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Representations of women in women’s magazines

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

RHODES UNIVERSITY

by

Viwe Ndzamela

January 2002

i
 Abstract

Women’s magazines as a popular form of entertainment are among the media products

that have been criticised for misrepresenting women. These popular magazines are often

condemned for their failure to represent women in a positive light although they claim to

target women as their market. The objective of this research is to assess and analyse

representations of women in selected women’s magazines. Because women’s magazines

are part of popular culture, which is not only concerned with the production process but

also takes into consideration the needs of the readers, the research seeks to find out

whether these magazines meet the expectations of its readers. The study is a combination

of qualitative analysis, which looks at the frequency and the manner in which women are

represented, with a qualitative interpretation of women’s roles within those

representations. The issue of representations of women in women’s magazines is a very

complex one as magazines, like other cultural texts are open to multiple interpretations.

Consequently, multiple conclusions have been reached and the outcome of the study is

therefore a series of three conclusions based on feature articles, advertisements and at a

theoretical level.

ii
Table of contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction
Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 1
1.1 Representation ………………………………………………… 1

Chapter 2 – Theoretical Framework

Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 8
2.1 Critical Cultural Studies………………………………………. 10
2.2 Feminist Approaches …………………………………………. 10
2.3 Popular Culture ……………………………………………….. 11
2.3.1 Women’s Magazines as Popular Culture …………………… 15
2.4 How women are represented …………………………………. 16
2.5 Advertising and popular women’s magazines ………………... 20
2.6 Women’s magazines as cultural texts ………………………… 23

Chapter 3 - Methodology
Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 26
3.1 Sampling ………………………………………………………. 27
3.2 Survey …………………………………………………………. 28
3.3 Quantitative and Qualitative content analysis …………………29
3.3.1Quantitative content analysis ………………………………… 29
3.3.2 Qualitative content analysis …………………………………. 31
3.4 Semiotics ……………………………………………………….32
3.4.1 Textual analysis of features ………………………………… 33
3.4.2 Analysis of Advertisements ………………………………… 37

Chapter 4 – Analysis of Features

Introduction ……………………………………………………… 40
4.1 Analysis ……………………………………………………… 40
4.1.1 Descriptive analysis …………………………………………. 40
4.1.2 Frequency of themes in features ……………………………...41
4.1.3 Definition of themes ………………………………………….42
4.1.4 The woman represented in the magazine ……………………..44
4.1.5 Profile of the readers ……………………………………….. . 47
4.2 Textual analysis ……………………………………………… 49
4.2.1 The mode of address ………………………………………… 49
4.2.2 What the magazine sells ………………………………………51
4.2.3 Women taking charge …………………………………………52
4.2.4 How images represent women ………………………………. .55
4.2.5 Female sexuality ………………………………………………56
4.2.6 The discourse of the magazines ……………………………….58

iii
Chapter 5 – Analysis of Advertisements
Introduction …………………………………………………………60
5.1 Analysis of advertisements ……………………………………. 62
5.1.1 How advertisements appeal to the reader …………………… .63

Chapter 6 – Comparison between True Love and Cosmopolitan

Introduction …………………………………………………………68
6.1 Target markets and readership ………………………………… 68
6.2 Content ………………………………………………………… 69
6.3 Advertising …………………………………………………… 72

Chapter 7 - Conclusion
Introduction ………………………………………………………… 74
7.1 Features: …………………………………………………………75
7.2 Advertisements ………………………………………………… 76
7.3 Women’s magazines as popular culture …………………….… . 77
7.4 Difference between features and advertisements……………… 79

References ………………………………………………………… 81

iv
 Acknowledgements

To my parents, Dean and Zoe Ndzamela, this is dedicated to you for your undying love
and support. To my fiancée, Makume Tlaleane, thank you for your encouragement and
contribution and for being there when I felt I did not have the strength to go on. I owe
you a lifetime. To my supervisor and mentor, it has been an inspiration working with you,
your intellect and enthusiasm is much appreciated. Finally, to my friend and colleague,
Cara Bouwer, thank you for your valuable time and kind support.

v
 Chapter 1

Introduction

Women’s magazines form part of popular culture, which is not only concerned with the

production process but also takes into consideration the needs of the readers. The aim of

this research is to analyse the representations of women in selected women’s magazines.

In particular, this research focuses on the social construction and cultural representation

of women in terms of whether they are represented as glamorous sex objects or

independent women who are in control of their sexuality.

The research seeks to find out whether these magazines resonate with the desires and

aspirations of its readers. The study combines a quantitative analysis, which looks at the

frequency and the manner in which women are represented, with a qualitative

interpretation of women’s roles within those representations.

The magazines that have been selected are two; monthly South African commercially

produced women’s magazines, True Love and Cosmopolitan. Women’s magazines are

one of the many structures that are concerned with producing representations of women.

Because these magazines are commercially driven, advertising plays an important role in

the kind of content they deliver. Cosmopolitan and True Love are glossy A4 size

magazines. They use predominantly colour photos and visual stimuli. This goes along

with their character as beauty and glamour focused-magazines.

1.1 Representation

According to Richard Dyer's typography (in Lacey, 1998: 131), re-presentation is

described as consisting essentially of media language as well as the conventions, which

1
are used to represent the world to the audience. According to Lacey (1998:143),

representations are usually a product of institutions, whether large broadcasting

organisations or small independent companies. Lacey argues that media organisations

and not the audience or readers get to see or even discuss the modes of representation

used by media practitioners.

Fiske (1994:265) describes representation as the social process of representing. It is the

social process of making sense within all available signifying systems. The term therefore

refers both to the process and to the product of making signs stand for particular

meanings. In this study the term will be used as both a process and as products.

There are certain conventions that are used to represent the world. Media texts cannot

show reality as it is; by their nature they mediate reality (Lacey 1998:95). According to

Lacey, representations are the result of conventions produced at a particular time and

place, and determined by the dominant ideology.

Margaret Marshment says that representation is a political process and involves the

power to make meanings of both the world and one's place within it (in Richardson and

Robinson, 1993:123) She goes on to point out that:

There are structures that are concerned with producing representations of women

from primary school reading schemes to Hollywood films, from advertising to

opera, from game shows to art galleries, women are depicted in ways that define

what it means to be a woman in this society, what women are like (naturally),

what they ought to be like, what they are capable of, what roles they play in

society and how they differ from men.

2
 According to Nick Lacey “representations consist essentially of media language, the

conventions which are used to represent the world to the audience (readers)”, using

certain symbols to express this (1998:132). Because representation involves embodying

particular aspects of life, certain objects and individuals carry certain connotations.

Stereotypes are social constructs and as such are a type of media representation. Lacey

(1998) argues that this is due to the fact that stereotypes have their origin in the social

world and they are mostly used by individuals about people or peoples.

In its various forms, Lacey (1998) argues that the media is one of the main sources of

information and it is likely that it has a crucial influence in audience perceptions. Because

stereotypes have their basis in the material conditions and social practices of society, they

serve to naturalise the power relationships in society, they have a hegemonic function,

hence women are often stereotyped as subservient to men (Lacey 1998:139). This implies

that women may be represented in a way that suits the views of those who are involved in

the production process as well as the owners in the manner that they think will be

profitable for them.

As noted by Gaye Tuchman, recent work on the media has tried to locate facts with

which to demonstrate the apparent political attack on sexism in the media, its origins and

impact (1979:11). Tuchman states that according “…to media researchers, the media do

not represent women who are viable role models, and therefore the media’s irrational role

models when internalised, prevent and impede female accomplishments” (1979:11). As a

result of this the media also encourage readers to define women in terms of the way men

perceive them (as sex objects) or in the context of the family (as wives and mothers).

3
 Tuchman (1979) states that some researchers have implied that the media offer a

deleterious portrait of women because few women hold positions of responsibility within

the media. Croteau and Hoynes also argue that the creation and production of media

images is also in male hands. “Women are generally not in positions of control and

perhaps as a result are less likely than men to be prominently featured in media products”

(1997:148).

Magazines are very specifically associated with femininity and women’s culture,

although men do read magazines. According to Judith Williamson “in our society women

stand for the side of life that seems to be outside history, the side that stands for personal

relationships, love and sex”. This has almost become a tradition as these aspects of life

seem to become women’s areas whereas they are, broadly speaking, the arena of mass

culture (1986:101). Mass culture is mediated culture that is primarily produced

commercially in large quantities for consumption by the masses:

In its classical usage, … the term ‘mass’ implied that the audience created by the

new media was socially undifferentiated, lacking any clear divisions along class,

sex or race lines (Bennett 1982: 30).

Mass culture therefore emphasises the aspects of production and consumption as the

defining characteristics of mediated culture (Bennett: 1982). Much of mass culture takes

place or is consumed in the feminine spheres of leisure, family, or personal life and the

home and it also focuses on these as the subject matter of its representations. Williamson

(1986:103) says:

4
 One of the most important aspects of femininity in mass culture is not what they reveal

but what they conceal. If woman means love and sex, what woman does not mean in

general currency is work, class and politics.

This seems to say that women have one thing in common, a concern about how they

look, how they can please men and how they can look after their families in an even

better way. This approach ignores those women who are determined professionals, who

can be more than just partners and mothers. Hence Ballaster et al. argue that women are

constructed as a homogenous group in women’s magazines and this is achieved by the

invocation of its supposedly natural opposite, men (1991:88).

Ballaster et al. (1991) however, argue that the femininity we are invited to acquire in

the process of consuming magazines is neither single nor simple. The model of

femininity extended by the magazine to the reader is highly multiple in nature. The

woman who is addressed by the magazine text is addressed first and foremost as a

consumer of the message(s) of the text and of the commodities that it presents as essential

to her becoming or construction.

However this is not to say that serious matters of politics such as rape, incest and abuse

are not covered in women’s magazines. But the main question around this issue is how

such issues are represented and how seriously the magazines take them. This, however,

can be determined by several issues, such as choices in the production process as

influenced by the editorial policy of the magazine and the political economy of the

magazine. As commercial products magazines do not only seek to please the readers but

the advertisers as well because this is where they get most of their revenue from.

5
 It is therefore important to note that women’s magazines are mostly shaped by a

consumer culture geared to selling and making a profit from commodities, and whose

sales are boosted through the medium of advertising. Winship maintains that “…as

commodities, women’s magazines do not only sell their weekly and monthly wares by

advertising proper but also by the advertisement of their own covers” (1987: 9).

For magazines it is imperative to attract consumers. This is done by using the most eye-

catching pictures and headlines. As Winship puts it, the business of magazines is a

venture involved in two disparate but intimately linked selling operations: one to women,

the other to advertisers (1987:38). Consequently, the advertisements used in women’s

magazines are structured in a way that affords the reader to dream. They play to the

unfulfilled desires that it generates.

Cover images and sell lines also reveal a lot about the nature of women’s magazines.

The woman’s face, which is their hallmark, is usually white, young, smoothly attractive,

immaculately groomed and usually smiling or looking seductive. The image represented

in these magazines affirms and sells these qualities of white skin, youth, beauty, charm

and sexuality as valuable attributes of femininity. Women’s magazines herald mostly the

consumer options. The visual fictions around consumption are peculiarly addressed to

women. Due to this any achievement of individuality has a somewhat hollow ring, barely

registering on a higher masculine scale of individuality (Winship 1987). The outcome in

many articles tends to be about unwarranted optimism about the position of women and

what is possible for individual women to accomplish.

The aspects that have been discussed above are very important in relation to the

research question. The analysis seeks to establish whether women are in fact being

6
represented as sexual objects or whether this representation is simply a way of fulfilling

their desires, thus by encouraging the reader to be who they want to be and therefore in

control of their lives. Being in control in this context means being able to manage ones

life comfortably, without seeking validation or approval from anyone.

The content of the magazines both in the form of advertisements and feature articles

will be the main focus in the study as it is where representations are prevalent and where

messages are conveyed.

7
Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework

Introduction

The object of this study is to focus more on the product (media content) as opposed to

its production and consumption because the study seeks to assess how women’s

magazines as a cultural product represent women. A number of theoretical approaches

focus on the production and consumption of the media content as a cultural product of the

media industry, while others focus more on the economic organisation of the media

industries. According to McQuail, media institutions have developed gradually around

the key activities of publication and wide dissemination of information and culture

(1994:11).

Murdock and Golding describe public communications systems as “part of the cultural

industries, which manufacture goods that play a very important role in organising the

images and discourses through which people make sense of the world” (1996:11). Some

of the defining features of the media include production and distribution of content as

well as consumption.

While this is the case, it is important to note that “the focus on the political economy of

the media is an important one. This is because it sets out to reveal how different ways of

financing and organising cultural production have traceable consequences for the range

of discourses and representations that are produced and made available to the public”

(Murdock and Golding: 1996:11). The editorial process does not only involve pleasing

the reader but advertisers as well, because production and distribution takes place within

8
a specific economic system where content is often influenced by the economic status of

the media particularly advertising.

