In this study I investigate gender representations in a South African magazine directed at a teenage female readership. It begins with a survey of sociolinguistic understandings of the relationship between language and gender, and of critical linguistic insights into how gender and gender relations are constructed through discourse. This is followed by the Critical Discourse Analysis of selected texts from the magazine. These analyses reveal that the writers draw on conventional representations of women and conventional social relations between men and women to perpetuate subordinate roles for woman in a male-dominated society. On the basis of this evidence I suggest that such magazines serve as instruments of social control in a patriarchal society by positioning women as being overwhelmingly concerned with their personal appearance and with developing and sustaining relationships with the opposite sex. I also point to the ways in which the writers have drawn on representations of femininity to position the readership as consumers, thereby serving the interests of the capitalist modes of production. This study concludes with suggestions on how the findings can be used to implement Critical Language Awareness in the classroom. / Theses (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This thesis is the product of a discourse analytic investigation of the first decade of the British lesbian magazine, DIVA, which launched in 1994. Work on mainstream women's and men's magazines has established them as sites at which (largely heterosexual) femininities and masculinities are constructed and construed, but relatively little scholarship has addressed lesbian magazines in this fashion. DIVA is Britain's only nationally sold, mainstream lesbian magazine; with this in mind, the thesis provides an analytic account of the magazine's launch, production and brand, and considers the discursive construction of lesbian community and the boundary work that that entails. The initial analytic chapters detail editorial philosophies, routines, and financial circumstances; design, front covers, and editorial content. Though the magazine has only limited resources available, those restrictions are simultaneously liberating, allowing DIVA's editors to pursue their political commitments at the same time as operating in the commercial marketplace. In considering the discursive construction of 'us', the thesis highlights a focus on community, support, and heritage. It further considers the discursive management of the boundaries of that imagined community, focusing on the 'threat' posed by bisexual women and the arguments this causes among readers. Finally, DIVA's handling of (heterosexual) others is considered, concluding that they are constructed as irrational, yet powerful, aggressors. Overall, DIVA's was a brand invested in the notion of community and in its role not only in imagining that community but also bringing members together. Though readers were at times divided over who belonged, or should belong, they were united in their belief that there was something to belong to. In the face of a hostile greater 'other', which was constructed as a constant source of threat, this belonging was incredibly important.

Many researchers agree that the best employee publications offer job and company-related information in an honest and timely manner. The challenge of balancing the mission of the organization and providing objective analysis of issues and events on campus also falls in the editor of university internal publications. The objectives of this study were to analyze the content of thirteen university employee publications and determine what type of content their employees were receiving and whether those non-profit organizations provide content that is similar to findings in previous research on for-profit organizations.The current research was a content analysis of employee publications at thirteen Mid-American Conference universities during the year 2000. Each publication was analyzed using two methods. First, each story or piece of content was categorized according to Click's (1967) established categories for employee publication content. Next, the researcher placed each content piece into one of two categories: issue-oriented or event-oriented content, based on research by Ryan and Owen (1976).Publications produced by the Mid-American Conference Universities provided significantly more employee content, 58 percent, than company/university content, 27 percent, supporting the first hypothesis. Findings from the current research were similar to the original research by Click (1967) in many ways. Results showed that the ranks of corporate publication content and university publication content are similar. Publications used for this study produced significantly more event-oriented content, 91.5 percent, than issue-oriented content, 8.5 percent, which supported the second hypothesis. / Department of Journalism

Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Magazine readers in South Africa have a wide choice: there are more than 188 consumer magazines on the shelf and this gives readers the opportunity to choose what they like. However, there are very few Afrikaans Christian magazines and they have to compete commercially with the other publications. The question that arises is how these magazines manage to maintain a Christian character while at the same time staying competitive. In an attempt to answer this question, this study investigates the covers and contents of Finesse, Lig and Lééf. A literature study was used to determine which features and approaches can be used to make a Christian magazine's agenda (and therefore approach) unique. A qualitative content analysis is used to investigate how the covers and contents of Finesse, Lig and Lééf correlate with what one associates with Christian journalism, and how these magazines differ from one another in this regard. All these findings are compared with the biggest Afrikaans women's magazine, Sarie, to identify correspondences and differences. Semi-structured interviews were also held with the editors of Finesse, Lig and Lééf. Specific directive arguments were formulated about the features of Christian journalism and about agenda setting and the role of magazine covers. These specific directive arguments were used as a guideline in the content analysis. It was found that all four publications in question use well-known personalities (like actresses, singers and sports stars) as cover models. However, there are differences in the way the covers are presented and framed. Ug and Leer give noticeably more attention to the spiritual lives of their models, and as a result these magazines have clear features that can be associated with Christian journalism. Signs of the so-called "celebrity" culture were particularly evident in the covers and contents of Finesse and Sarie. In summary, it may be argued that Ug and Leer (which are outspoken Christian publications) strongly display their Christian character. On the other hand, Finesse (who views itself not as a Christian publication but as a lifestyle publication for the Christian woman) less consistently displays a Christian character. There is a strong distinction between Lig and Lééf and the secular Sarie, whereas Finesse displays more correspondences with Sarie. / Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010

