<p> </p><p>The aim of this thesis is to examine men's attitudes towards literature, and how social norms affect their book reading, in order to contribute to the knowledge of why men's book reading is decreasing. This is realized through a discourse analysis of literature recommendations in men's lifestyle magazines.</p><p><em>Two magazines, </em><em><em>King of Sweden</em></em><em> and </em><em><em>Magazine Café</em></em><em>, </em><em>are examined </em><em>through critical discourse analysis. Theories of discourse are combined with theories of gender to explore how gender stereotypes affect men's reading habits.</em></p><p><em>The analysis shows that ideals of masculinity have a great influence on the book recommendations. Social norms, associated with gender, also seem to have significance to whether or not a book is considered suitable for men to read. These are, inter alia, norms of heterosexuality and violence. In addition to that, a homosocial structure is found in the magazines, regarding the authors of the recommended books. The majority of the authors are men, and women are rarely mentioned at all in the book recommendations. </em><em>Also, non-fiction books are much more frequent than fiction in the recommendations.</em><em> </em></p><p><em>Not much prior research has been done in the field. The research, that however has been done, correspond with the results of the analysis in this thesis. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that the results of the analysis show structures of social norms that are valid even outside the examined material. Knowledge of men's reading habits is concluded to be very important, in order to increase men's book reading.</em></p><p><em>This is a two years master's thesis in library and information science.</em></p>

The aim of this thesis is to examine men's attitudes towards literature, and how social norms affect their book reading, in order to contribute to the knowledge of why men's book reading is decreasing. This is realized through a discourse analysis of literature recommendations in men's lifestyle magazines. Two magazines, King of Sweden and Magazine Café, are examined through critical discourse analysis. Theories of discourse are combined with theories of gender to explore how gender stereotypes affect men's reading habits. The analysis shows that ideals of masculinity have a great influence on the book recommendations. Social norms, associated with gender, also seem to have significance to whether or not a book is considered suitable for men to read. These are, inter alia, norms of heterosexuality and violence. In addition to that, a homosocial structure is found in the magazines, regarding the authors of the recommended books. The majority of the authors are men, and women are rarely mentioned at all in the book recommendations. Also, non-fiction books are much more frequent than fiction in the recommendations. Not much prior research has been done in the field. The research, that however has been done, correspond with the results of the analysis in this thesis. Therefore the conclusion is drawn that the results of the analysis show structures of social norms that are valid even outside the examined material. Knowledge of men's reading habits is concluded to be very important, in order to increase men's book reading. This is a two years master's thesis in library and information science.

This study investigates the popular pleasures produced by readers of men's magazines, focusing primarily on the publication, Men's Health, which represents a new type of magazine catering for men. Using qualitative research methods such as textual analysis and reception analysis, the study explores the pleasures produced by both men and women from the consumption of such texts. The theoretical perspective of cultural studies informs this project, an approach that focuses on the generation and circulation of meanings in society. Focusing on the notion of the active audience and Hall's encoding/decoding model, this study examines readers' interpretations of the Men's Health text, focusing on the moment of consumption in the circuit of culture. Reception theory proposes the existence of "clustered readings" produced by interpretive communities that are socially rather than individually constructed. As a critical ethnography, the study interrogates these meanings with particular reference to questions of gender relations and power in society. Access to different discourses is structured by the social position of readers within relations of power and this study takes gender as a structuring principle. Therefore, this study also explores the particular discursive practices through which masculine and feminine imagery is produced by the Men's Health text and by its readers. The research findings support the more limited notion of the active audience espoused by theorists such as Hall (1980) offering further evidence to suggest that readers produce readings other than those preferred by the text and that therein lies the pleasure of the text for male and female readers. The research concludes that the popularity of Men's Health derives from the capacity of its readers to make multiple meanings of the text.