The debates on media representations of women revolve around the way women are

portrayed in the media, particularly in those media genres which are not only popular but

also target women as an audience. Due to their popularity women’s magazines can be

influential because their readers can relate to and identify themselves with the

representations (Winship 1987:7).

Cultural Studies, particularly the critical strand of cultural studies, will be adopted as

the theoretical framework that can explain how commercially produced magazines

represent women. “The critical strand of cultural studies is one which is multidisciplinary

and combines political, social theory and research, and cultural criticisms in its project

which, aims at a critique of domination and social transformation” (Kellner 1997:103).

Secondary to this, insights from feminist theories will also be used because they have a

bearing on the critical cultural studies approach to media representations of women.

As noted by Agger, “…the project of feminist literary and cultural studies has been

central on the feminist agenda, defining a host of interpretive and critical activities for

feminist academics” (1992:114). Van Zoonen maintains that feminist concerns have

gained more ground in the field of cultural studies (1991:34). According to Van Zoonen

(1991) many innovative studies about women’s genres such as soap operas, romance

novels and women’s magazines and their audiences, have informed and have been

informed by this approach.

9
2.1 The Critical Strand of Cultural Studies

The critical strand of Cultural Studies focuses not only on cultural production in

commercial contexts but also on culturally coded representations of society and issues of

the consumption of media content (Murdock and Golding 1997:133). Critical cultural

studies conceptualises commercially produced mass media products that attract audiences

in large numbers and resonate with the feelings, ideas, desires and wishes of the audience

as popular culture (Murdock and Golding 1997:133). According to Kellner cultural

studies insists that culture must be investigated within the social relations and system

through which it is produced and consumed, and that analysis of culture is thus intimately

bound up with the study of society, politics and economics (1997:103).

As noted by Kellner, some earlier presentations of British Cultural Studies stressed the

importance of a multidisciplinary approach, whereby the study of culture would be

analysed in terms of the political economy, the process of production and distribution, as

well as textual products and reception by the audience (1997:103). Because texts are

products of institutions, “ discourse (as regulated ways of speaking/practice) offers

speaking persons (media institutions) subject positions from which to make sense of the

world, while ‘subjecting’ speakers to the rules and discipline of those discourses”

(Barker: 2000: 236).

2.2 Feminist approaches

Feminist critics are mostly dedicated to exposing male hegemony in culture as well as

opening space for women to make culture (Agger 1992:114). Agger argues that the

representation of women, their sexuality and sexual identity, in cultural works is

10
obviously important for feminists who are concerned with raising consciousness about

the social construction of gender. According to Agger (1992) the representation of

women’s and men’s appropriate gender identities and sexual preferences in mass culture

is a crucial feminist topic where feminists reject hard and fast gender identity

differentiations as well as the dominant heterosexism in our culture at large.

Feminist critics interpret the formal features of mass cultural forms addressed to women

not only in terms of the meaning and construction of signification. They also interpret

them in terms of the way that different textual forms resonate or not with female desire,

with the shape and texture of women’ lives, with women’s pleasure (Mattelart 1986:35).

According to Agger, one of the most lasting contributions of the feminist movement has

been to transvalue the ways in which men and women are represented in culture,

including ways in which women and men are read in cultural texts and documents

(1992:120). Feminist criticisms have given a new way of viewing women in culture,

subverting the normative ways in which they are represented as sex objects, housewives

and helpmates (Agger 1997:20).

2.3 Popular Culture

The term popular culture can be explained with reference to its production, content and

consumption. Bennett (1982:114) identifies four available uses of the term popular

culture. He says that the popular is what many like and do; the popular is what is outside

the sphere of high culture. The popular equates with mass implying manipulation and

passive consumption and the popular might be what is done by those who do it, rooted in

the creative impulses of the people (1982: 114).

11
 According to McGuigan, there has always been a tension between what is called

popular culture and mass culture (1997:139). It is important to note that the concepts

popular culture and mass culture both refer to mediated culture. They both look at

cultural industries as a commercial activity whereby the cultural products are produced in

large quantities. However, each has a different approach to an understanding of media

content. Mass culture emphasises the aspects of production and consumption as the

defining characteristics of mediated culture, while popular culture emphasises the same

aspects as mass culture as well as the product itself (content), but differently in that the

readers and their interests are the centre of focus. The interests, aspirations and the

dreams of the readers take precedence.

Popular culture is all activity that touches and represents people’s lives and raises their

understanding and consciousness about what is happening around them to a certain extent

since it is commercially produced, as opposed to mass culture, which addresses the

readers as a passive mob. According to Fiske, popular culture is made by various

formations of subordinated people out of the resources; both discursive and material that

are provided by the social system that disempowers them (1989a: 1). Fiske (1989)

maintains that if the cultural commodities or texts do not contain resources, out of which

the people can make their own meanings of their social relations and identities, they will

be rejected and will fail in the market place. He argues that the meanings of popular

culture exist through circulation within societies, not in their texts. The texts, which are

crucial in this process, need not be understood by themselves but in their relationship

with other texts and with social life, for that is how their circulation is ensured:

12
 Popular texts are inadequate in themselves, they are never self-sufficient

structures of meanings… they are provokers of meanings and pleasure; they are

completed only when taken up by people and inserted into their everyday culture.

The people make popular culture at the interface between everyday life and the

consumption of the products of cultural industries (Fiske 1989a: 6).

The aim of the productivity, according to Fiske (1989), is to produce meanings that are

relevant to everyday life. He argues that relevance is central to popular culture. It

minimises the difference between text and life, between aesthetic and the everyday that is

so central to a process and practice based culture (such as the popular) rather than a text

or performance based one (such as the bourgeois one).

Fiske contends that only the people can produce relevance, for only they can know

which texts enable them to make the meanings that will function in their everyday lives.

He describes relevance as the intersection between the textual and the social. It is

therefore a site of struggle, for relevancies are dispersed, and as divergent as the social

situation of the people. Popular text, therefore, has to work against its differences to find

a commonality between divergent social groups in order to maximise its consumption and

profitability.

According to McGuigan, in the folkish sense, popular culture was seen as produced by

people, as actively made by them and expressing their distinctive social experiences,

attitudes and values (1997:139). In contrast to popular culture, mass culture was seen as

media manipulation of popular taste and the passive consumption of commodified

culture.

13
 The unsatisfactory binary opposition between popular culture and mass culture was

more fully deconstructed later, however, by a revaluation of the subordinate term

consumption. From this point of view, consumption was no longer to be seen as the

passive moment in cultural circulation but instead, active and nodal, involving a popular

appropriation of commodities and differential interpretation of texts (McGuigan

1997:138).

McGuigan (1997:139) argues that during the 1980’s the widespread drift towards an

exclusively consumptionist mode of analysis in cultural studies was focused upon the

interpretation of routine and popular consuming practices. This led to the comparative

neglect to the detriment of critical forms of in-depth explanations that were concerned

with the material conditions of cultural production, such as the political economy of

culture.

In relation to the above, the critical question then is how popular media texts represent

the experiences, wishes, dreams and aspirations of their audiences in such ways that they

resonate with their audiences. This question is pertinent because popular media

representations of particular phenomena are influenced and shaped by commercial

imperatives as well as the need to satisfy audience wants and needs (Winship 1987:39).

This has several implications since the business of magazines is one that involves

pleasing both the readers as well as the advertisers:

Although many companies can claim that the editorial product is everything

magazines cannot avoid the dictates of a market in which the need to win

advertising revenue as well as the readers is paramount and the necessity to yoke

the readers to what they buy is constant pressure (Winship 1987:39).

14
2.3.1 Women’s Magazines as Popular Culture

According to Mattelart, magazines, like most romance fiction novels or popular culture

products, have always been a site for an exclusively feminine discourse and in order to

achieve and sustain their enormous readership, such texts must address at some level

experience, aspirations and contradictions that are real for their women readers

(1986:36). This has involved seeing the consumers of these products as active, never

passive, but also as highly constructed and relatively limited in the choices, which can be

exercised in the act of leisure consumption (Mattelart 1986:41).

Mattelart (1986) also comments on the congruence between the repetitive, open-ended

forms of women’s popular media (soap opera and the magazines in particular) and the

cyclical nature of women’s lives. She argues that women’s genres must certainly express

lived cultures with a variety of creative and interpretive dimensions. “They are as much a

culture from above as one from below, a construction of the leisure industries and the

consumer market” (Mattelart 1986:42). They need to address the everyday concerns and

aspirations of their target market. These issues need to be addressed in such a way that

the readers can relate and are able to identify with them.

According to Philips and Tomlinson, the changing context of forms of popular

consumption has vital consequences for people’s sense of identity (1990:24). Popular

culture is not just the reflection of the time; it is its very consciousness. How meanings

are made in popular culture, values accepted or challenged, pleasures packaged and

cultures commodified – these are the challenging questions, which make the study of

leisure and popular culture a very serious business. Philips and Tomlinson argue that of

15
all cultural commodities, magazines as well as books are mostly consumed in the private

sphere (1990:25).

However, while the act of reading has always been and by its nature must remain, a

private and largely domestic activity, the ideas and fantasies that popular fictional texts

can provide insights into wider cultural aspirations and anxieties still exist. By virtue of

their popularity, bestsellers and widely read authors clearly touch a cultural nerve that

goes beyond the individual reader. The wider question however is whether in the end

these popular texts are able to address the aspirations, wishes and dreams of every

individual reader and most importantly how this is achieved.

2.4 How women are represented

Women’s magazines have developed into a cultural phenomenon that has been

receiving great attention from feminists and some media theorists. This is mainly because

of the ways in which women are represented in the magazines. According to Van Zoonen

(1994) a number of approaches characterise the interest in these magazines. As noted by

feminists:

… the media-created woman is (1) wife, mother, housekeeper for men, (2) a sex

object used to sell products to men, (3) a person trying to be beautiful for men

(Van Zoonen 1994:66).

What this means is that the media, particularly women’s magazines, provide images

that advise and instruct women on how to be a perfect mother, lover and glamorous

accessory. This pertains more to their sexuality than their intellectual capacity (Van

Zoonen 1994:66). These approaches suggest that magazines position women in relation

16
to subordination, passivity and sexual availability. According to McRobbie, “women and

girls’ magazines not only fail the women they claim to represent; they actively damage

them, constructing injured and subordinate subjectivities” (1996:173).

Croteau and Hoynes have noted that there is a fundamental inequality in the frequency

of the appearance of women and men (1997:147). Men are most likely to appear in lead

roles while women appear mostly as housewives or sexual objects. According to Croteau

and Hoynes the inequality that women still face in society as a whole is clearly reflected

in the unequal treatment women receive in the media (1997:148). Some of this unequal

treatment, such as that in sexist advertising and degrading pornography, is

straightforward and easy to spot, as are some of the stereotypical roles that writers still

create for women in television.

Ballaster et al. argue that many researchers and analysts have been struck by the

intimate tone employed to address the reader, the cosy vocation of a known commonality

between women (1991:87-88). Despite status, wealth, class and race distinctions, the

magazines assume a shared experience between women. It is not only the publishers and

the editors who use this inclusive voice. A crucial feature of women’s magazines is the

reader’s contributions in the form of letters and true-life stories. The voice of the readers

in all these contexts resonates with exactly the same register of intimacy as that of the

professional producers of the magazines.

According to Matterlart a certain amount of duality is also prevalent in the western

magazines:

The editorials in these magazines may evince some kind of progressive intention,

conforming to a mildly liberal image of women in their treatment of permissive

17
 morality. But in the same issue the fiction will portray the woman in the most

conventional light imaginable: passive, dependent, prone to a sugary sweet view

of life (1986:18).

However McRobbie maintains that there is another aspect to the representations, which

suggests that for some women the celebration of sexuality symbolises liberation:

The celebration of sexuality does not only provide the frame for women’s

magazines in the 90’s but also sets the tone, defines the pace, and shapes the

whole environment of the magazine (McRobbie 1996:177).

Coverage on sexuality has taken the highest position in magazines although fashion and

beauty still make up the content of women’s magazines. According to McRobbie,

“everything in this ‘new world’ of magazines is simultaneously inflated, exaggerated and

also presented with a hint of self-parody”. The woman of the 90’s possesses sexual

confidence that enables her to be in control of her sexuality. The widespread sense of

parody and irony in the presentation of this sexual material in the magazines also implies

a certain detachment or ironic distance from old stakes of sexuality for girls. They are far

removed from romantic abandon and there is instead a determination to meet their male

counterparts on equal grounds.

McRobbie (1996) maintains that this celebration of sexuality does not only sell the

magazines, but also marks a new moment in the construction of female sexual identities.

