between texts and readings, and thereby for a more profound understanding of specific media experiences.
Furthermore, the potential for cultural critique is strengthened if a researcher’s analysis of
popular texts can be connected to the experiences of a wider audience.
I will substantiate this argument through analysis of findings from a qualitative
research project about women’s magazines and their readers. I conducted a qualitative
questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with a group of subscribers to a popular
Norwegian women’s weekly called KK. Analysis of this material revealed several ambivalences and possible contradictions in the ways that women’s magazines were experienced and read. The participants constructed magazine reading as a fixed ritual in which
they relaxed from the strains of everyday life, while emphasizing that the undemanding
and adaptable nature of women’s magazines made them suitable for various reading situations. Furthermore, the participants were rather different when it came to age, occupation and social background, but they all read KK and emphasized that this magazine was
relevant and useful to their lives. These ambivalences can be applied as fruitful starting
points for analysis of women’s magazine texts, and textual analysis might produce further insight into the reasons why women’s magazines inspired these reading practices.
Research on women’s magazines:
from texts and ideology to audiences and everyday life
Research on women’s magazines has moved from emphasis on ideology and constructions of
femininity in magazine texts (Ballaster et al., 1991; Ferguson, 1983; Friedan, 2001[1963];
McRobbie, 1982; Winship, 1987),1 to an increased attention to audiences and everyday life
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
215
Ytre-Arne
(Currie, 1999; Frazer, 1987; Hermes, 1995). The developments in this field illustrate two
points. First, there are potential discrepancies between researchers’ and audiences’ readings
of the same popular texts. Second, important insights about texts and readings have been
gained while the relationship between the two elements has not been sufficiently illuminated.
Early analysis (such as Friedan, 2001[1963]) made compelling claims about the ideological importance of women’s magazines, but often assumptions about effects and consequences
were based on rather mechanical communication models. Women’s magazines were found
to present stereotypical images of women, and these images were assumed to be absorbed by
readers. With cultural studies came more sophisticated views on key concepts such as ideology, femininity, resistance and pleasure, but women’s magazines were still assumed to be
incontestably linked to patriarchal society (see for example, Winship, 1987). These presumptions were challenged more profoundly when empirical audience studies were included in
magazine research. A case in point is the contrast between Angela McRobbie’s (1982) textual
analysis of the British young woman’s magazine Jackie, and Elisabeth Frazer’s (1987) focus
group study of actual Jackie readers. When Frazer interviewed teenage girls about Jackie,
she established that instead of absorbing ideological messages, the girls demonstrated selfreflexivity and used a variety of discourses when discussing the texts. McRobbie later criticized her own 1982 analysis of Jackie for ‘creating an image of Jackie as a massive
ideological block in which readers were implicitly imprisoned’ (1991: 141).
Therefore, a crucial question for research on magazines as well as on other forms of
popular culture is whether textual analysis will lead inevitably to some form of ‘implicit
ideological imprisonment’ of audiences. Dawn Currie observes that ‘when writers describe
texts as demeaning to women, reading has been assumed to be oppressive; when texts are
described as pleasurable fantasy, reading has been taken as resistance to patriarchy’ (1999:
166). In her work on adolescent magazines and their readers, Currie (1999) aims to combine textual analysis and audience research while distinguishing clearly between the claims
based on each method. However, her application of a method such as quantitative content
analysis appears distant from her ethnography: different methods are used but the analytical findings are rarely integrated. In another important work on magazine reading, Joke
Hermes aims to ‘reconstruct the diffuse genre or set of genres that is called women’s magazines and how they become meaningful exclusively through the perception of their readers’
(1995: 6). Hermes’ analysis is based on extensive interviews. This approach is not combined with textual analysis, as Hermes (1995) cautions that the authoritative voice of a
researcher might easily drown the voices of readers when these approaches are combined.
