Decoding Women's Magazines
Subtitle: From Mademoiselle to Ms.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: September 1992
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 341
ISBN-13: 9780312079727
Subjects: Periodicals; Sociology Of Women; Illustrations; Themes, motives; United States; Women consumers; Women's periodicals, American; Literary Criticism
Description: "Comprising the largest of magazine categories in the United States, nearly fifty glossy publications addressed to women appear monthly on news-stands. They are a multi-million-dollar business and essential to the marketing of commodities in the consumer society. At the same time, they present to readers a master narrative about the world, an ostensibly women-centred account of reality that links the utopian to the everyday. The multiple mini-narratives that begin on the front covers and extend to the ads and features inside combine to offer a highly pleasurable, appealing consensus about the feminine. Decoding Women's Magazines studies the contradictory semiotic structures at work within and between purchased ads, covert ads, and editorial features in such genres as the beauty and fashion magazines, the service and home titles, those aimed at minority audiences, new female workers, and women with special interests and spending power."--Publisher's description.