It suggests new forms of sexual conduct; it proposes boldness in behavior. The girl who

knows what to expect is in a better position to make the right choices. In some ways,

within the limits of their own codifications the magazines have extended the possibilities

of what it is to be a woman. Magazine discourse brings into being new female subjects

18
through their construction or representation of women as certain kinds of subjects or

people:

The changes which can be seen in these magazines in the 1990’s articulate a

commitment to the production of the norms of female beauty through invocation

of an assumed, universalistic feminine culture devoted to fashion and the body.

They also carry a transition of what it is to be a young woman today (McRobbie

1996:178).

Beetham argues that magazines are not only commodities for the print industry but

have also become a crucial site for the advertising and sale of other commodities

(1996:2). Magazines are therefore, deeply involved in capitalist production and

consumption as well as circulation in the cultural economy of collective meanings and

construction of an identity for the individual reader as a gendered and sexual being.

According to Beetham (1996:2), the woman’s magazine works at the intersection of these

different economies of money, public discourse and individual desire. The magazines

position women as purchasers and readers of texts (1996:4). According to Myra

MacDonald the media’s interest in attracting women as readers or viewers was often

motivated by their perceived commercial value as consumers (1995:11).

Advertising has played a visible role in the way women are represented in the media. It

appears to operate through a focus on gender and sexuality. Women dominate in

commercials for cosmetics and personal hygiene, while men on the other hand dominate

in advertisements representing high status activities and are represented as purchasers of

high status items such as cars:

19
 Advertising has also been singled out as one of the most disturbing cultural

products since its early stages of development. As a cultural form advertising

displays preoccupation with gender that is hardly matched in any other genre

(Van Zoonen 1994:71).

The goods, which women are predominantly represented as purchasers of in

advertisements, relate primarily to the domestic environment, their bodies and cosmetic

products and hardly relate to their intellectual capacity. Hence magazines as a

commercially produced cultural form, are part of an economic system by which gender

difference is given meanings. They essentially exist as commodities and as the means for

advertisements of other commodities. Advertisers conceive of women as primary

consumers:

The woman who is addressed by the magazine text is addressed first and foremost

as a consumer, of the message of the text, and of the commodities, which it

presents as essential to the business of her becoming or construction (Baehr et al.,

1996:90).

In these magazines women are bound to be concerned with consumption. Their

recognition as consumers takes precedence over their status as professionals and citizens.

2.5 Advertising and popular women’s magazines

Popular commercially produced magazines get most of their revenue from advertising

and commercial sponsorships and to a much lesser extent from sales, which make them

open to market pressures (Winship 1987:39). They form part of an economic system

where they cannot avoid the dictates of a market in which the need to win advertising

20
revenue as well as readers is paramount. These magazines essentially exist as

commodities and as the means for advertisements of other commodities.

Kellner contends that it is important to locate analysis of cultural texts within their

system of production and distribution often referred to as the political economy of culture

(1997:104). He says the references to ‘political’ and ‘economy’ calls attention to the fact

that the production and distribution of culture takes place within a specific economic

system, constituted by relations between the state, the economy, social institutions and

their concomitant practices. Thus political economy encompasses economics and politics

and the relations between them and other dimensions of society and culture.

According to Kellner, political economy highlights that capitalist societies are

organised according to a dominant mode of production that structures institutions and

practices according to the logic of commodification and capital accumulation so that

cultural production is profit and market oriented (1997:104). It does not only refer solely

to economics but to the relations between economic, political and other dimensions of

social reality. The term political economy thus links culture to its political and economic

context and opens up cultural studies to history and politics (Kellner 1997:105). Kellner

argues that forces of production such as media technologies and creative practice are

deployed according to dominant relations to production. The system of production often

determines what sort of artifacts will be produced, what structural limits there will be as

to what can and cannot be said and shown, and what sort of audience expectations and

usage the texts may generate.

As much as it is important to generate content that will appeal to the targeted reader, it

is also crucial that the editorial content of the magazine appeals to the consumers as seen

21
through the eye of the advertisers. All of this has to be done within the confines and terms

guiding the editorial process of that magazine. According to Winship (1987), those

market pressures have closely shaped not only the range of magazines available but also,

in highly significant ways, the contents of any given magazine. For instance, the content

of the magazines is mostly in tandem with the advertisements. Because magazines are

involved mostly with promoting lifestyle, beauty, class etc, their advertisements are

mainly on the products that can help readers achieve these. Ellen McCracken (1996:99)

argues that:

the photographic text of a magazine cover also extends meaning to the material

inside. Usually a concrete representation of an idealised model of physical beauty,

the cover photo whets the consumer’s appetite for what is to follow. As a

pleasurable visual representation, it invites us to enjoy further pleasure by

consuming the magazine’s contents visually flipping through the pictures page by

page. At the same time, it leads us necessarily to the verbal texts in the magazine,

through which we will be given specific instructions for attaining the model of

ideal beauty, which can only be attained through consumerism.

According to Mattelart, women’s magazines address a fairly consistent and defined

public (1986:21). Such magazines circulate in accordance with market laws and are

usually controlled by publishing groups, answerable only to themselves and the public.

Matterlart (1986) maintains that the ideology professed by a magazine is invariably the

result of its market positioning.

22
2.6 Women’s magazines as cultural texts

In order to understand the notion of cultural texts it is important to look at two

important concepts that may be helpful towards an understanding of what cultural texts

are. These are text and message. According to Fiske the two terms refer to a signifying

structure composed of signs and codes that are essential to communication. Although

used interchangeably the two terms differ. Text usually refers to a message that has a

physical existence of its own, independent of the reader or receiver and thus composed of

representational codes. Text derives from the linguistic school and is used in cultural

studies. It thus implies a definition that is central to the generation and exchange of

meaning. The term message is mostly used by those working in the school of

communication, by sociologists and is used with the simple definition of what is

transmitted (1994:317).

Media content as constructed cultural texts have semiotic richness embedded in them.

The producers of such texts are aware of all this and attempt to exploit this for their

commercial interests. “In their marketing and advertising strategies, producers of cultural

texts attempt to target specific social groups and thus to give their product sub culturally

specific inflections of the more communal meanings” (Fiske (1989b: 5). Thus the issues

that are addressed in women’s magazines for instance may be the kind of concerns that

many women out there are faced with. This is therefore a way of saying that one is not

alone in their struggle. There are people who are sharing her experiences. The impression

given is that of sharing hard living and knowing that one is not alone. The magazines in

themselves become cultural forms where women’s concerns are laid at table for

discussion, sharing as well as coming up with possible solutions. The meanings that are

23
inherent in the messages produced in the magazines differ according to certain

individuals:

All meanings are ultimately intertextual, no one text, no one advertisement can

ever bear the full meanings … for this can only exist in that ill defined cultural

space between the texts that precedes the texts that both draw upon it and

contribute to it, which exists only in constant circulation among texts and society

(Fiske 1989b: 6).

Like all other commodities, media texts as cultural products are given certain brand

names that compete among each other for specific segments of the market. The producers

try to identify social differences and then to construct equivalent difference in the product

so that social differentiation and product differentiation become mapped on each other.

Advertising is therefore used in an attempt to give meanings to the products whose

differences will enable people in the targeted social formation to recognise that they are

being spoken to, or even to recognize their social identity and values in the product. The

different messages that are conveyed in different media content (magazines) are created

as much by advertising as by any differences in the messages or the content itself.

Women’s magazines for instance speak to market segmentation using a socially locatable

accent to speak a common language.

According to Fiske, a number of important theoretical issues underlie the difference

between a user of a cultural resource and a consumer of a commodity (1989b: 11). He

says there are a number of ways of understanding commodities and their role in society.

In the economic sphere they ensure the generation and circulation of wealth, and they can

vary from basic necessities of life to inessential luxuries, and by extension, can include

24
non-material objects. They also serve two types of functions, the material and the

cultural. The material function of media content is to provide information and

entertainment while the cultural function is concerned with the meanings and values that

are inherent in the content. Media content can be used by those who consume it to

construct meanings of self, of social identity and social relations. Describing media

content as a commodity emphasises its role in the circulation of wealth and tends to

downplay its separate, but related role in circulation of meaning.

On account of the arguments that have been presented above, it is important to note that

women’s magazines as a cultural phenomenon, need not only be understood and

evaluated in terms of their cultural capacity. In order to appreciate the problematic nature

of media representations of women it is necessary to take into consideration the

importance of economic structures because they also play a role when deciding on what

can or cannot sell the magazine.

25
Chapter 3

Methodology

Introduction

The methodological approach in this study is predominantly qualitative. A qualitative

paradigm has been chosen because an analysis of media content as representations rather

than a reflection of social reality requires in-depth textual analysis. It is important to note

that there is a difference between a reflection and a representation of social reality.

Reflection of social reality involves equating significance of particular occurrences solely

with frequency, whereas representation involves a close look at the language being used

and what it is used to symbolise and also the structure of the text (Deacon et al., 1999).

According to Fiske, there are two manifestations to the reflection theory that are

relevant to communication (1994:262). The first is the principle that media

representations and discourses reflect an already existing and self-evident reality that

exists independently of its representation in discourse including those of the media. The

second type of reflection theory focuses on the assumption that cultural and

communicative practices and forms are reflections of the economic base of society in

question. Contrary to the notion of reflection, Fairclough argues that media texts do not

merely mirror realities as it is sometimes assumed but they constitute versions of reality

in ways which, depend on the social positions and interests and objectives of those who

produce them (1995:103).

Because media texts are constructed texts, the magazines’ content will not be assessed

and analysed in terms of how they ‘reflect’ the status of women in society but in terms of

how they ‘represent’ them. Fiske describes representation as the social process of putting

26
into concrete forms an abstract ideological concept. It is a process of making sense within

all available signifying systems (1994:265).

Qualitative content analysis was used because it conceptualises media content as

constructed texts from where meanings can be generated. What this means is that the

magazines were analysed in terms of the representations that are prevalent in them. This

included looking at the codes of address. However quantitative content analysis was used

as a stepping-stone towards qualitative content analysis. As Deacon et al. argue,

quantitative and qualitative content analysis should not be seen as opposites but rather

should be used in a complementary manner (1999:17). Thus the techniques that were

used in this study are sampling and a combination of quantitative content and in-depth

textual analysis, using semiotic methods. Sampling was used as a technique in the

selection and narrowing of the type of content to be analysed.

3.1 Sampling

Sampling in this study concerns the mapping of some general dimensions of content,

which does not necessarily require a focus on a particular time frame. Neuman describes

sampling as a process of systematically selecting cases for inclusion in a research project

(1997:201). With relevance to this study, cases are described as the unit of analysis,

which was selected from a larger pool of the content of the magazines or the universe.

In sampling the researcher first selects from a total universe a sample of information to

obtain a smaller set of cases and then use random assignment to divide the smaller set

into groups, which form the unit of analysis. 1997 to 1999 was chosen as the period from

which the texts that have been analysed were selected. Thirty-six magazines were

27
selected from a universe of seventy-two. This is an equivalent of half the number of

magazines published in the three-year period in South Africa. This period has been

divided further by selecting every other month from each year. This helped in

establishing the trends that are prevalent in the magazines.

Purposive or judgmental sampling was used. It is very helpful when selecting cases

with a specific purpose in mind. According to Neuman, this is usually used in an

exploratory kind of research. One of the situations where purposive sampling is used is

when the researcher uses it to select unique cases that are very informative (1997:206).

Sampling helps the researcher to draw inferences from the sample to the population.

The researcher observes variables using the units in the sample (Neuman 1997:201). The

sample serves to represent the universe/population, as researchers are not really interested

in samples but in making inferences to the population. Although the study involves

looking at a smaller subset instead of the entire pool, the main object of the study was to

analyse a smaller sample of the magazines that was possible to generalise to the universe

or pool. If done well, sampling allows the researcher to measure variables on the smaller

set of cases but generalise results accurately to all cases (Neuman 1997: 202).

3.2 Survey

Surveys produce quantitative information about the social world and describe features

of people or the social world (Neuman 1997). Due to the amount of material that was

available in the chosen universe for qualitative analysis, it was appropriate to conduct a

survey in order to narrow down the topics that were looked at when analysing the texts.

28
Specific topics that were analysed in-depth were identified using a survey instrument.

This was done by identifying the topics that appeared more often than others.

3.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis

Content analysis is a technique used for gathering and analysing the content of texts and

how they are combined. Content refers to words, meanings, pictures, symbols, ideas,

themes or any message that can be communicated (Deacon et al., 1999). In quantitative

content analysis the researcher uses objective and systematic counting and recording

procedures to produce a quantitative description of the symbolic content in a text. There

is also qualitative content analysis, which is favoured mainly by feminist researchers and

others adopting a more critical and interpretative approach. The critical and interpretative

approach seeks to explore the ways in which language and images are organised and

presented and how these two elements are combined and used in a complementary

fashion. This involves exploring the meanings that are embedded in the representations as

opposed to looking at the frequency of particular themes as a reflection of particular

phenomena:

Qualitative content analysis allows the reader to probe into and discover content

in a different way from the ordinary way of reading a book or watching a

television program (Neuman 1997:273).