However, when Hermes (2005) revisits this discussion in a later study, she argues that:
The validity of popular culture research might well benefit from a methodological strategy in
which the audience study remains central but feeds and directs textual analysis (rather than the
other, more usual, way round, which tends to obscure lived reality by privileging an author’s
perspective). (2005: 80)
A well-known example of a combinational study in which textual analysis is directed by readers is Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance (1991[1984]), in which Radway analysed
romance novels defined by her research participants as either ‘failed’ or ‘successful’. This
approach enabled her to explore systematically how the textual features of successful romances
correspond with the emotional rewards that readers sought in romance reading. It is precisely
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
216
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
this kind of link between texts and readings that I find to be lacking in most research on
women’s magazines. In the following analysis I will suggest and apply a reader-guided
approach for analysis of the relationship between women’s magazines and their readers.
Methods
The goal of my research was to attempt to understand how certain practices of magazine
reading correspond with certain textual features. In other words: what do readers want
from women’s magazines, and what do women’s magazines offer? Rather than analysing
texts and readers separately, I chose to conduct a qualitative audience study in two stages,
followed by what reader-guided textual analysis.
First, I conducted a qualitative questionnaire survey among subscribers to the Norwegian women’s weekly KK. KK is one of Norway’s oldest and most well-known women’s
magazines, and after losing readers for some time the magazine now appears to have
regained its position in the market. In 2009, the average circulation was 44,239 per issue.
Other Norwegian women’s magazines have higher circulation figures, but KK is the only
glossy women’s magazine that is published weekly, and in terms of yearly sales and
estimated readership it is one of Norway’s most widely read women’s magazines.2 Subscriptions constitute approximately 50 percent of sales.3 KK covers fashion, beauty,
health, food, relationships, home decorating, travelling and literature, and occasionally
political or social issues.
Participants
It is likely that KK is read by some men as well as women, but the vast majority of subscribers are women, and only women replied to my questionnaire. The participants were
recruited with assistance from KK’s publisher, Aller Media, which supplied contact
information for its subscribers. The questionnaire was sent out to a total of 410 subscribers in the city of Bergen and the surrounding area, and 125 people replied. They varied
between 24 and 86 in age, but most were in their thirties, forties or fifties. Education
levels varied between elementary school and PhDs, but most had a few years of higher
education. Practically everyone was working (if not on maternity leave or retired), and
the professions that they listed were diverse. Most of the participants were married or
living with someone, and the majority had children. They all read KK regularly, although
a few had recently stopped subscribing. Most also read other women’s magazines regularly or occasionally.
Data collection and analysis
The intent of this questionnaire survey was twofold. I wanted to generate varied material
for thematic qualitative analysis, therefore the questionnaire contained a number of open
questions, as well as some with predefined alternatives and space for comments. For
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
217
Ytre-Arne
Figure 1. The front cover of KK 37/2010
example, participants were asked to describe in their own words the situations in which
they read women’s magazines, and these descriptions provided a foundation for the analysis that will be presented in the next section. Additionally, each questionnaire reply was
analysed as a separate entity, in order to form an impression of each participant’s biography as a magazine reader. Based on this analysis, some participants who had given rich
(but otherwise varied) replies were invited to participate in a qualitative research interview. Fourteen participants accepted, and these were interviewed in depth, face-to-face,
in the second stage of research. A semi-structured interview guide was used as a starting
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
218
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
point for conversation. While each interview covered approximately the same topics, the
amount of time devoted to each topic varied considerably according to what each participant had to say. The interviews were transcribed and analysed thematically. One such
analytical theme was the everyday situations in which women’s magazines were read, as
participants who were interviewed were asked to expand on the descriptions they had
given in the questionnaire. Both the questionnaire and the interviews contained some
questions pertaining to KK specifically, and some about magazine reading in general.
The 125 questionnaire replies provide a number of short descriptions of magazine reading, and the 14 interview transcripts provide fewer but far more detailed and nuanced
accounts. While I found this material to be rich and interesting, my analysis of it left me with
a number of questions about the structure and content of women’s magazines as experienced
by participants. Therefore I found it fruitful to take a closer look at women’s magazine texts,
not to second-guess the participants, but rather to improve my understanding of their experiences and interpretations. I conducted a qualitative content analysis of the 2008 annual volume of KK – the one magazine read by all the participants. Rather than taking my own
assumptions about this magazine as the starting point for analysis, I began with clues provided by the participants. Rather than focusing on the aspects of this magazine that I found
most interesting, I focused on dimensions defined by participants as particularly relevant to
their experiences. In order to clarify how this analysis was carried out, first I will account for
the main outcomes of the audience study and how these guided the textual analysis.
