Commercial Magazines Research Articles

How to read ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’

Reading the Mind in the Eyes is a psychometric test first published by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues in 1997 and revised in 2001. It was designed to measure subjects' ‘mentalizing’ ability, or their capacity to attribute cognitive and emotional states to others. Although originally developed and used for autistic adults, this instrument has proven remarkably durable in the succeeding two decades. This is notable for several reasons. The instrument itself is a historical artefact composed of cropped photographs from 1990s-era commercial magazines. Researchers have also noted that it may measure emotional vocabulary better than emotion recognition. In the decades following its publication, the theory underpinning the test, that autistics lack components of the ability to empathize, has been critiqued both by autism researchers and by autistics themselves. Despite these potential shortcomings, researchers in numerous fields have used it to assess a broad range of diagnostically defined groups, including those with substance use disorders, eating disorders and personality and neurodevelopmental disorders. Indeed, it is cited far more frequently now than it was in the decade following its publication. This essay considers how this instrument defines autism as a particular type of disability, and how the capacities purportedly associated with the ability to read minds through eyes are then used to characterize a range of human differences.

Sleeping with the Enemy: Sir Ambrose Heal and Modernist Magazine Advertising

Abstract Sir Ambrose Heal (1872–1959) of London's long-standing Heal & Son furniture shop has been celebrated for his simultaneous commitment to modernism and traditional craftsmanship in furniture design. This dual loyalty was also fundamental to his advertising campaigns, and nowhere is it more evident than in the Heal & Son advertisements published in modernist magazines. This article examines a selection of advertisements from the commercial magazine Country Life (begun in 1897) and from the two artistic periodicals Rhythm (1911–1913) and Colour (1914–1932) and demonstrates that, far from being a simple buyer-seller relationship, the affiliation between modernist magazines and the market was a mutually beneficial one in which both parties – business and magazine – learned from and adapted to one another to ensure the success of both. Through examining these advertisements, who created them, and where they were published, this article demonstrates how Heal & Son's marketing techniques were influenced by the modernist magazines that were sustained by the advertising revenue from businesses such as Heal's, revealing that the relationship between modernist periodicals and the commercial market was much more collaborative and mutually beneficial than has been yet recognized in modernist studies.

The “Modern Girl” Is a Communist

Woman was a category in flux during China’s revolutionary 1920s. Alongside commercial magazines that celebrated the arrival of the modern girl (xiandai nüzi) were political currents that prioritized class and nation as sites for women’s liberation. Scholarship has criticized Marxism and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for negating women’s gendered interests in favor of a class focus. Yet, it was the proletarian women’s movement of the United Front that attracted the largest amount of women activists during China’s National Revolution (1925–27). What was the allure of a Communist-influenced movement for modern girls whose subjectivities were awakened by Western humanist concerns? This article engages select articles from Chinü zazhi (Red Women Magazine) to argue that China’s proletarian women’s movement reconciled Marxist, nationalist, and feminist demands. It was able to do so largely because it took place at a time when there was no unified Chinese nation to speak of, and the CCP still framed its Marxist rhetoric in a May Fourth lens. An examination into the proletarian women’s movement therefore problematizes Cold War narratives about the antithetical relationship between Marxism and feminism and asks us to reconsider approaches toward fostering interclass and international solidarity.

Politeness strategies as persuasive tools used in Lombok commercial magazines

This research aimed to illuminate the pragmatic function of politeness in the world of advertising. Politeness theory posits that politeness is a key factor for successful communication and persuasion. In this research, a corpus of 91 advertisements, both in English and Indonesian, was collected from Lombok Guide, Lombok Magazine and Majalah Bandara magazine. Each advertisement was then analyzed in terms of category and sub-category of politeness strategy in the two languages. The research found that the use of politeness strategies indicated that English advertisements exploited more “off record”, “bald on-record,” and “positive face strategies,” while Indonesian advertisements tended to use a negative politeness strategy.