3.3.1 Quantitative Content analysis

Using quantitative content analysis, charts were used in order to categorise the content

that was analysed. This involved looking at the content vertically, in terms of how often

certain themes; issues and images appeared in the magazines. This assisted in identifying

29
trends and patterns that were inherent in the representations as well as documenting

objective quantitative results because quantitative content analysis yields repeatable,

precise results about the text. According to Deacon et al. (1999:133), this is the value of

quantitative content analysis:

If you are dealing with media content across a longitudinal time frame, you need a

systematic procedure to establish both what is relatively constant and what might

change across the frame. Otherwise what basis will you have for using words like

‘often’, ‘recurrent, ‘few’…(Deacon et al., 1999:133)

Using quantitative content analysis, the content was analysed in terms of the frequency,

direction, intensity, and space. Neuman (1997) describes frequency as a way of counting

whether or not something occurs and if it occurs, how often i.e. how often articles

addressing women’s issues appear in women’s magazines as compared to articles about

beauty and sexuality? The direction of the content was also taken into account. This

involves noting the direction of messages in the content along some continuum, either

positive or negative i.e. acknowledging women making progress or expressing/implying

denial of women’s capabilities, supporting or opposing i.e. whether the content reflects a

positive or negative perspective on how women are represented in women’s magazines or

the media at large. The intensity or the power of the messages that are conveyed in the

magazines was also taken into consideration. According to Neuman intensity is the

strength or power of a message in a direction (1997:275). This will also be reflected in

the size of a text message or the amount of space or volume allocated to it.

Manifest coding was also used as a way of establishing the trends and the patterns that

are prevalent in the texts that were analysed. Manifest coding involves coding the visible,

30
surface content in a text (1997:275). Although this is a very reliable way of establishing

patterns in that it says what is present, it does not really take into account the

connotations of words and phrases. This is why the use of latent coding (also called

semantic analysis) was very important in this study because it looks for the underlying,

implicit meaning in the content of a text.

3.3.2 Qualitative Content analysis

Because the media produce immense volumes of text and images, this makes it almost

impossible to analyse all media coverage of a subject, area or issue. In-depth analysis of

media content as constructed texts calls for a selection of small rather than large samples

of texts. The aim is to produce thick descriptions of how meaning is organised (Deacon et

al., 1999:17).

According to Alasuutari, meaning and the mediation of social life through meanings is

one of the most important things in cultural studies (1995:26). Citing from empirical

sociological research, Alasuutari describes the concept of meaning, as often referring to

the symbolism that is associated with specific objects or activities. He argues that

preoccupation with the symbolism of certain activity or object tends to draw one’s

attention to deviations from everyday routine, to morally loaded and controversial

questions:

… in its analysis of deviance and deviant phenomena, cultural studies aims to

uncover the way in which the everyday and social life are mediated through

meaning (Alasuutari 1995:27).

31
 The first step in the analysis involved a quantitative survey of the contents of the

selected sample of magazines. The objective of the quantitative content analysis was to

provide a general overview of the content by counting the recurrence of particular

representations of women in editorial and advertising content.

Once this was completed, in-depth textual analysis of specifically chosen texts

identified from the quantitative content analysis was employed. It is from these texts that

conclusions to the question of how and through what language the magazines represent

women were generated.

3.4 Semiotics

Semiotics was used as a basic tool in analysing content. Semiotics is the study of the

social production of meaning from sign systems (Deacon et al., 1999:136). Signs are a

system of communication characterised by the presence of a physical form; they must

refer to something other than itself and must be used and recognised by people as signs

(O’Sullivan et al., 1994). Lacey argues that it is also important to acknowledge the

polysemy of signs because not all signs are arbitrary in nature (1998:58). This is very

important in media studies because the polysemy of signs emphasises that signs can carry

more than one meaning and are open to many interpretations depending on the time,

place and the class or occupation of the reader (O’Sullivan et al., 1994). According to

Morley a message is always capable of producing more than one meaning or

interpretation and can never be reduced simply to one ultimate meaning (1992:83). This

form of analysis may be linked to some of the insights derived from the uses and

32
gratifications approach as to the different possible uses or interpretations, which different

people may make of any one message.

The in-depth textual analysis, using semiotics therefore focused on feature articles and

advertisements. Features were chosen because they are researched texts, which focus

mostly on particular topics that are dealt with at length and in-depth. The topics highlight

specific issues that in turn constitute the editorial identity of a magazine. Advertisements

were also interesting to analyse because they have latitude as persuasive communication

to use particular language and images. They address audiences as consumers and relate to

aspirations, lifestyles and the construction of identities often within the confines of

consumption and consumerism (Leiss et al., 1990).

3.4.1 Textual analysis of features

According to Tolson (1996:xii) the way the mediated world impinges on our experience

is through our consumption of media texts. He argues that textual analysis does not only

focus on vocabulary and semantics, the sound system (phonology) and writing system,

but it also includes analysis of textual organisation above the sentence, including the

ways in which sentences are connected together as well as the organisation of the overall

structure of an article. Because the analysis of texts is concerned with both their

meanings and their forms, the articles were analysed in terms of their particular

representations and recontextualisations of social practice, in terms of particular

constructions of the writer and reader identities. For example, what the writer highlights

or ignores, in terms of the particular construction of the relationship between writer and

reader.

33
 According to Deacon et al. (1999:141) media texts have certain identities, which are

governed by the codes and conventions they are constructed in relation to:

When analysing texts or programmes we also have to look at the assumptions that

lie behind the content. There will be assumptions made about the audience and

these assumptions need to be made visible if we are to understand the implicit

messages which a programme/text may transmit over and above what is explicitly

said in it (Morley 1992:84).

The mode of address was also important in this study. It was therefore a necessity to

look at how the articles address the reader, as this helped in establishing what kind of the

relationship the writer has with the reader and whether the writer appeals to a certain

audience. As stated by Morley, we need to be concerned with the modes in which the

programme/texts address the audience/readers and with how these modes of address

construct our relation to the content of the text, requiring us to take up different positions

in relation to them (1992:83).

He stresses the need to make explicit the assumptions that are being made as these are

the grounds on which the programme/text stands, the taken for granted framework from

which particular things are said. Therefore it is important to take into account the issue of

whether the programme/text resonates with the audience or readers. Once this is

understood, the task of analysis is to deconstruct not only individual signs, but also sign

systems or codes, to show how meaning is created.

According to Fairclough, media texts do not merely mirror realities but they constitute

versions of reality in ways which depend on the social positions and interests and

34
objectives of those who produce them (1995:103). He argues that these are done through

choices that are made at various levels in the process of producing texts:

The analysis of representational processes in a text therefore comes down to an

account of what choices are made, what is included and what is excluded, what is

made explicit or left implicit, what is foregrounded and what is backgounded,

what is thematised and what is unthematised, what process types and categories

are drawn upon to represent events… (Fairclough 1995:104).

Fairclough (1995) argues that there are two major aspects of representation in texts. The

first has to do with the structuring propositions, the second with the combination and

sequencing of propositions. The first is concerned with how events and relationships and

situations are represented, what motivates one set of choices over the other. The second

aspect is concerned with the combination and sequencing of propositions.

However, before engaging in analysis of what is in the text, one needs to attend to the

question of what is excluded from it (Fairclough (1995:105). In order to achieve this two

important concepts in semiotic analysis, were used, i.e. denotation and connotation.

Denotation refers to the manifest content of a set of signs that can be said to be

objectively there. Connotation on the other hand constitutes the latent content of what a

written text may be said to signify and works at a more subjective level of perception

(Cook 1992:99). Many connotations such as the way women are represented in society

have reached the status of a social consensus. According to Lacey (1998:59) some signs

carry particularly powerful connotations, which are perceived as myths:

Unsurprisingly, analysis of representation is mainly analysis of what is there in

the text. But it is also important to be sensitive to absences from the text, to

35
 things, which might have been there but are not or things pertaining to a given

area of social practice but not in others. Any text is a combination of explicit

meanings, what is actually said and implicit meanings, what is left unsaid but

taken as given, as presupposed (Fairclough 1995:105).

This is why it is important to note that meaning cannot exist in individual signs because

of their arbitrary nature and the fact that meaning is derived from their context. The two

concepts were useful in understanding the meanings conveyed in the articles and how

these meanings connect with particular social myths as influenced by social or cultural

life:

…even if our aim is to search for the supposedly non-linguistic social realities

purportedly present in the text, our raw material is inevitably the words and

written documents or spoken by interview (Lacey 1998:55).

According to Lacey, one of the great strengths of a semiotic approach is that the reader

is encouraged to look at familiar objects and ideas in a fashion that makes them appear

strange, nothing is taken for granted. Although this is conceptually difficult one is able to

look deep into the meanings that are being conveyed through the text (Lacey 1997:56).

In considering the process of how meaning is generated in communications, Morley

employs two distinct modes of analysis to analyse two distinct types of constraints on the

production of meaning (1992:75). These are (a) internal structures and mechanisms of the

text/message, which invite certain readings and block others. (b) the cultural background

of the reader or viewer which has to be studied sociologically.

Morley (1992) argues that there is no such thing as an innocent text or programme that

can claim to provide only entertainment rather than messages about society:

36
 Even though the explicit nature of the programme may seem to be of a rather

trivial nature, it may well be that a number of very important messages about

social attitudes and values are built into the texture (Morley 1992:82.)

According to Morley (1992) programmes/texts communicate more than their explicit

content, they also contain implicit messages through implications, assumptions or

connotations. He argues that in order to understand this level of latent or implicit

communication we need to go beyond commonsense observation. It is at this point that

we are able to confront a set of questions about how we can construct a method of

analysis that will enable the researchers to understand these more complex levels of

communication, hence the use of semiotics.

3.4.2 Analysis of advertisements

Although the main focus of discourse analysis is on language, language is not its only

concern. It is important to note that advertisements are a combination of both images and

language and therefore should be analysed as such, without ignoring either of the two.

According to Leiss et al. the relationship between images and text is a complementary

one, the text explains the visual and it sometimes work as a key to the visual (1990:199).

Cook maintains that pictures do far more than carry a story. Some advertisements create

powerful and complex messages almost entirely through pictures and are virtually

language free (1992:48). This is why the advertisements were analysed in terms of the

unconscious depth-messages, their arrangement as well as the meanings that are buried in

them.

37
 The advertisements were also analysed in terms of the mode of address, in terms of how

directly they appeal to the reader as well as their levels of persuasion. The context and

situation in which the images and text are presented to their intended recipient were also

be taken into account:

The semiological approach suggests that the meaning of an advertisement does

not float on the surface just waiting to be internalised by the viewer, but it is built

out of the ways that different signs are organised and related to each other, both

within the advertisement and through external references to wider belief systems

(Leiss et al., 1990:201).

This seems to suggest that for advertising, the reader or the viewer has to do some

work. Because the meaning is not lying there on the page, one has to make an effort to

grasp it. Leiss et al. (1990) argue that there are three steps that are involved when

decoding an advertisement. First the meaning of one sign is transferred to another and

this can happen in many ways: between persons and objects, between feelings and objects

etc. Second, the transfer of significance is not just completed within the advertisement

but the readers must make a connection themselves. Third, in order for the transfer to

take place, the first object must already have a meaning to be transferred, it must already

be significant to the audience.

However, the larger question to this three-step process of analysing images is whether

the readers can make the connection and whether their interpretation is the same as that

of the encoder. This is very important in this study because advertising works by appeal

to referent systems, it generates meaning through a process of connotation and

38
denotation. Every message contains two or more levels of meaning, what it says

explicitly on the surface and what it says implicitly below the surface.

According to Leiss et al., semiology highlights the way that we ourselves take part in

the creation of meaning in messages, suggesting that we are not mere bystanders in the

advertising process but participants in creating a code that unites the designer and the

reader (1990:208). If we are not adequately aware of the relevant referent system we will

not be able to decode the message. The important question therefore is what exactly the

designers of advertisements rely on in order to make sure that the readers can

comprehend the messages that are being conveyed to them.

39
Chapter 4

Analysis of Features

Introduction

This chapter analyses feature articles, focusing on the themes that are prevalent in the

representation of female sexuality. This was done, firstly, by establishing the frequency

of particular themes found in the features. This quantitative analysis was followed by a

descriptive analysis of the themes. The descriptive analysis of themes was then followed

by qualitative analysis of the issues that are being raised in them as well as the discourse

applied i.e. in terms of the tone and the language being used.