Analysis: Practices of reading
The central ambition of this study was to understand how practices of reading correspond
with textual features. The questionnaire and the interviews focused on the circumstances
in which women’s magazines were read, and on the reading preferences and interpretations of magazine content. While these topics blended into one another, I have tried to
distinguish analytically between experiences with the magazine medium and experiences with the content and meaning of specific women’s magazines.
Experiences with the magazine medium
Where, when and in what sort of situations did the participants turn to women’s magazine reading rather than some other pastime? The questionnaire replies5 were surprisingly consistent, and typical descriptions were as follows:
I subscribe to KK and like to save it until Friday night when the house has calmed down. Then
the magazine comes out, and is read while I am flat out on the couch. Preferably with a glass
of wine. (Engineer, 44)
At night when the house has calmed down. When I am in bed at night, in order to settle down
before I go to sleep. It happens on the sofa or in bed. I make myself a cup of tea and perhaps
something to eat, and I light candles. (Social worker, 33)
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
219
Ytre-Arne
[I read] to reward myself, for example after housework, a long walk or something like that.
Preferably when I am home alone and have quality time or personal time. (Bank employee, 36)
Relaxation, reward and ritual are recurring themes in these quotes and in the rest of the
material. Women’s magazines were associated with cosiness and comfort. Reading was
considered a treat and could be a reward after work or household duties, or when the
children were in bed at night. Magazines were saved for evenings, weekends or holidays,
and the act of sitting down with a magazine seemed to mark that the busy pace of everyday life was slowing down. Fixed reading habits were rather common, and participants
gave descriptions of ritual elements such as lighting candles, feeling peace of mind and
withdrawal from the stressful world outside.
While descriptions of ritual reading was a dominant tendency, some participants also
reported that they enjoyed reading in busy places, for example while travelling. Some
clearly distinguished between different kinds of reading in different situations:
When I want to relax at home, I do it in quiet surroundings, to unwind and enjoy myself. I often
‘save’ several magazines and sit down to relax properly. Otherwise, I read when I have a free
moment, in any situation. Then the reading is more like skimming and looking through.
(Fashion store assistant, 37)
Often with a cup of coffee after dinner, if I finished the newspapers at breakfast. Sometimes
while watching a little bit of TV. Sometimes between other tasks – just to relax a little. On
airplanes, I leaf through and do the crossword puzzle. In waiting rooms, I am bored and nervous. (Administrative officer, 54)
This suggests two different reading practices. The first is described by the keywords
relaxation, reward and ritual, while the second is more mundane: reading ‘between other
tasks’ or ‘skimming’ in a free moment. There is time for a short break, but not for any
lasting feeling of peace and relaxation. The interviews strengthened the notion of two
different reading practices. Most participants seemed to prefer what we might call ritual
reading, while emphasizing the possibility of fragmented reading. This duality appeared
to be a central part of the attraction of the magazine medium. Several contrasted magazines and novels:
When you read a novel, you enter into the action … You form a sort of psychological contract
with the book. You keep focus. You think about what’s going to happen … Well, with magazines there are no worries. I do not have to make up my mind about anything. I can put it down
without thinking more about it. Novels I often think about. Magazines don’t demand anything
of me. They do not demand any more mental activity than I am willing to give. (Eline, 52,
educational adviser)
When I read a book I really get into the story … But when I read magazines, it is rather because I
want to enjoy myself for a little while. I enjoy reading short stories in magazines because they give
me something of the same diversion. A book you read over a number of days. A magazine is more
short term … It’s more about keeping myself updated about this and that. (Marie, 42, lawyer)
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
220
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
These quotes clearly indicate that novels were perceived as more demanding than magazines: one has to ‘keep focus’, or might ‘worry about what’s going to happen’. On the
one hand, a novel can offer greater rewards than a magazine, but it also requires more
time and mental effort. Readers might have to struggle to get into the story without
knowing beforehand if the novel will provide the experience that they are looking for. On
the other hand, magazines offer a reliable and immediately accessible source of relaxation. Similarly, magazines are suited for reading while travelling because they require
little concentration and continuity while simultaneously being absorbing, so the reader
can shut out noise and disturbances. This is a complicated balance, and the underlying
premise seems to be that magazines can engage the reader without actually requiring
much concentration: it is easy to slip in and out of the world of the magazine.