Popular History in the Black British Press: Edward Scobie’s Tropic and Flamingo, 1960-64

ABSTRACT This article uses Edward Scobie, the Dominican-born journalist and historian, as an entry point for recovering histories of the Black British press and popular history. Examining two commercial Black magazines from the early 1960s, Tropic and Flamingo, it identifies the political utility of Black British history. Reflecting on presentist and populist approaches, this research acknowledges the reparative potential of history. Reconstructing untold and marginalised histories, from abolitionist activists to Black composers, these history features were a direct riposte to the anti-immigrant and racist cultures that were being emboldened by state-driven policy, such as the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act. By focusing on popular magazine histories, this research challenges us to think about what counts as historical scholarship and where it is produced.

Perempuan Bicara dalam Majalah Dunia Wanita: Kesetaraan Gender dalam Rumah Tangga di Indonesia, 1950-an

Women’s voices have emerged since the colonial era through writing. Kartini became the most heard through her radical letters at the time, published with the title Door Duisternis tot Licht, voicing the fulfillment of women’s education. Women’s writings were increasingly seen in women’s magazines from colonial times to independence of Indonesia, which published by women’s organizations although commercial magazines. Each of them has a very unique and diverse idea.Dunia Wanita has become one of the popular women’s magazines after Indonesian independence. Presenting various women’s issues from the social, political and economic fields to provide information and progress for women. Under the leadership of Ani Idrus, this magazine also voiced the importance of the involvement of men in the household, a theme that was faintly heard among the frenzied Indonesian political conditions at the beginning of its independence.What is equality in the household voiced by women in Indonesia through the 1950s in Dunia Wanita? This will be discussed in historical writings with gender perspective analysis. In addition to using articles in Dunia Wanita, this paper also uses other magazines as a comparison. In addition, books and papers that are relevant to the theme of the writing are also used.

Entrepreneurship, incongruence and affect: Drawing insights from a Swedish anti-racist organisation

In recent years, entrepreneurship has been reconceptualised as social change. Understood as such, entrepreneurship can be viewed to disrupt and disturb the social order. We argue in this article that Foucault’s notion of heterotopia and Lacan’s concepts of the real and anxiety help us to conceptualise the disturbing aspect of entrepreneurship as social change and understand why the latter may encounter social resistance. Our contribution to critical entrepreneurship literature is to, first, emphasise that entrepreneurship instigates social change by introducing incongruence and, second, to highlight that this process can be affective: it can create anxiety. This article uses an illustrative historical case example of a Swedish anti-racist commercial magazine (Gringo) to elucidate these points. We conclude by pointing out that anxiety may be necessary for the provocation of social transformation.

