Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 30

26 Popular Culture Review if a topic arouses sufficient interest (for example, Take a Break had a campaign to promote breastfeeding in public places). Readers are apparently directing the magazine by the volume of their interest and their written responses to certain topics which originate from other readers. Women’s weekly magazine readers supply material and respond to the stories and letters. In turn, the magazine staff present themselves as similar to their readers. Nowhere is this more emphasised than in Take a Break, where journalists join in with the true life trend to relate their own experiences and present them in the formats usually reserved for readers. For example, the health editor of Take a Break describes her laser treatment to correct short sight in the My Operation slot (January 1995). Both journalists and readers write about their holiday experiences, accompanied by photographs. Readers and journalists take part in makeovers, fashion shoots and try out new diets. Some readers recognise this lack of distance between themselves and the magazine staff and appreciate the informality this affords the magazine and how it enables readers to be more involved, at least in terms of representation. The inclusion of readers in the fashion pages allows other readers to relate comfortably to the various ages, sizes and shapes of ordinary women (something rarely seen in the upmarket monthlies). Readers appear to be dictating their needs, through the magazine pages, for more realistic images of women. The effect of these representations, plus the discreet editing of true life stories and other reader material, is to imply that