4.1 Analysis

4.1.1 Descriptive analysis

As noted by Ballaster et al. (1996:92), one of the most striking features of the magazine

is its heterogeneity, juxtaposing different genres, mixing print and photography and

offering a range of characterised voices. True Love and Cosmopolitan are A4 size

magazines with glossy pages and colourful designs. The way these magazines are

designed shows that they represent reality as a world of glamour, style and sophistication.

“True love, all a woman needs”, this phrase is typical of the way magazines address

women not only in terms of the meaning, but also in terms of the way that different

textual forms are constructed in such a way that they resonate with female desire. Female

desire is also a constructed feature of women’s magazines.

Cosmopolitan and True Love in particular, portray female desire as involving sexual

satisfaction, beauty, subscribing to a certain way of life or possessing some kind of

40
sophistication that goes with glamour and envy by those who have not reached the stage

that they aspire to.

The pertinent question in the analysis of the features therefore centres on the issue of

whether these magazines are about exploring women’s wishes and aspirations, whether

professional or social, without limitations or whether they represent women as glamorous

sex objects for men, or both. The magazines sell an image that most women aspire to.

The image is that of style and glamour. They make use of lively and colourful

photographs that are meant to attract the reader. Bold and explicit headlines are the way

to catch the reader’s attention. Because headlines are in big fonts and different shades of

bright colours, the headlines are hard to miss.

4.1.2 Frequency of themes in the features

The criteria that has been used for the classification of features involved surveying and

narrowing down topics that appeared frequently and categorising them according to

particular themes and listing those that appeared occasionally and do not fall under any of

the chosen themes as general ones.

The themes that were found to appear mostly as features in Cosmopolitan and True

Love were those that involved glamour, relationships and travel, while those that rarely

appeared, but are pertinent to women’s lives, were issues such as rape and abuse. There

were also several other topics, which have been classified as general ones since they did

not fall under any of the themes mentioned above. However, these topics are not totally

misplaced as they are the kind of issues that are important to mothers i.e. (“The art of

41
getting maintenance”) (True Love November 1997), (“What your features reveal about

your personality”) (Cosmopolitan August 1998).

4.1.3 Definition of themes with relevance to the study

· Glamour will be described as physical attractiveness especially cosmetic

attractiveness. Cosmetic attractiveness refers to physical appearance that is enhanced

by the use of make-up. This theme will therefore encompass stories on celebrities,

fashion as well as articles that focus on beautification.

· A celebrity is someone who is well known, someone who is renowned for a certain

talent that they possess, something that others would appreciate having. Someone

who is somehow perceived as a sex symbol, someone who is widely noted for their

sexual appeal: e.g. musician, model, artists, television presenters and public figures.

· Fashion is a popular or current style of dressing either in terms of clothing or

hairstyle. Fashion is usually described in terms of being favoured by ‘high society’,

those who are assumed to be knowledgeable about certain ways of dressing and are

on top of the fashion industry.

· Sexuality will be used as a theme that encompasses ones sex i.e. male or female and

their awareness of that, i.e. what it means to be a woman or man and the myths and

representations that are associated with being a man or woman. This term will also

therefore be used as way of describing ones sexuality, as well as relationships, in

terms of emotional association between men and women and how this is expressed.

· Sex appeal refers to sexual attractiveness- whether one is able to arouse interest or

draw attention to themselves.

42
· Class refers to the division or order of society. The way people are ranked according

to their economic status.

Having used quantitative content analysis to objectively and systematically measure the

frequency and length of articles that were analysed, about 90% of the features that

appear in the magazines are three pages long, while others are only one page long,

whereas others, such as the features on fashion, take as much as twelve pages or more.

The term features will be used according to the way it is used in the magazines. It refers

both to long or short texts that focus mostly on particular topics that are dealt with at

length and in-depth as well as articles that come in the form of advertisements of items

such as clothes and swimwear. For instance the November (1999) issue of Cosmopolitan

carried a feature that was solely composed of pictures with very little text that came in the

form of price description of the items that were being advertised as well as the shops that

sell them.

In both magazines, approximately 80% of the features are on glamour and sexuality,

while about 10% of them concentrate on issues such as rape and abuse. Because

quantitative content analysis yields repeatable precise results about the text, the charts

below, which were put together using quantitative content analysis, illustrate this by

stating the number of articles found on each issue according to the themes. This

illustrates how often certain topics or themes appear in each issue of the magazines. Also

pertinent to the issue of frequency is length. Length is important in weighing the

significance of certain articles over others.

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True Love Frequency Chart

Months Glamour Relationships Rape & Travel Other

Abuse

Nov 1997 5 2 1 0 5

Dec 1998 2 0 1 0 6

July 1999 2 2 0 0 5

Sept 1999 2 4 0 0 3

Chart 1

Cosmopolitan Frequency Chart

Months Glamour Relationships Rape & Travel Other

Abuse

Aug 1998 2 4 0 1 4

Nov 1998 2 5 0 0 4

Mar 1999 2 6 0 1 9

May 1999 3 8 0 2 5

July 1999 3 6 1 2 7

Nov 1999 3 4 1 2 4

Sept 1999 2 4 0 0 4

Chart 2

4.1.4 The woman represented in the magazine

Cosmopolitan and True Love seem to be aware of the fact that their readers both have

emotional and rational needs. However, they seem to take care more of the emotional

44
side than the rational. Most of their features concentrate on beauty, sexuality, travel and

relationships and articles on women’s issues such as rape and abuse do not appear as

much. Cosmopolitan and True Love were analysed in terms of the ideas that underpin or

inform their gender representations and these representations were considered through the

depiction of female sexuality and appearance.

The fictional woman depicted in these magazines is a single, heterosexual and young

woman who works as a secretary or semi-professional woman with unspecified dreams of

becoming a high-powered executive. She is located within the middle class but has

aspirations to an upper class location or middle class. Luxury items (defined as costly

possessions that give comfort and enjoyment but are not a necessity) are ideal accessories

for someone in pursuit of a luxurious life. These occupy her mind, as does the idea of

finding a man who can supply her with the economic stability she requires in order to live

luxuriously, satisfied and ‘happily’ ever after. The idea of catching a good man leads the

imaginary woman to a primary concern of having an attractive, well groomed

appearance, which can aid her in the search for and seduction of the man on whom she

has set her sights. The woman depicted in these magazines is a construction built on the

idea of transience; a fictional character that eternally aspires to certain ideals yet has not

reached her goals.

As stated by McRobbie (1996:189), the articles on beauty celebrate the female body as

an object to be worked on and improved in a loving manner. The image that is created

through the girl depicted in these magazines is a flexible identity that could be easily

changed through peformative tactics, covert strategies and cultural consumption. The idea

45
of this kind of woman is the predominant form of representation of the ideal woman in

the magazines.

There are between two and four features or articles each month that fall under the

headings beauty and fashion articles. Within the beauty and fashion section they have

titles such as (‘The tan commandments’ ) (Cosmopolitan September 1999), (‘Be true to

your type’) (True Love July 1999). These articles offer advice on how to conduct one’s

social life so that one can look good, thereby embodying the ideal of what it means to be

feminine. Here the notion of looking attractive and appealing sexually relates to the

media construction of women as a spectacle. The creation of the woman in these

magazines refers to what Ballaster et al. (1996) term the perceived homogeneity of the

reader. There is a shared version of femininity, moral virtue and lifestyle. This is

extended through the form of dress found in the magazines. Ballaster et al. contend that

‘many analysts have been struck by the intimate tone employed to address the reader .The

cosy vocation of a known commonality between “we women”’ (1991:87). The magazine

addresses the reader at a more personal level. It starts off by setting up the problem,

which might or might not be relevant to the reader’s personal life. Then the problem is

explored through a combination of knowledge from the experts – psychologists who are

also frequent contributors to the magazines, writers and personal testimonies including,

often, the author’s own. Finally they come up with numbered or labeled strategies of

action about what to do in order to solve the problems (Winship 1987:102). The contents

of the magazines clearly show the way magazines address the reader at a personal level.

In the December 1998 issue of Cosmopolitan there are three out of twenty six articles,

46
which include personal pronouns in their headlines, four out of fourteen in the September

1999 issue.

The criticism that is aimed at the assumed homogeneity however, is that the single

voice, with its single personality marginalises others. It is also misleading in creating the

perception of a universal version of femininity, moral virtue and lifestyle. This is not to

say that the heterosexual girl is the only representation found in the magazines. Lesbian

images of women do find their way into the pages of the magazines but according to

McRobbie this kind of representation exists as a category in the magazines, as a sign that

we live in a more open, multicultural sexually diverse society (1996: 182).

4.1.5 Profile of the readers

As illustrated in the All Media Products Survey (AMPS 1997), the age groups to which

these magazines appeal to most are between 16 and 24 with 47,9% of Cosmopolitan’s

readership coming from this age group. For True Love it is 41,1% on the same age group.

From ages 24-35 Cosmopolitan commands 28,7% while True Love commands 35,9%.

This is evident in the way the reader is addressed. The writer makes use of a personalised

language, almost implying that every reader will associate with the messages that are

conveyed. This person is, however, construed as an individual or is referred to as an

individual who shares or understands the message being conveyed. (‘The millennium and

your love life’), (Be true to your type) (Cosmopolitan May 1999, True Love July 1999). It

is assumed that the readers have a common understanding of the messages conveyed and

they either wish or are leading the kind of life expressed in the magazines. It is assumed

that the readers who read these magazines can relate to what is being conveyed to them.

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 However, the truth is that not every woman can afford to buy these or even the lifestyle

represented in the magazines. According to Ballaster et al. (1996:88) such inclusivity is

patently a lie. Ballaster et al. (1996:88) argue that the ideal or implied reader of most

women’s magazines is self evidently middle-class, white and heterosexual.

Although True Love has been in the industry for only five years as a women’s

magazine, in the South African context one would argue that black women also have a

magazine that they can relate to and possibly identify themselves with, although it is not

as fully developed as Cosmopolitan. This is evident in the types of issues that they cover

in their feature articles. They range from profiles about potential black role models or

celebrities who have made it to the top i.e. (“Tsholo Matseke flying high on Soul City and

prime time news on e.tv”) (True Love September 1999). Some of the issues addressed

relate specifically to black culture i.e. (‘Traditions: should the role of umakoti change?’)

(True Love September 1999).

It also appears that both Cosmopolitan and True Love appeal to a readership that has a

higher level of education, either at tertiary or high school level. The language used and

the level of reasoning has been pitched to that of a mature or knowledgeable person.

Someone who knows or has an idea of what they want in life in terms of their career and

life in general. The subjects that are referred to in the articles are men and women who

are assumed to be of a mature age not girls and boys. The language used in the magazines

may not be accessible to anyone. For instance there are terms that may be understandable

to someone who has been exposed to university or college life, experiences that one may

only be exposed to at university or in a working environment.

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 This could also be linked to the age of the readers. The target audience of both

magazines is that of readers who are living or would like to lead a new kind of life, which

is centred around a new image of a modern woman, aspiring to make it to the corporate

world. The magazines texts somehow suggests this in that they give suggestions on what

approach to take in life and advice on how one can improve the person they are in order

to achieve their goals and dreams. The ideology that these magazines subscribe to is that

of competitiveness and individual success. They are committed to women winning and

with the focus mainly on self-assertion.

Articles such as (“Be brave! Get the life you want: Here is how to resist the appeal of

giving up”) (Cosmopolitan March 1999), say it all. (‘…the comfort zone. Very appealing,

But are you settling for less than your personal best’?). These statements refer

particularly to someone who has dreams, because certainly if one does not have dreams

they are unlikely to be bothered about realising the best in them or enhancing their

potential to be an achiever. (“Aiming for the stars: SA first netball star talks about her

dreams”) (True Love, September 1999). The dreams do not only end in office careers but

those who aspire to become successful sports people are given a reason not to give up.

These magazines can be said to appeal to working women some of whom are single and

independent. Although this is the case their content, especially True Love does not

exclude married women or single mothers altogether. Once in a while these magazines

carry features discussing issues of motherhood, fertility (How fertile are you?) in

(Cosmopolitan August 1998), tips on how to get maintenance (The art of getting your

maintenance) in (True Love November 1997).

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4.2 Textual analysis

4.2.1 The mode of address

The term ‘mode of address’ refers to the manner in which the reader is addressed by the

text through the writer. This involves paying attention particularly to the kind of

relationship the writer has with the reader, whether the writer appeals to the readers and

what kind of readers the writer appeals to.