Experiences with magazine content
The quotes above indicate that the textual structure of magazines mattered a great deal to
the participants. A similar point is made by Hermes, who claims that women’s magazines
‘are read more for their adaptability than for their content’ (1995: 34). However, while my
findings support the idea that adaptability matters, they also suggest that content and meaning matter a lot more. As one participant said:
I want it to be something to read. I want to sit down and really spend some time on it. Not
finish in half an hour and feel cheated for what I was looking forward to … That happens
sometimes … Then there’s a week until next time, and I can only hope that will be better.
(Andrea, 32, grocery store employee)
Here, Andrea is talking about the act of reading and not about specific magazine texts,
but it is evident that her assessment of magazine content will decide whether the act of
reading provides the anticipated pleasure or another disappointment. The other participants who were interviewed were also very clear: they would not read women’s magazines just because the magazines were available or convenient. When magazine texts
failed to live up to certain criteria, readers would feel cheated of the experience that they
sought in magazine reading.
What the participants mainly wanted was for women’s magazines to resonate with
their daily lives. Specifically, this implied that they wanted relevant and realistic lifestyle journalism as well as feature journalism which provided opportunities for reflection about their lives. In the questionnaire, participants were asked to name their
favourite magazine (regardless of genre) and to describe their reasons for their preferences. Most replied by simply listing magazines and the types of content that they
enjoyed, but some provided a little more information by explaining the criteria for their
choices. While different participants selected various magazines in various genres, the
criteria they invoked were rather consistent:
Foreldre og barn + KK, because they give me a lot of relevant reading adjusted to my interests
and my situation in life. (Bank employee, 40)
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
221
Ytre-Arne
KK: A simple and uncomplicated world which makes me relax. It’s down to earth and okay!
Rom 123: I love interior design, but not things that are too glossy and unattainable, like those
homes in Bonytt. (Marketing consultant, 34)
Relevance and realism were the key criteria for successful magazine journalism. Although
several participants wrote that they read women’s magazines to ‘escape’, they still insisted
that they wanted magazines to be ‘down to earth’, ‘recognizable’ and directly relevant to
their lives. For example, the parenting magazine Foreldre og barn (Parents and Children)
was enormously popular among participants with young children, and they emphasized
that this magazine was so useful to their situation in life. Similarly, single readers disliked
journalism which assumed that all women were either in a relationship or looking for one,
while the older readers called for more material about people their age. When the participants were asked to describe what (if anything) they disliked about women’s magazines,
the general tendency was that they claimed to dislike the most extravagant and luxurious
lifestyle journalism. They complained that the fashion was too expensive, the models too
skinny, the hair and make-up tips too difficult and the diets impossible to follow.
There are several possible ways to interpret this insistence upon the relevance, realism
and usefulness of magazine journalism. One option is that the participants felt the need
to justify the time and money they spent on magazines. Another is that lifestyle tips were
appreciated because they might feed fantasies of ‘an ideal self’, a practical person who
can handle any situation that might occur in everyday life (Hermes 1995: 39). The interviews provided an opportunity to explore this issue further, and generally they strengthened the impressions given in the questionnaire. The participants who were interviewed
continued to use phrases such as ‘useful’ and ‘recognizable’ as positive terms, and ‘irrelevant’ and ‘unrealistic’ as negative terms. They provided vivid and specific examples of
how they used information from women’s magazines, but also emphasized that it was
useful ‘to be updated’ – generally and regularly – on fashion and other various lifestyle
areas covered by women’s magazines. There was something about women’s magazines
that made them work as meaningful resources to these readers.
