The purpose of this dissertation is to conduct a study of the history of the girls’ magazine Cordelia (1881–1942), founded in Florence by Angelo De Gubernatis. The analysis mainly focuses on the years 1881–1917; however, the latter period is also briefly treated. The theoretical framework consists of sociology of literature and gender history; the dissertation belongs to the field of history of publishing, which is integrated with a gender historical perspective. The methodological challenges faced when dealing with periodicals as research objects are also considered. In order to achieve bibliographic control and examine Cordelia’s contents and contributors, all issues of the magazine’s first 36 years were indexed. The study examines the commercial strategies of the magazine’s publishers, as well as the contributions of the chief editors and writers involved in the making of the magazine. Attention is drawn to the personal relationships between the individuals in these groups. As is shown, the magazine was not very successful in its first three years of publication, during the editorship of De Gubernatis. The two editors who followed, Ida Baccini and Jolanda (pseudonym for Maria Maiocchi Plattis), did succeed, however, in creating a familiar and attractive product for the young female public and to involve them in their magazine. Quantitative surveys of the contributors and contents have shown, for instance, that Baccini and Jolanda relied on regular contributions from relatively few writers and also published serial fiction to arouse the readers’ interest. Their comprehension of the potential of the periodical and the importance of their gender in addressing their readers, together with the capacity of long-time publisher Cappelli to develop commercial strategies to boost sales, seem to have been the reason for the longevity and success of Cordelia.

The aim of the diploma thesis What do the girls want? The reflection of their world in the magazines Super Dívka and BravoGirl! is to analyze the representation of lifestyle in the magazines for girls and the evolution of this representation within fifteen years. For the needs of this work, the individual theoretical concepts have been discussed, in order to better understand the problematics of media representation of reality. We defined notions such as social and media construction of reality, theory of representation, gender, stereotypes, myths and ideology. Other chapters are dedicated to the notion of lifestyle from its sociological and media perspective, to the girls' magazines themselves and to their up to now researches. These researches are concerned especially with the problematics of consolidation of gender stereotypes in the society through proposed patterns of behaviour and creation of norms of femininity. At the same time, they consider the magazines to be the holders of ideology in consumer and patriarchal society. For the needs of this thesis, the mixed analytical method has been used. The content analysis quantitatively classifies thematic agenda of magazines and semiotic analysis follows denotative and connotative level of signs and their meanings for the representation of...