The woman who is addressed by the features in the magazine text is addressed first and

foremost as a consumer of the message of the text and of the commodities, which it

presents as essential to the business of her becoming or construction. This refers to the

products that are sold in the magazines as well as the lifestyle that goes with them. The

lifestyle cannot simply be achieved through aspiration and admiration but one has to take

action, by purchasing the products that will make her realise her dreams. The writers

therefore assume that the readers are in need of help for one thing or another.

The manner in which the issues are discussed in the features encourages the reader to

use these popular texts as one of the resources to help them realise their dreams. A typical

example of this is a feature on (“visualising love, success and happiness”) in

Cosmopolitan (September 1999). This feature gives tips that can help one to realise their

dreams. The feature article starts as follows: “So you think Madonna, Meg Ryan and

Donna Karan owe their stardom to luck…. All these celebrities admit there’s an element

to their fortune within everyone’s reach.” This approach assumes that the reader will

follow the plan hinted at them and thus suggests that the reader is not passive. The writer

invites the reader to be active and take charge of her life.

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 Because of the personal manner in which the writer engages the reader, the majority of

the feature articles focus on the self. They advise that everything else including success

stems from being a confident and assertive person. A representative example is that of an

article on (“how to learn to like yourself”) (Cosmopolitan September 1999). The focus on

the self is later on linked to other people who might be in the same situation as you. The

writer assumes that there is commonality between the readers. (“You are not alone -even

celebrities have self esteem problems…”) (Cosmopolitan September 1999).

Indirectly, the writer encourages the reader not to give up on herself or her dreams as

there are several other women out there who have the same problems or who share the

same aspirations. This comes as some form of group therapy, whereby the writer also

highlights that even the celebrities who are mostly perceived as people who lead the

most perfect lives also suffer from certain insecurities as every other ordinary woman.

The writer therefore constructs some kind of a relationship or friendship between

themselves and the reader.

The question however, here is whether the reader recognises the relationship as such.

That the writer is trying to reach out to her with the hope of making a difference in her

life or whether the reader perceives the writer as her heroine.

4.2.2 What the magazine sells

Cosmopolitan and True love sell guidance to readers about how to express themselves

and attain a certain freedom. Beauty and all are meant to help women establish and

protect their developing self-identity in a world that is hostile or different. Some of the

features in the magazines encourage their readers to be in control of their lives as well as

51
their sexuality, to have courage to leave men behind and take chances, to please

themselves instead of pleasing men.

The articles sell the idea that a woman needs to focus on enjoying her own pleasure and

independence. Pleasure is one of the key words that are used frequently in the feature

articles. In the context of the magazines, pleasure is used in two ways. It is used either as

feeling of satisfaction and joy or sensual gratification. The feeling of satisfaction and joy

may be coming from realising one’s ambitions and ideals. One’s ability to conform to

some external standard of excellence by pursuing one’s own personal best. The feeling of

satisfaction and joy may also come from being recognised by others as an achiever.

According to Winship (1987), although pleasure feels like an individual and spontaneous

expression, it is something that has to be learnt. It depends on being familiar with the

cultural codes of what is meant to be pleasurable and on occupying the appropriate social

spaces. True Love (November 1997) carried a feature on the lives of (“India's wealthiest

women”). This article takes this argument further by suggesting that women have a

choice to do what pleases them most. The magazines also sell the idea that through

positive articles like that, women can learn more about themselves by exploring their

talents and gathering courage and will from other women achievers out there.

4.2.3 Women taking charge

Pleasure as sensual gratification is used in the context of women aiming to please

themselves. They do so by striving towards enhancing their sexual gratification. Pleasing

themselves rather than going out of their way to please men.

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 The features illustrate the notion of liberation of women to suggest that women are

represented as subjects in sexuality than objects of men’s desire, at the same time

representing women’s independence as synonymous with heterosexual sex and love. A

characteristic example is that of an article on operation orgasm (Cosmopolitan (March

1999: 132). This article talks about how women go for genital makeovers in quest for an

orgasm. According to the article these speedy surgical makeovers are meant to snip and

tuck muscles so as to increase the orgasm quota. What this connotes is that women have

come to realise that their sexual needs are as important as their partners’ and they are

willing to go out of their way to make sure that they get the pleasure they need if they

cannot get it the natural way. Moreover, this also reflects on the independence that

women have and/or are seeking in their sexual relationships.

Cosmopolitan and True Love claim to have the knowledge that will inform the reader

on how to have it all, sex, success, and liberation. The message the magazines convey is

that today’s woman is or should be less threatened about her sexuality. She can do as she

pleases with her body. It is an exploration of one’s womanness.

However, the same approach could be looked at from another perspective. That the

liberation of women in the magazines may be constructed in the interests of men’s sexual

desire. It could be argued that if a woman goes for a vaginal nip, (which according to the

magazine is described as a procedure that involves suturing the vaginal wall muscles

together to create a smaller circumference) they also seek to please their partners who

will see them as great in bed. Because texts are often subject to multiple interpretations,

the question is whether the writer is aware of such perceptions and that her intended

message might not necessarily be interpreted the way she expected.

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 Contrary to the idea of women pleasing themselves, the same issue of Cosmopolitan

(March 1999) carries an article on how to discover (“his sexual hot spots and have the

greatest time of your sex life”) This article is about discovering what makes the partner

happy. Although women’s magazines are meant to be leaving up to the aspirations of

their readers, they constantly betray their so called freedom and independence. The article

puts the man first. As a woman you are urged to make an effort to discover what makes

him happy. How about getting your partner to discover things that make you as a woman

happy. Men’s sexual desires are put first and yet the writers of such articles are also

women and the magazines are supposed to appeal to women.

However, looking at the nature of women’s magazines as some form of popular

culture, one could argue that the article suggests that women are also represented as

actors and are seen as active in the sexual act rather than being passive and being acted

upon. That the article also suggests that if you please your man, you are also likely to also

get the pleasure you seek. This encourages women to meet their partners on equal

ground.

This, on the contrary, also connotes that women have to work hard in order to get

sexual pleasure. One of the subjects in the story says: “… I have used what I learnt [then]

to turn him on and our sex life has been really hot.” (Cosmopolitan March 1999).

Personal pleasure in the magazines is also expressed in the form of dress. The trend in

skimpy clothes bespeaks a certain body confidence. It is about girls being happy to be

girls, to show their curves. It is about saying: I am going to show a little bit of leg or

shoulder and have fun because this is who I am. In a sense the magazines disclose some

kind of progressive intention conforming to a liberal image of women.

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4.2.4 How images represent women

Although the feature articles encourage their readers to be independent and liberal, the

photographs that go along with these articles suggest the opposite. The photographic

images used in the editorial and in the advertising are polemical in feminist critical

analysis of women’s magazines. There is a tendency to discuss the phenomena of male

gaze in feminist media studies, but this is related more closely to the cinematic gaze than

that found in print. However there could be a similarity between the gaze used in cinema

and print.

Most photographs in the magazines focus more on women’s bodies as sex objects, they

heighten the visual pleasure of looking at the human body. One could argue that this is a

gendered male gaze, objectifying the women within the pages of the magazine. These

photographs take a totally different approach to that illustrated in the features. The

women in these pictures appear sexually vulnerable and accessible for sexual pleasure,

with the focus mainly on their breasts, eyes and lips. Because media texts do not mirror

realities but constitute the versions of reality in ways, which depend on the social

positions and interests and objectives of those who reproduce them, the desirability of the

model seems to be constructed through class coded signifiers such as exposed cleavage,

teased hair, sexy eyes, heavy make up, fancy and suggestive costumes. These symbolisms

are associated with how women are perceived, as objects that are there to please men.

The article from Cosmopolitan (March 1999) illustrates this. “Discover his sexual Moan

zones”: Cosmo brings you the complete guide to the seven secret wonders of his world.

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4.2.5 Female sexuality

Some of the features are simply a lot of pages on fashion. These kinds of features

present, semi-naked and sexually appealing women as well as women wearing the latest

in fashion, with the facial features enhanced through make-up. The clothing items that are

advertised in these features are often associated with sexual appeal. This is evident in the

way that the models pose. They are usually featured with a sexy appeal with the focus on

the eyes and lips. The text that complements these fashion features also stresses sexual

attractiveness i.e. (“Earth Sirens: Exude killer sex appeal in summer’s tribal two piece”)

(November 1999). Their style also looks sophisticated and expensive.

What this connotes is that femininity is not a natural order but is achieved through hard

labour and expense. This proves the nature of magazines in that they exist as

commodities and as a vehicle for advertisements and other commodities. This is because

the consumer envies not only the glamorous model in an advertisement but herself as she

will be in the future after having purchased the product advertised.

Whatever is advertised to women in these fashion features, be it clothes, careers or

contraception, the readers are somehow urged to change themselves into the ‘new

woman’ of the moment. This is, however, only possible through following the guidelines

provided in the magazines. This involves adopting whatever definition of liberation or

modernity is current and buying whatever signifies that they are clued up on the latest in

fashion and lifestyle.

Representations of the new woman are ultimately bound up with the politics of identity,

who you are and what class you belong to. The latest look is being sold to those who

naturally do not want to be left behind. Although this is not expressed explicitly, this

56
approach suggests that women can wear sexy underwear and short skirts, because

feminism makes them aware that they are equal to men and can liberate themselves from

patriarchal domination by doing what pleases them and not necessarily their men. This

connotes something not so different from earlier, sexist encodings of women’s sexual

availability.

Cosmopolitan and True Love always carry more than one article on relationships, sex

and beauty in each issue. They place emphasis on female sexuality. Articles such as (‘the

simple secret of sexual confidence’) ( Cosmopolitan August 1998), (‘operation orgasm’)

(Cosmopolitan March 1999), (‘Foreplay-the secrets of fore play’) (True Love September

1999) invite ordinary women into the sexual revolution and they are offered instruction

on the latest sexual protocol. These articles some how put emphasis on sexual equality in

the bedroom accompanied by a taste of being liberated. What this means is that women

can be in control of their sexuality and can be the ones to take the initiative to please

themselves and not wait for men to please them.

Today’s woman can transform advertising and magazine images into reality for

themselves because they can afford to buy products behind those images. It is a matter of

aesthetics and taste and how individual items can contribute to an overall image and

lifestyle, with the emphasis on style rather than life. Being a woman involves constantly

adjusting one’s own image to fit time and place in an ever-changing game of images and

the real life is constantly thought through images (Winship 1987).

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4.2.6 The discourse of the magazines

Stylistically there is the use of superlatives, questions and imperatives such as

(‘Visualise it’), which McRobbie says is teasing, coaxing but also urgent language

(1996:77). The possessive ‘your man’' or ‘my man’ is used often throughout the

magazines. Images of sexuality and their messages of underlying femininity appear most

prominently. As McRobbie says, sex is regarded now as something to be learnt, rather

than something that just happens naturally when a woman is in love with a man. Sexual

technique is offered in True Love and Cosmopolitan as a means to educating a woman in

terms of how to please her man and herself. What this connotes is that the woman’s

happiness is seen as resting on meeting and having a man with whom she is sexually

compatible. Consequently, disliking sex is seen or depicted as a deficiency rather than a

choice that one could be living comfortably with. This is prevalent in an article from

Cosmopolitan (September 1999) (“ I wish I liked sex more”). A paragraph from the

article goes like this: … lack of sexual enjoyment can be remedied, so if you don’t have

interest, you could be helped and your interest boosted.

Another point of interest that McRobbie raises is that in women’s magazines there is a

huge expansion of sexual fantasy material for girls and women …in the guise of

information, meaning that there is a sexual titillation value found within the guise of

education. In the December 1998 issues of both magazines there are six articles out of

twenty-six that are sex-related features. In the September 1999 issue there are four

articles out of fourteen which are sex related. This does not include regular articles such

as ‘upfront woman’ and ‘upfront man’( in Cosmpolitan), which deal with specific sex and

relationship areas.

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 This illustrates that the magazine’s periodicity, its regular appearance once a month or

once a week allows both an open ended (continuing series or features) routine and

confirming its readers in a way of life where leisure like work is regulated in time.

59
Chapter 5

Analysis of Advertisements

Introduction

This chapter attempts to analyse advertisements in terms of their representations of

women. This includes looking closely at the messages that are being conveyed directly or

indirectly. Advertisements carry multiple messages that are targeted at certain individuals

who may either identify with the messages or attempt to relate to them. This sense of

identification can be expressed either by wishing or imagining one in the scenario that is

being sold to them, which may eventually prompt them to do something about their

wishes.

Semiology is used as a guide into understanding and unloading messages that are sent

through text as well as visuals. It is a good tool to use when carrying out qualitative

analysis since it entails studying the social production of meaning from sign systems.

