Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 34
Popular Culture Review
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eye and if you’re a floating reader you think, gosh, I want to
read that (Advertising manager, interviewed June 1997).
The struggles over content between the editorial, advertising, and reader
components are constant and are played out against a highly competitive
environment of rival magazines and fluctuking sales. Input from the reader is
judged by the editor for its Tit’ into the magazine’s unique selling position and the
magazine’s advertising identity.
Summary
It would have been straightforward to point to the extent of reader interaction
with women’s weeklies and conclude that their increased representation in the
magazines’ pages equalled increased participation by readers. But the postmodern
blurring of previously clear divisions between producers and consumers is
ambiguous in the world of women’s magazines. Readers do have many opportunities
to contribute to the magazines, and the true life trend emphasises their presence in
the weeklies. Readers participate in focus groups, supply material for features, and
respond to other readers in the magazine pages, but they are nevertheless controlled
by editors and advertisers who maintain a unique selling point for the magazine.
Baudrillard (1985) has argued that modern media technologies, because of their
one-way nature, require little genuine participation on behalf of the audience,
although from our research with readers we suggest that more participation exists
than Baudrillard would acknowledge. Baudrillard posits the ‘couch potato’
(Stevenson 1995:160), distanced by the temporary nature of postmodern culture,
but the existence (and indeed the appeal) of women’s weeklies relies on the
involvement of their audience - without their willi