Furthermore, the participants who were interviewed expressed that they wanted
women’s magazines to resonate with their lives in more profound ways. This was a
contrast with some of the questionnaire replies, in which a number of participants wrote
that women’s magazines were ‘just entertainment’ or ‘nothing to take seriously’. However, in the interviews a clear tendency was that the participants wanted women’s magazines to inspire some sort of reflection about their situation in life and place in the
world. Two participants said this about their favourite women’s magazines:
Hjemmet: They have stories about regular Norwegian people. People who have made some
change in their lives … Who are doing something positive, who are helping others … If someone
has experienced grief or … Some people get everything and some get nothing, really, there are
huge differences, but that’s just the way it is. And then you read about how people deal with it…
how they move on. I try to imagine what that’s like when I read. (Vibeke, 39, airline stewardess)
Eva, because it is better than KK at addressing my age group. But still … I think it’s really nice
to read KK, because you get an update on what reality is like for others. For example, I don’t
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
222
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
have a particularly busy life anymore. I find I have so much time now, but I used to study at
night while working full time and raising three children ... So it’s kind of nice to read KK and
think, ‘Well, we have certainly been there too.’ To get some insight into the challenges and
problems others face in everyday life. (Eline, 52, educational adviser)
Reflection, empathy and identification are key themes in these quotes. The participants expressed a broad interest in reading about other people’s lives, and interpreted
these stories in relation to their own experiences. This form of reflective interpretation was applied to various forms of content in various magazines, even though the
participants tended to disagree on the sort of topics about which they wanted to read.
Some disliked explicitly political journalism in women’s magazines, while others
found that women’s magazines provided a valuable supplement to the general news
media by focusing on how various issues affect women. Some found stories about
illness or grief to be inspirational, while others felt distressed and uncomfortable.
Nevertheless, everyone insisted that they wanted to read about ‘important issues’
related to people’s lives, it was simply that they did not want journalism that wallowed in misery. The participants were well aware that women’s magazines are often
criticized for being trivial and superficial, but they protested this notion by claiming
that magazines reflect ‘the way things are’. Rather than interpreting women’s magazines as sources for fantasies or daydreams (see for example, Winship, 1987), the
experiences of these participants mandate attention to how magazines relate to the
realities of readers’ everyday lives.
Evidently there is something about the textual structures of women’s magazines
that invites two rather different reading practices: ritual and fragmented reading.
Also, there is something about the content of women’s magazine texts that readers
find realistic and relevant to their lives, both in a direct practical sense and in a more
reflective manner. In order to explore these issues further, I will apply the main themes
of this initial analysis as starting points for analysis of the one magazine read by all
the participants, KK.
Analysis: Textual features
The majority of the interviews were conducted at the end of 2008, and therefore I chose
the 2008 volume of KK (52 issues in total) as material for textual analysis. As I aimed to
analyse this magazine as it appeared to readers, I wanted to avoid approaches that seemed
too distant from the ways in which participants actually talked about it. I did not conduct
quantitative content analysis, neither did I analyse a small selection of articles in detail.
Rather, as the participants talked about women’s magazines in terms of broad genres and
themes that recurred in magazines over time, I performed a qualitative content analysis
in which I attempted to understand how recurring textual structures might invite different
reading practices, and how recurring textual themes might provide readers with relevant
information and opportunities for reflection.
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
223
Ytre-Arne
Recurring textual structures
The audience study indicated that women’s magazines were read to relax, as a reward
and a ritual, but also that readers appreciated the possibility of reading women’s magazines in bits and pieces. When explaining these reading practices, the participants indicated that the organization of the magazine medium was crucial, as they contrasted
magazines and novels. Which textual structures made KK suited for these reading practices? My analysis identified three elements that might help to explain the different reading practices employed by the participants. In the course of 2008, KK changed editors
and went through gradual layout and profile changes, but some elements recurred in the
magazine throughout the year.
First, the textual structure was repetitive. As with several other women’s magazines,
the 2008 volume of KK had fixed sections, a large number of regular columns and frequently used headings and section titles, so that every item appeared as part of a recurring structure. For part of the year, KK’s layout had a heading in a box in the corner of
every page, clearly placing each page within a recurring structure. Given that the textual
structure was so fixed and recognizable, regular magazine readers would know exactly
what to expect. This might explain why women’s magazines were considered a more
reliable form of entertainment than novels: regular readers can trust their magazine to
provide approximately the same pleasure as last week, therefore it is relatively safe to
rely on women’s magazines for a relaxation ritual. Readers know that their favourite
column will appear, that it will be recognizable in form but fresh in content, and that it
will probably give them the same pleasure as last week. For example, there was one KK
item which everyone I interviewed mentioned as a favourite, and this was the makeover
page, ‘Bli ny’ (‘Become new’). This column has been part of KK for decades, and even
though the layout has changed several times, the concept remains the same: it has a completely schematic structure (before and after shots, text boxes with biographical information and styling tips). All the ‘before’ shots are small and grey, with the woman getting
the makeover standing upright, looking gravely into the camera. All the ‘after’ shots are
big and colourful: the woman smiles and poses like a model. A new person getting a
makeover is the only change required to make readers enjoy this transformation week
after week. This is merely one illustration of how repetitive textual structures and ritual
reading practices might work well together.
