Interactions in the text : girls’ magazines and their readers, 1955–2000

In this thesis, I explore textual interactions between teenage girls and their magazines to ask how did this textually-mediated conversation between readers and producers of the magazines contribute to the developing narrative about the nature of girlhood on display in those magazines. This use of readers’ interventions in the text is a new approach to the study of girls’ magazines, as well as a contribution to the tension in feminist magazine scholarship between magazines as an insidious tool of patriarchy, and readers as critically aware. I use a combination of theoretical approaches from book history, feminist theory, and critical discourse analysis, and draw primary data both from magazine texts and from survey responses from adults sharing their recollections of reading teen magazines. I use case studies covering romance, sex, relationships with parents, sexism, and becoming a woman, to examine how changes in the historical context were reflected in teen magazines and especially in the letters girls wrote to the magazines. On each theme, I explore the way the topic developed in the magazines in general, and then focus on a particular magazine in more depth. Exploration of these case studies, and my survey responses, allows me to argue that, contrary to the usual depiction of girls as passive recipients of information aimed at them, some of them do challenge some of this information, but that the patriarchal influence of magazines nevertheless remains with them into adulthood. Paying close attention to the commercial aims of the magazines, I also argue that the textual interaction between readers and magazines, perhaps especially when readers are expressing disagreement with the magazine, serves an important function for magazines in keeping their readers engaged, but also in mitigating possible threats from advertisers, parent companies, and readers’ parents, that might ensue from the publication of contentious material.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Lovegrove, Elizabeth Jane

Contributors dc:contributor

• Potter, Jane
• Reeves, Leander
• Davis, Caroline

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/454v-tx81

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:8512dfc8-4d65-44e1-b697-420cc4c917ff:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1