(Fiske: 1990,41). Sign systems of communication are characterised by the presence of a

physical form, which must refer to something other than itself and must be used and

recognised by people. According to Fiske:

The message stimulates you to create meaning for yourself that relates in some

way to the meaning that is generated in the message. The more we share the same

codes, the more we use the same sign systems, the closer ‘our two meanings’ of

the message will approximate to each other (1990: 39)

For instance, a heart shaped picture or drawing symbolises love and this interpretation

is understood universally. This may be the reason why advertising plays very well on the

use of women as a symbol of beauty because that is almost universal. However, several

60
other meanings may also arise from the concept of beauty and used to express certain

connotations or used to sell something. This may be interpreted as negative

representation of women because it is not challenging intellectually. Moreover, women’s

beauty has been reduced to a means of selling products and thus using the woman as a

symbol. In most advertisements, the representations of beauty in women varies from

beauty as expressed through her face to beauty as expressed through certain parts of the

body. The woman’s body is often used as a landmark to draw attention. Sometimes this

involves representing women as sex objects especially in advertisements that present

women as an incentive to buy the product.

Advertisers also play on sexuality as a way of representing beauty. Words used in

advertisements for beauty products play around this concept so well. Words that are often

used include seduction, bliss, romance etc. Because advertisements have latitude as

persuasive communication, advertisers tend to play more on sexuality as a way of getting

through to their target audience.

80% of advertisements that appear in True love and Cosmopolitan mostly focus on

improving one’s beauty and image, through beauty products such as facial creams and

hair products and through clothing, jewellery and perfumes. The advertisements promote

the means through which one can attain the ideal beauty as represented in the magazines.

These advertisements are constructed in a way that is guaranteed to capture the

attention of the reader . This is done either by stating the problems that one may be faced

with and then offering solutions, which are illustrated through the use of women as the

symbol of beauty.

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 A woman with flawless skin in the case of skin products, or sex appeal illustrated

through a focus on certain parts of the body i.e. eyes, lips, in the case of a perfume and

class and sophistication in jewellery. Because advertisements act on the insecurities and

anxieties (acne, weight, beauty etc) of the reader, this type of appeal is meant to give a

sense of relief to the reader. To make them believe that they too can achieve that kind of

beauty and class, status or position because the advertisement promises and illustrates

that it can get rid of the problem or can help one achieve the look they are longing for.

The woman who suffers from acne for instance is lured into thinking that if they buy the

product, their problem will be solved and they can become a much happier person.

However, most advertisements simply give a general description of the product without

taking into consideration that the target market is not as homogeneous as the magazines

address it. Moreover, not everyone may respond positively to the product. As stated

before most of the advertisements that are contained in the magazines deal with beauty.

Because such advertisements dominate the magazines, the advertisements that will be

analysed below have therefore been chosen from a pool of advertisements, which

essentially promote beauty either through beauty products or jewellery. Purposive

sampling has therefore been used and inferences to the whole population from the sample

will be made.

5.1 Analysis of Advertisements

Advertisements, just like editorial content, also acquire meaning in the interaction

between readers and the visual images. They are often strategically placed in relation to

editorial material, encouraging readers to notice them. An analysis of the visuals and text

on their own is not enough to reconstruct meanings (Hermes 1993).

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 Advertisements are often a combination of images and language and therefore should

be analysed as such. Although readers may recognise the codes of given text and accord

it limited associative meaning, they do not always accord it generalised significance, that

is a distinct and nameable place in their world views (Hermes: 1993)

The text explaining the visual sometimes works as an introduction to the visual.

However, advertisements made up of photographic texts can also tell a full story. It is

therefore imperative to look at such advertisements with a deep and critical eye that will

allow the reader to unravel the implicit meaning of the message. This involves looking at

how directly the advertisement appeals to the reader, the levels of persuasion, context and

situation in which images are presented to the intended recipient. How influential is

gender in our experiences? What is associated with men/women? How differently are the

lives of men and women represented? These questions will help in understanding how

women are represented in the magazines.

5.1.1 How the advertisements appeal to the reader

Estee lauder is a brand name that sells beauty products that mostly include make-up.

Like most advertisements, the Estee lauder advertisement is typical of many

advertisements. It appeared in both Cosmopolitan and True Love because the two

magazines are targeted at women and so is the product. The advertisement is spread over

two pages. Popular magazines are the perfect medium for these advertisements as they

are often characterised by bright colours, glossy paper and bold writing. On one page is a

full colour picture where the product is presented (small brown bottle) as well as text that

explains it. On the next page is a black and white picture of a woman dressed presentably

63
in a white outfit that matches with her shoes. The advertisement addresses the reader as

an individual. It draws you into the visual image, and it makes you want to become the

person represented in it. The advertisement sells an improved product on make up. This

connotes the transition that is involved should one choose to use the product. This

involves adding colour to one’s look. The woman’s posture, clothing and facial

expression signify sexual confidence and availability. The confident gaze at the viewer

invites the approach of the female consumer who in turn might wish to make herself

more consumable for men in the same way the model does. While sexual confidence

emanates from the image of the model, on the contrary the image renders insignificant

the woman’s identity or anything else she might achieve beyond attracting men. The

signifiers in this text, which are linked by the theme of sexuality, might arguably be

categorised as trading on the myths about women that pervade the western culture. That

before anything else women must strive to be sexually attractive for the sake of male

pleasure. And by privileging particular types of femininity above others, white, thin

conventionally beautiful, sexually confident women are confirmed as the most desirable,

thereby reinforcing myths about what constitutes desirable femininity. Moreover, the

advertisement makes the reader believe that their beauty will definitely be enhanced

should they use the product. The advertisement totally ignores the fact that women are

different in every respect including skin types and not everyone may respond positively

to the product.

Estee Lauder-double wear make up-great looks are here to stay, is the catch phrase of

the advertisement. What the advertisement suggests to the reader is that she may no

longer have to worry about looking perfect all day because double-wear “maintains its

64
semimate finish through heat, humidity and activity.” This could be directed to a working

woman who in her busy working life also does not want to be left behind. A woman who

always wants to look perfect and feel good about herself. Perfection in this advertisement

connotes attraction. Even the woman represented in the advertisement looks perfect and

her skin flawless. The suggestion is that you as a reader can also achieve that perfection.

The bottle in which the product comes also looks small, just convenient for one to slip

into their bag and that makes it accessible to the person whenever they need it.

Perfection also connotes sexy and admirable. This suggests that the product can and

will give the consumer absolute perfection. Although the advertisement promotes make

up, it essentially goes beyond that. The make-up cannot just work wonders on a person

who does not look after herself. Dressing presentably and looking after yourself is part of

the look and the two go together. However, although dressing presentably does not

necessarily mean wearing a dress that reveals your cleavage, that is how sexual appeal is

described in the magazines. The focus on the eyes and lips sends a message. They have

been enhanced with the intention to bring out the beauty and attractiveness in them.

Loreal- because I am worth it - Loreal is also a beauty brand name that sells products

ranging from make up products to hair products. The advertisement sells lipstick and this

is done through a woman who is nicely made-up, her skin flawless, with her facial

features well enhanced. The picture is a close-up with the focus mainly on eyes and lips.

The advertisement gives the reader the feeling that they are something. The reader is

made to feel like the woman in the advertisement, in fact she is the woman in the

advertisement. Because you as a reader know that you are worth the look, the perfection,

the sexy look, Loreal can do a lot to enhance what you already have. The advertisement

65
implicitly says you have got the look and Loreal will help you enhance and perfect it.

There’s a sense of control and independence there. However, the advertisement sends a

very misleading perception , that of making the reader believe that they can achieve

perfect beauty in a short space of time. To begin with, the people who do such

advertisements choose their models carefully and as a result the model is young and has

the most perfect skin. The advertisement takes for granted the fact that there are people

with serious skin problems that cannot just be overcome by covering them up with make

up. Advertisements such as these only offer quick solutions without really considering

the feelings of their targeted customers. This gives the impression that all they are

concerned with is selling the product and beyond that they are not interested.

Tommy girl- a declaration of independence - Tommy girl is a perfume, a sister to

Tommy, a perfume for men. The advertisement for Tommy girl depicts a young woman

lying on her stomach with her hair loose. She looks youthful and attractive. She has a

radiant smile, which suggests how content she is with herself. Like the advertisement

says, it is a declaration of her independence, your independence as a reader. This phrase

implies that you can do what you want when you want to. The freshness you will get

from the perfume will give you confidence, which will in turn give you freedom, because

with confidence comes the courage to do what you want and be what you want to be.

When one feels good about themselves their spirit is also moved, and that is where you

get the confidence from.

Angel - It’s like being caressed by a cloud - The advertisement plays on and around

sexuality, The choice of words in this advertisement validates this. You can feel like

being caressed if you ‘slip into the world of delicious, playful seduction. Deliciously

66
effervescent, innocently irresistible’. This implicitly suggests to the reader that if they

step into the world that is being described in the advertisement then they may end up with

the real thing, getting a man that will find them irresistible because of the nice scent.

However, there is more to life than just finding a man.

De beers - ... nothing radiates like a diamond - This advertisement’s catch phrase

sends a very powerful message, that of beauty as expressed through a woman. The set of

diamond earrings, amongst other things symbolizes beauty, radiance and happiness. What

this advertisement connotes is that you can also be as radiant provided you also wear a

pair of diamond earrings or any other accessories made from diamonds. The beautiful

woman represented in the advertisement is used as a sign, a symbol of beauty and

attractiveness. Like others this advertisement is very persuasive. It invites the reader into

a world of “magic” because ‘nothing weaves its magic like a diamond’.

All the advertisements that have been analysed above exploit women as means towards

advertising and as sex objects. The advertisers could have easily used men as models, still

applying the same concepts. Gender difference is given meaning and as such these

advertisements legitimise sexism . The images used are an invitation to male fantasy and

as the means for advertisements. They encourage men to associate beauty with sexuality.

This confirms the fact that women dominate in commercials for cosmetics and personal

hygiene and these goods have no relation to the intellectual capacity of women.

However it could also be argued that these images articulate transcendence from class

roles to sexual ones.

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Chapter 6

Comparison between True Love and Cosmopolitan

Introduction

True Love and Cosmopolitan differ in their social positions, target market (and their

readership), content, and advertising although they share a major similarity as both

women’s magazines and glossy magazines.

6.1 Target markets and readership

The two magazines target women of different classes and races as readers.

Although Cosmopolitan as a worldwide magazine enjoys a huge readership with its

target market mainly white people it also commands a good number of black readers. The

magazine was created specifically for a white heterosexual and middle class woman, but

black women were acknowledged but not represented as models for emulation ( Laurie

Ouellette 1999: 367).

True Love caters for the needs of the black women both in the middle and upper

classes. Cosmopolitan on the other hand is not only for the aspiring woman who wants to

conform to the ideals of western beauty but also appeals to the woman who has somehow

accomplished what is being touted in the magazines but would like to maintain it.

The price of Cosmopolitan is almost double that of True Love. True Love costs R7, 25

Cosmopolitan costs R13,45. The income brackets of the readers who purchase these

magazines also differ. According to the Annual Media Products Survey (AMPS 1997),

the majority of the readers who buy Cosmopolitan fall under the income bracket of R4,

68
000 a month and above. True Love is bought mostly by readers who earn between R1,

500 and R2, 500 followed by those earning between R900 and R1, 399 and then by those

earning less than R500. The number of readers who earn between R6, 000 and R9, 000 is

smaller than the income brackets that have been mentioned above. This could mean that

the black readers who belong in the highest income brackets are being taken away by the

so-called upper class magazines like Cosmopolitan. By the South African living

standards measure (LSM) True Love is read mostly by those who belong in LSM group 6,

which is the middle class, whereas Cosmopolitan is read by those who belong in LSM

group 8 (upper-class). The reader in LSM group 6 is the one who aspires to lead the kind

of life that is represented in the magazines and in LSM group 8 are the readers who

already have the look and the lifestyle but would like to maintain it. The magazines

resonates with their lifestyles. They can therefore afford to follow the suggestions put

before them no matter how costly, whereas the reader who belongs in group six might

have to improvise.

6.2 Content

Although there is a degree of similarity in the issues that the magazines deal with, there

are notable differences. Both magazines cover almost every month, stories on celebrities,

relationships, sexuality and beauty, as shown by charts 1 & 2. Although these are the

most prominent issues in both magazines True Love also caters not only for the single

mother but also for the married woman who works as a professional and a housewife.

One prominent feature about True Love is that it is a South African magazine. The South

African edition of Cosmopolitan on the other hand, supposedly targeted at a South

69
African readership, does not deal with issues particularly within the South African

context. It deals with issues at a more universal level, assuming that their readers are the

same irrespective of geographic boundaries. This may be because it enjoys a global status

and therefore the issues that it covers especially on beauty are those pertaining to ideal

beauty as defined in the western culture. The features for this ideal type of beauty include

being skinny, light skinned, tall with long flowing hair. However this ideal kind of beauty

is now not only applicable to white women as was intended when the magazine started

but is also adopted by black women as well. True Love, for instance does not really focus

on what may be called ‘African beauty’ but invariably ‘celebrates’ the western kind of

beauty. Most of their advertisements show models who are light skinned, the dark

skinned model is hardly ever used as the model to represent ‘ideal beauty’.