Second, there were always multiple entries and exits to the magazine text. This is a
distinctive feature of the magazine medium. It is rarely necessary to read magazines in a
specific order, and the word ‘magazine’ originally refers to a warehouse or storage facility; magazines contain a variety of elements (Gripsrud, 1999). However, while some
magazines might consist of a series of relatively long linear texts, this was not the case
with KK. Articles were generally divided into multiple units, using elements such as
boxes, section headings, indented quotes, sidebars and pictures. Larger thematic sections
on, for example, green lifestyle choices (KK 5/2008) or breast cancer awareness (KK
40/2008) were always divided into multiple articles. Similarly, advice columns and lifestyle spreads often consisted of smaller textual fragments which could make sense in a
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
224
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
random order. Numerous articles and lifestyle spreads in the pre-Christmas season (about
gifts, food, décor, etc.) were organized so that they could be read as linear texts with
beginnings and ends, and as collections of text fragments with no particular order. Overall, the textual structure of KK invited the reader to skim through a series of texts of different lengths, forms and topics, reading only what appeals immediately. All of the texts
appeared immediately accessible; none of them appeared to demand a great deal of time
and effort. The multiple entries and exits to magazine texts might explain why women’s
magazines were experienced as adaptable to different forms of reading in different situations: this magazine text was indeed easy for the reader to slip in and out.
Third, a distinctive feature of KK’s textual structure was the number of metatexts that
continually encouraged readers to look forward when reading. The last page of KK
always advertised the contents of the next issue. The front page always included multiple
teasers, as did the texts and pictures surrounding the table of contents. The editor’s column regularly introduced and commented on magazine content. In addition to a large
number of regular columns and items, several articles were framed as parts of series
spanning from issue to issue. A number of visual elements and cross-references throughout the magazine provided hints about other content. Overall, as these metatexts encouraged readers to look forward, anticipation and expectations might become integral
aspects of the reading experience. Even though Raymond Williams (2008[1974]) applied
the concept of flow to describe a unique aspect of modern broadcasting (the neverending, continuous flow), there might be some parallels to the magazine medium.
Williams observes how trailers and commercials melt into television programmes and
affect the way that television is experienced. Similarly, the metatexts in women’s magazines can be said to create a smooth flow in which readers are continually encouraged to
look forward not only to the next page, but also to next week’s issue. This might explain
why readers found women’s magazine reading to be suitable as a reward: the texts of
women’s magazines such as KK are structured in order to form expectations about future
reading pleasure.
Recurring textual themes
As for the content of women’s magazines, the central question prompted by the audience
study is how KK came to be experienced as relevant and realistic by a rather diverse
group of readers. As mentioned previously, the participants in this study had different
occupations and backgrounds and were between 24 and 88 in age. KK was not necessarily experienced as a favourite or ideal magazine by all of them, but they had all made the
choice to subscribe to KK, while emphasizing that they wanted women’s magazine journalism to be relevant to their lives. How could this magazine secure such a broad appeal?
I conducted a qualitative content analysis of the 2008 volume of KK, and as with the
analysis of textual structures presented above, the main goal was to identify major themes
that recurred in the magazine over time, and to understand how these themes correspond
with the participants’ emphasis on the relevance of women’s magazine journalism.
The main finding of this analysis was that a substantial amount of the material in
KK could be related to one main theme: the everyday life of an ‘ordinary’ Norwegian
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
225
Ytre-Arne
woman who combines work and family. There were, for example, articles on topic
such as the thirties being the most stressful phase of life for women (KK 7/2008), or
how to make time for romance in a busy everyday life (KK 4/2008). Portrait interviews
with celebrities tended to focus on both their professional and private lives – in other
words, on recognizable but more glamorous combinations of work and family life.
