Magazine Movements

Laurel Forster is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Her research interests and her range of publications contextualize the portrayal of women and women's cultures in magazines, women's writing and on television.

All women's magazines are not the same: content, outlook, and format combine to shape publications quite distinctively. While magazines in general have long been understood as a significant force in women's lives, many critiques have limited themselves to discussions of mainstream printed publications that engage with narrowly stereotypical representations of femininity. Looking at a range of women's magazines (Cooperative Correspondence Club and Housewife) and magazine programmes (Woman's Hour and Houseparty), Magazine Movements not only extends our definition of a magazine, but most importantly, unearths the connections between women's cultures, specific magazines and the implied reader.The author first outlines the existing field of magazine studies, and analyzes the methodologies employed in accessing and assessing the cultural competence of magazines. Each chapter then provides a case study of a different kind of magazine: different in media form or style of presentation or audience connection, or all three. Forster not only extends our definition of a magazine, but most importantly, unearths the connections between women's cultures, specific magazines and the implied reader. In this way, fresh insights are provided into the long-standing importance of the magazine to the variety of feminisms on offer in Britain, from the mid twentieth century to the present day.

Focuses on how we might understand the magazine that has an overt, even explicit, aim to serve and empower women

IntroductionChapter 1: Writing Friendship and Support in CCCChapter 2: Refashioning Femininity in Wartime HousewifeChapter 3: Linking Private and Public Over the Airwaves in Woman's HourChapter 4: Exploring Sexuality in Arena 3Chapter 5: Politicising the Personal in ShrewChapter 6: Networking the Magazine Format in HousepartyChapter 7: Mukti: A Magazine 'Against Oppression as Women, Black People, and Workers'Chapter 8: Feminism on the Internet in the f-wordBibliographyIndex