However it is fair to say that True Love does cater for the woman with a “fuller figure”

(a full rounded body shape, big but not necessarily overweight). They often carry features

on how women with ‘fuller figure’ can dress smartly and presentably. However, this

effort is immediately undermined, because the tips that are given are meant for the

woman with a fuller figure to achieve the look that will not make her look big. The

colours that are suggested to her are supposed to make her look thinner. She does not

only have to worry about the colours but about the fabric and must avoid certain types of

fabric. She has to pay attention to some detail in the fabric and its texture. For instance a

fabric with horizontal lines is a definite no because it will make her look plumpy and

short, so says the fashion expert.

So the extent to which women’s needs are defined in both magazines differs. For

instance True Love carries a spotlight column on women’s issues ranging from physical

70
abuse to rape. This is usually just a page. True Love does not only address the lonely

woman who is in need of beauty and subsequently a man but also the housewife who has

to deal with issues such as discovering that her child was raped by her husband. One

could say True Love is not only a magazine that will only entertain but can also be useful

for women who experience problems or difficulties in their marriages for instance. The

magazine is therefore both entertaining and useful for women.

This is not to say that Cosmopolitan does not carry articles that attempt to advocate

women’s rights and sexual equality but it does this differently. Cosmopolitan represents

today’s woman as the assertive type that earns her own salary, owns a car and is pursuing

a very good career. The kind of women who can live perfectly without men in their lives

(and in fact having a man in their lives would mean trouble), and are in control of their

lives. The women who are on a mission to prove to men that they can be in control not

only of their lives but their sexuality as well.

The kind of photographs that these magazines carry especially on the front cover differ.

Cosmopolitan goes for the ‘almost naked look’ in a full length picture, whereas True

Love goes more for the conservative head and shoulder picture with the woman dressed

in a not so revealing outfit. These differences signify the background of the magazines.

Cosmopolitan focused on sexuality from its inception and is still heavily marketing that

look. For Cosmopolitan the saying that sex sells is indeed true. On the other hand True

Love is still trying to find its feet. It has not really drawn a line between what it strictly

advocates. The young , single and sexually active woman is catered for and so is the

married woman with marital problems.

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 Broadly, one could say that both magazines are commercially produced women’s

magazines. The content acts highly on the insecurities of women. The woman is made to

believe that they can become the woman who is represented in the magazine by offering

advice on how to be that person. It is clear that the sexy look is the ideal one. Whether

you are a single professional or married with children you are still encouraged to acquire

the sexy look for your husband. No matter how busy you are with family life the

magazines remind you that you have a duty to yourself to have the ideal look.

6.3 Advertising

Like most commercial consumer publications, True Love and Cosmopolitan are

financed predominantly through advertising. Consequently advertisements in these

magazines take more space than content. They do not only come in their literal

photographic form but also in the form of advertorial features.

An average Cosmopolitan edition with about 190 pages carries approximately 40

advertisements, whereas True Love with 170 pages carries approximately 30

advertisements in an edition. It is important to note that most advertisements in

Cosmopolitan and True Love are full-page spreads and some even run over two pages.

True Love also carries small adverts i.e. 10cm length. Advertisements in Cosmopolitan

range from expensive beauty products to expensive accessories such as watches and

jewellery in general. The brand names that are advertised in the magazine are not for the

ordinary low-income readers and are mostly international brand names. True Love on the

other hand carries mostly local brand names ranging from beauty products to baby

products and advertisements on distance education.

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 Competitions in Cosmopolitan are about trips abroad paid for by sponsors and not

about winning kitchen appliances as is the case in True Love. This is an indicator of the

differences in target markets. The Cosmopolitan reader does not have to worry about

kitchen appliances because she already has them. What would be interesting to her would

be to think about going on holiday to some exotic island where she can have her peace.

From the points that have been addressed above it is clear that the two magazines have

similarities and differences that are in particular influenced by their history, context and

development in terms of class and status. Race and economic status influence their

development. Women’s issues and needs are defined differently. Cosmopolitan

concentrates more on the single professional woman while the married professional

woman is also the targeted reader in True Love.

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Chapter 7

Conclusion

Introduction

The analysis of both the feature articles and advertisements in this study inform the

conclusions that have been made and will be outlined in this chapter. It is important to

note however, that in answering the questions to the study more than one conclusion has

been reached because the analysis has landed the researcher to a conclusion of multiple

findings. The outcome of the study will therefore be a series of three conclusions based

on the following:

1) Feature articles

2) Advertisements

3) Theoretical level

As stated by (Winship 1987:38), the business of magazines is a venture involved in two

disparate but intimately linked selling operations: one to women, the other to advertisers

(Winship 1987:38). What this means is that the magazines serve both the needs of the

advertisers and those of the reader interchangeably, to the benefit of both the reader and

the advertisers. The extent to which either of the two benefits is an issue on its own.

Cosmopolitan and True Love portray an element of women seen as sex objects. They

also represent women as independent and in control of their sexuality. However, it is

important to note that these two elements are not represented equally. The main focus is

on women as sex objects.

74
7.1 Features: Women seen as independent and in control

Features mostly represent women as people who are independent, in control of their

sexuality. The evidence in the study demonstrates that women are not the puppets that

earlier forms of feminism think they are represented as. They have choices to make about

their professional and social lives including their sexual lives. They are not simply

confronted with situations over which they have no choices to make. For instance the

target market of these magazines or the implied readers are a group of educated

professional women who have dreams and know what they want in life.

The feature articles address the issue of women’s sexuality in a manner that encourages

the implied reader to be in control. The feature articles give tips on how they can make

their men please them and thus validate their status as women. Women are made aware

that they can get men to do exactly what they want in a way that satisfies them. That they

also have needs and do not always have to succumb to those of men. So by expressing

their sexuality in the assertive manner in which features suggest, they are saying that they

can be independent and stay in control of their sexuality, they can go out of their way to

please themselves and not the other person.

Features address women as active readers. They can make choices about what they

want, which may not easily be what the other person likes because people differ and so

do their choices. Women can choose who they want to be, who they want to be with, and

the right to choose what they want to go for or not in respect to their lifestyle, career

paths and sexual relationships. They are not simply lured into buying things or being

people that they do not want to be. The writers of the features also disclose some kind of

progressive intention conforming to the liberal image of women i.e. how women can stay

75
in control of their lives and strive to achieve their dreams. They touch a cultural nerve

that goes beyond the individual reader and thus providing wider insights into wider

cultural aspirations.

7.2 Representation of women in advertisements

Women are portrayed as sex objects in that most advertisements use women’s beauty as

a way of advertising. The woman’s body is represented as a symbol of beauty.

Advertisements represent women as helpless beings that can and are used as a means to

commercial ends. Cosmopolitan and True Love represent women as influenced by

society, that women are objects to be admired and appreciated by men. Women cannot be

whole without men on their side both socially and professionally. The way

advertisements and feature articles are structured indicate that women are easy to

understand and figure out because they are concerned with two goals that complement

each other: attaining perfect beauty as a way of getting a man. As the advertisements

suggest, the strategy can be used to achieve both ends. Women as consumers buy the

appropriate products that will help them achieve what they want, men. While most of the

consumerist persuasion comes in the form of direct advertising, most of it is disguised as

editorial material that is in the form of feature articles, advice columns or health and

fitness tips.

For instance the feature articles that trace the life of celebrities offer the reader a look

inside the celebrity’s life: what her favourite activities are, which might be similar to the

reader’s interests. A troublesome analogy begins to emerge. Girls ought to treat the

attraction and holding onto a boyfriend with the same consumer savvy that advertisers

76
deploy in choosing clothing items and beauty products. So while they commodify

themselves by donning the right outfits, following hairstyle, eye make-up, lipstick and

behavioral tips, they must also commodify the man who will inevitably line up at their

doors to invite them over for supper or an evening out. The woman is inevitably reduced

into the sexually aware being; someone who is concerned mainly about her looks.

That leads one to the conclusion that advertising has never been a good vehicle for

representing women. It has done nothing more than to harm their image and misplace the

idea of what it means to be a complete woman. It has never been interested in who

women are other than their commercial value. It is also unfortunate that advertising forms

such an integral part of popular magazines and the media at large. This leaves one at a

dead end since the media cannot do without advertising as they get most of their revenue

from it. So, striving to please both the readers and the advertisers is a big challenge for

magazines and this implies that as long as magazines still depend highly on advertising

chances are that women will still be represented as sex objects and helpless beings.

7.3 Women’s magazines as popular culture

It is important to note that magazines as a form of popular culture do not simply impose

their content on readers, they deal with issues that their target market can relate to,

interests them and identify themselves with.

For instance magazines may advise the reader that getting a boyfriend and keeping one

is not just a walk in the mall because it is in the interest of the reader to make sure that

she can look after her social and love life properly. So the magazines advise one on

77
friendships and men, everything ‘you’ need to know to win at the dating game or to keep

healthy relations with loved ones.

The magazines run the quizzes on whether “your relationship has a future”, how

compatible you are with you partner? These allow the reader to rate their relationship or

improve what is already there. Whether he is what ‘she’ wants. Features with titles such

as “Feel like new lovers again- in Just two days.” These are meant to help the woman

analyse her relationship on the basis of how the guy treats her, whether she and the

boyfriend have the same interests, whether they make decisions as partners or one

partner’s feelings and needs take precedence over the other’s. The reader needs to ask

herself a few questions. By taking these quizzes the reader can therefore decide whether

her relationship is just a summer fun fling, or a yearlong liaison. However, it is important

to note that the choice is represented in a commercial sense. For the reader to be aware of

her choices or alternatives they need to be informed, either by buying a magazine or book

that will guide them on their choices. The question here is whether these quick solutions

are simply a selling point or are they genuine exercises that can reasonably enable the

reader to indulge in a soul searching exercise. Are these reductionist approaches viable

in our world where we have such a wide array of multiple realities. Experiences may be

deemed similar but the environments within which they occur can be vastly dissimilar.

This compromises and actually insults the intelligence of the reader to even claim to have

the ability to make relationships work in two days. Case studies of a few relationships can

hardly be used as yardsticks and prescriptions towards blissful relationships.

Relationships are areas of continuous struggles between two people. The variables that

78
make or break relationships are so dauntingly great that a guide to a perfect relationship

would require a much more considered analysis.

7.4 Difference between features and advertisements

Features and advertisements have both similarities and differences in their

representations of women. This is mainly due to the way they are structured.

Advertisements mainly use pictures and some times minimal text. Cosmetic products

such as perfumes use women a lot as sex objects and as means to an end for advertising.

The impression that they give most of the time is that of fulfilling male sexual fantasy.

The woman puts on a nice smelling perfume to attract a man. The pictures used in such

advertisements are often of bedroom scenes and the woman is often shown in a seductive

mood.

However, there are advertisements that are mainly on how the woman can improve

herself for her own happiness. Body and facial skin products are a good example. On the

other hand features make use of text more than pictures. They represent the woman as

capable because they are mainly a guide to the woman’s fantasy. They give the woman

the liberty to live their fantasies.

However, commercially, advertisements and features share a similarity in that they both

sell something although features are not as direct as advertisements. The feature sells the

lifestyle because at the end of the day in order for the woman to live as suggested in the

feature, they have to buy products that will help her achieve that.

79
 Therefore both advertisements and features send multiple messages. Women can be

independent and choose what they want or not want to do with their lives. At the same

time, the woman represented in the magazine is very vulnerable and her sexuality is used

as a tool to exude male fantasies. The point made earlier is further developed here. This

leads me to the conclusion that the general tendencies of these magazines is therefore to

patronise their reader by not offering as an alternative viable female personalities that do

not depend so much on the looks as they do on the proficiency as professional career

women?

The magazines give the reader mixed messages on what being a woman means. That a

woman can be independent but at the same time they can be used as sex objects for

commercial purposes. For models for instance, there is more to appearing in an

advertisement than just glamour. The main incentive might be getting a salary at the end

of the day. Whether the implications of these jobs for women is critically explored to

fully understand their ramifications is still an open question. This research has established

that the integrity of magazines is too compromised for them to make any difference. They

are too enmeshed in the political economy of the media industry to make any worthwhile

difference to the cause against negative representations of women in the media. But this

does not absolve these magazines from making editorial decisions conscious of these

issues. The larger question is how society could develop strategies to build a

consciousness around these issues? The mainstream media will probably be sluggish to

respond to these challenges. It also seems that popular media cannot be trusted to even

start tinkering with issues such as these.

80
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