Articles on self-development and popular psychology advised readers on how to balance their lives and reduce stress. A multitude of articles covered and debated different
approaches to motherhood, childcare and family life. Most of this journalism took the
traditional nuclear family as a starting point, but there were articles about different
family situations, such as interviews with women who chose to be single (KK 2/2008)
or not to have children (KK 44/2008). However, while these experiences were portrayed in a positive light, they also were framed as being interesting due to the difference that they represented.
Substantial amounts of KK’s lifestyle journalism appeared to assume implicitly that
the reader would want advice on how to handle a busy everyday life. While some articles
on, for example, home improvement appeared to assume that readers would have a lot of
time, energy and money to spend, other articles were based on the assumption that these
resources were scarce. Several lifestyle spreads opened with lavish pictures portraying
expensive fashion or luxurious home décor, and then continued to present more informative and straightforward collages of cheaper and more available products in the same
style. Thus the magazine positioned itself as a source of fantasy and inspiration, but also
as a practical guide in touch with women’s everyday lives.
Women’s need to balance work and family was both an important topic and an
underlying premise for much of the journalism in KK. However, only a few articles
were strictly and directly related to work and careers. This is interesting, in light of
the fact that KK has a public image as a career-oriented women’s magazine. In fact,
women’s working lives were portrayed primarily in relation to other topics, such as
self-development or family life. This implies that if one compares KK to the biographical information of the participants, there was a lot more material on the things
that most of them had in common (such as combining work and family) than on the
things that separated them (such as their different education and careers). The
notion of work or family as a ‘common denominator’ might explain how the magazine could address a relatively wide target group that sought recognizable women’s
magazine journalism. However, this also implied that KK drew on and contributed
to assumptions about women as a unified category with shared experiences and
interests. While several scholars have criticized such categorizations (Ang and
Hermes, 1991; van Zoonen, 1991, 1994), these categories remain integral to the
ways in which women’s magazines are encoded and decoded as texts and cultural
artefacts. The participants in this study wanted women’s magazines to resonate with
their lives, and the texts of KK positioned this magazine as being in touch with the
everyday lives of ordinary Norwegian women. Occasionally the participants would
feel that the magazine failed to make such connections, and these instances produced criticism about women’s magazines as irrelevant or out of touch with reality.
However, the magazine appeared to succeed often enough to make most of them
continue reading.
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
226
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
Conclusion
My analysis of women’s magazines and their readers suggests several possible connections between certain reading practices and textual features. The participants preferred to
read women’s magazines as a reward and as a ritual, while emphasizing the adaptability
of the magazine medium to various reading situations. They appreciated the fragmented
structure of the magazine medium, but also cared deeply about magazine content, as they
wanted women’s magazines to contain relevant information and inspire reflection. Correspondingly, the magazine texts that they read were structured so that they offered the
content that they sought in easily accessible, reliable, adaptable and non-demanding ways.
While the audience study remains the central component of this project, qualitative
content analysis was necessary in order to understand exactly how the participants’ reading practices corresponded with the particular textual features of a specific magazine.
The qualitative questionnaire, and particularly the interviews, provided rich and interesting accounts of readers’ experiences and interpretations. Nevertheless, textual analysis
was necessary in order to explore more systematically and profoundly what the participants might have meant when they described women’s magazines as, for example, ‘nondemanding’ or ‘relevant’. My intention was not to question the participants’ interpretations,
rather to acknowledge that my understanding of their interpretations could be improved.
Therefore, the logical order of the research process was to analyse questionnaire replies
and interview transcripts first, and then use the outcomes of this analysis as starting
points for an analysis of magazine texts.
I believe that the most important justification for this method lies in the complex
nature of media experiences as objects of analysis. Audiences’ accounts of media experiences are not necessarily simple and straightforward. On the contrary: participants might
find it difficult to put their experiences into words, and researchers certainly could find it
difficult to grasp participants’ meanings. In the process of analysis we might need all the
help we can get. Given that there are such things as media texts, which are used and interpreted by audiences in various and complex ways, it makes sense to include analysis of
these texts and to use participants’ accounts as a guide. We cannot claim to represent audiences directly through this approach, but we can cautiously claim to present probable
interpretations. This approach is rather careful compared to the tendency in early magazine research to make assumptions about audiences through textual analysis alone. In
addition, reader-guided textual analysis might enable researchers to notice and emphasize
aspects which otherwise would be ignored, thereby seeing new sides of popular texts.