In this dissertation, I examine the constructions, maintenance, and resistance to dominant discourses concerning motherhood and non-motherhood in contemporary Hungary, using the popular Hungarian women’s magazine Nők Lapja as my key illustrative example. I strive to illuminate how gendered discourses, bio-power, history, and geo-politics are implicated not only in the construction of nationhood but also in defining women’s roles in nation-building. I hope to contribute to research that helps to better understand women’s contemporary social roles in Hungary, and the power relations that construct them. I argue that ideas regarding motherhood and non-motherhood in Hungary are often bound up in ideas concerning who should, or should not, have children, and why, and I explore in detail how these ideas have formed through the history of the nation. My analysis reveals different sites of power—focusing on policy and print media—that seek to determine women’s procreative decisions. I argue that, under various regimes, women’s procreative choices have consistently been systemically constrained, and framed as key to the nation’s success—or failure. Concerning Nők Lapja magazine, my research reveals that it both supports and resists traditional gender roles, at times contributing to discourses that naturalize childbearing and motherhood (also defining for readers whose motherhood is deemed desirable), but at other times disputing such ideas and redefining conceptions of womanhood to include women without children. Although ultimately the magazine pathologizes, disbelieves and negates the choice to be childless, Nők Lapja does resist and redefine limited definitions of womanhood and motherhood by carving out a small space for discussions of childlessness, and also by challenging conceptions of singletons as necessarily lonely and mothers as necessarily better if they stay at home.

Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Magazine readers in South Africa have a wide choice: there are more than 188 consumer magazines on the shelf and this gives readers the opportunity to choose what they like. However, there are very few Afrikaans Christian magazines and they have to compete commercially with the other publications. The question that arises is how these magazines manage to maintain a Christian character while at the same time staying competitive. In an attempt to answer this question, this study investigates the covers and contents of Finesse, Lig and Lééf. A literature study was used to determine which features and approaches can be used to make a Christian magazine's agenda (and therefore approach) unique. A qualitative content analysis is used to investigate how the covers and contents of Finesse, Lig and Lééf correlate with what one associates with Christian journalism, and how these magazines differ from one another in this regard. All these findings are compared with the biggest Afrikaans women's magazine, Sarie, to identify correspondences and differences. Semi-structured interviews were also held with the editors of Finesse, Lig and Lééf. Specific directive arguments were formulated about the features of Christian journalism and about agenda setting and the role of magazine covers. These specific directive arguments were used as a guideline in the content analysis. It was found that all four publications in question use well-known personalities (like actresses, singers and sports stars) as cover models. However, there are differences in the way the covers are presented and framed. Ug and Leer give noticeably more attention to the spiritual lives of their models, and as a result these magazines have clear features that can be associated with Christian journalism. Signs of the so-called "celebrity" culture were particularly evident in the covers and contents of Finesse and Sarie. In summary, it may be argued that Ug and Leer (which are outspoken Christian publications) strongly display their Christian character. On the other hand, Finesse (who views itself not as a Christian publication but as a lifestyle publication for the Christian woman) less consistently displays a Christian character. There is a strong distinction between Lig and Lééf and the secular Sarie, whereas Finesse displays more correspondences with Sarie. / Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010

This thesis explores the way that breast cancer risks are represented in popular Canadian women’s magazines. In particular, using discourse analysis on 34 articles from Chatelaine, Canadian Living, and Flare, this study examines how public discourse of breast cancer risks in women’s magazines engages specific ideas about women, consumption, and individual responsibility for health. Using a variety of discursive representation techniques, women’s magazines define breast cancer risk as a problem originating in the individual woman’s body and behaviour. Women’s magazines also emphasize the individual woman’s responsibility to lower the risk of the disease, and identify willpower to choose the “right” products and practices as key instruments to fulfill this responsibility. While highlighting women’s capability to make autonomous decisions to manage the risk, breast cancer risk discourse in women’s magazines also encourages readers to maintain morality as females without breaking away from society’s expectations about femininity. In this way, breast cancer risk discourse in women’s magazines is not merely a less technical, reader-friendly reproduction of scientific reports, but a product that explains health risk information through the lens of longstanding cultural values about women and contemporary sociopolitical ideology that emphasizes individual responsibility for health. / Graduate

This theises aims to extend the understanding of how representation of gender is produced and reproduced in the young women’s magazine Frida. We examine this through analyzing pictures of male and female celebrities in a selected number of magazines from the year of 2013. We use a quantitative analysis of the pictures, as well as a supplementary quantitative analysis of ajectives used to describe male and female celebrities in captions. We research what types of patterns we can find in these analyses that construct representations of gender, also surveying how the celebrities in the magazine look. Our analysis shows us that the context of Frida contains several recurring visual patterns that preserves a representation of men being superior to women. We also find that for both men and women in the magazine- their attractive exterior is their most prominent attribute. That is not only perceived visually, but also reinforced by the editorial text. The result also shows us that the celebrities shown in the Frida is a very homogeneous group, with very similar attributes.