Furthermore, this method attempts to grasp the interplay between texts and reading.
Writing on methodology in cultural studies, Gray (2003: 114) argues that one advantage
of interdisciplinary approaches is that false boundaries between the textual and the social
(in the process of meaning production) might be overcome, even though this is difficult.
Media experiences are social practices that revolve around texts, and it might be unfortunate and unnecessary to try to separate use and interpretation entirely from the texts
which are used and interpreted. Rather, the ambition for research on media experiences
should be to develop methodological approaches that might capture key moments of
text–audience interaction. Combining audience studies with reader-guided textual
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
227
Ytre-Arne
analysis is an attempt at such an approach. The goal is to avoid confusion of the concepts,
but still to give a meaningful account of media experiences in which text and readings
are connected in various ways.
Notes
1. The last chapter of Ballaster et al.’s (1991) study is based on focus group interviews with
readers, but otherwise this work is a textual analysis of femininity and ideology in women’s
magazines from different historical periods.
2. After dropping by 20 percent from 2007–8, KK’s circulation numbers saw a small increase from
2008–9. Official circulation and estimated readership statistics from the Norwegian Media
Businesses’ Association are available at: www.mediebedriftene.no/index.asp?id=78877.
3. Information provided via personal communication with the publisher by email, October 2010.
4. Information on age and occupation is supplied for all the participants who are quoted. In order
to distinguish interview quotes from questionnaire reply quotes, the participants who were
interviewed are given a pseudonym.
References
Ang I and Hermes J (1991) Gender and/in Media Consumption. In: Curran J and Gurevitch M
(eds) Mass Media and Society. London: Edward Arnold, 307–28.
Ballaster R, Beetham M, Frazer E and Hebron S (1991) Women’s Worlds. Ideology, Femininity and
the Woman’s Magazine. London: Macmillan.
Currie D (1999) Girl Talk. Adolescent Magazines and Their Readers. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press.
Ferguson M (1983) Forever Feminine. Women’s Magazines and the Cult of Femininity. London:
Heinemann.
Frazer E (1987) Teenage girls reading Jackie. Media, Culture and Society 9(4): 407–425.
Friedan B (2001[1963]) The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Gray A (2003) Research Practice for Cultural Studies. London: Sage.
Gripsrud J (1995) The Dynasty Years. Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies. London:
Routledge.
Gripsrud, J. (1999) Ukepressens kulturelle og samfunnsmessige betydning. [The cultural and societal significance of the weekly press]. Report for Foreningen Norsk Ukepresse (Norwegian
Association of Magazine Publishers). Oslo: Foreningen Norsk Ukepresse.
Hermes J (1995) Reading Women’s Magazines. An Analysis of Everyday Media Use. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Hermes J (2005) Re-reading popular culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
McRobbie A (1982) Jackie: An ideology of adolescent femininity. In: Waites B, Martin G and
Bennett T (eds) Popular Culture: Past and Present. London: Croom Helm, 263–283.
McRobbie A (1991) Feminism and Youth Culture. From Jackie to Just Seventeen. Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
Radway J (1991[1984]) Reading the Romance. Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
van Zoonen L (1991) Feminist perspectives on the media. In: Curran J and Gurevitch M (eds) Mass
Media and Society. London: Edward Arnold, 33–54.
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016
228
European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2)
van Zoonen L (1994) Feminist Media Studies. London: Sage.
Williams R (2008[1974]) Television. Technolgy and Cultural Form. New York: Routledge.
Winship J (1987) Inside Women’s Magazines. London: Pandora.
Biographical note
Brita Ytre-Arne is a PhD candidate at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her PhD project, which
is the first large-scale scholarly study of magazine reading in Norway, investigates women’s
magazine reading from four different points of departure, drawing on cultural studies, phenomenology, public sphere theory and feminist theory. Brita’s previous research has been conducted on
the economy and ethics of sports journalism..
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016