James Whale: The Monster Man

James WhaleThe Monster Man Kristine Somerville Click for larger view View full resolution Portrait of James Whale, courtesy of the George Eastman Museum [End Page 89] In 1917, while serving as a second lieutenant in the British Army on the Western Front, twenty-six-year-old James Whale was captured by the Germans at Aisne Farm in France. Led off at bayonet point, he felt lucky; most of his platoon had been killed. He was transported to Holzminden, a prison camp in the heart of enemy territory where six hundred officers were already imprisoned. The brutal camp commander, Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, claimed that the camp was escape-proof. Prisoners dug a hundred-yard tunnel with knives, forks, and frying pans, and twenty-nine men crawled free. Another seventy might have made it through if not for a New Zealand aviator who got stuck in the hole, blocking their passage. Indifferent to the escapees’ plans, Whale stayed put. Despite a meager diet of potato rations and occasional horsemeat and the camp’s reputation as the worst in Germany, he made effective use of his time, gambling, painting, and producing amateur theatrical productions. For his plays, he designed and painted the scenery and wrote original material. On Saturday nights after dinner, the tables were pushed together, creating a solid platform for a makeshift stage at the far end of the barracks. For two hours, in the small theater space, inmates performed a James Whale production, forgetting about their harsh circumstances until the final curtain dropped. His plays became popular among both prisoners and camp officials, who would send to Cologne for special costumes and props. After fifteen months, he left Holzminden with his career path set: he would make a life in theater. He said, “I couldn’t follow anything seriously after that.” When he left Holzminden, IOUs scribbled on paper scraps filled his pockets, winnings from the camp’s many poker and bridge games. The officers, most from wealthy British families, paid their debts, and with the sales of his prison drawings, Whale had several hundred pounds to stake a new life in London. He freelanced cartoons and illustrations for commercial magazines, but the postwar housing shortage made rents prohibitively expensive. He moved to Birmingham, six miles from where he’d grown up, worked for the Birmingham Repertory Company, and enrolled in Ryland Memorial School of Art. The world of theater offered Whale an escape from a life of hard physical labor and poverty. He was born in 1889 in Dudley, a mining and ironworking town in the West Midlands, to working-class parents in a house crowded with siblings. Unusually thin, with intense blue eyes, red hair, and “faun-like charm,” he carried himself with a regal bearing. [End Page 90] Family and friends thought that he was meant for a life grander than what Dudley could offer. Click for larger view View full resolution Frankenstein, 1931, courtesy of the George Eastman Museum With a large family to help support, Whale left school in his teens to work for a cobbler, salvaging nails from shoe soles for scrap metal before burning the leather. His talent as a draftsman made him extra money lettering fancy price tags for local merchants, which he saved for tuition at the Dudley School of Arts and Crafts. In 1910, he enrolled and took classes at night while working during the day in a sheet-metal factory hammering ornamental designs into buggy fenders. Other than his attendance at the occasional performances at the Dudley Opera House, [End Page 91] there was no indication when he left art school in 1914 that he would seek a life in theater. Click for larger view View full resolution Frankenstein, 1931, courtesy of the George Eastman Museum Whale understood that success and recognition, as well as money, would be hard to come by. He said, “No one should wish to become an actor or have anything to do with the theater for any other reason than an inner compulsion.” Yet he pursued his dream as soon as he was liberated, thin and frail, from Holzminden. After a stint in Stratford-upon-Avon playing small parts in the Shakespearean Festival...

Innovation and Market Discipline in Scholarly Publishing

Background: In the face of extensive, developed-world library endorsement of open access (OA) and not-for-profit publishing, large commercial journal publishers are, paradoxically, increasing market share by means of economies of scale brought about in part by ownership concentration.Analysis: While the market success of commercial journal publishers may benefit from ownership concentration, it is argued that market-oriented innovation has also contributed to their market success. A review of the very lively state of market-oriented innovation in journal publishing and usage metrics is undertaken and three innovation proposals derived from commercial magazines are introduced.Conclusion and implications: The adoption of reader-focused features of commercial journals and the adaptation of the mobile-oriented strategy of commercial magazine publishers that respond to the modern digital information environment and mindset are recommended as strategically sound. Partnering with low-cost promoting, OA-oriented libraries may hobble the ability of not-for-profit journals to maximize their value to researchers.Originality/value: The weakness of OA as a constraining publishing strategy is brought forward and compared to readership building through innovation focused on usage.

“Nomadic Knowledge”

AbstractAdult men create zines (self‐publications written as alternative to commercial magazines) that advance content learning and knowledge. We describe three of these zine writers who created five zines on topics related to the disciplines of science, social studies, and English/language arts. We collected their zines, interviewed the authors, and analyzed their zines’ supporting social media. These men wrote to author their lives, share their passions for a discipline, and motivate their readers to explore topics on their own through alternative textual forms and forums. These zinesters used multi‐textual forms, fiction, and humor as tactical strategies to engage readers and in doing so, they provide models for incorporating the ethos of zines in content instruction. Recommendations are provided for appropriate and inappropriate uses of zines for content and disciplinary literacy teaching and learning.

Oyama and Anxieties About the Feminization of Japanese Film

“Oyama and Anxieties about the Feminization of Japanese Film” offers an alternative perspective on the gender politics behind the switch from oyama, or male actors specializing in female roles, to actresses in early Japanese film. To date, most treatments of this issue have operated under the assumption that in one way or another the decision to abandon the use of oyama arose out of perceptions that the male actors failed to fully and/or realistically evoke femininity on the screen. In short, there has been a general agreement that dissatisfaction with the oyama derived from a sense that their performance was deficiently feminine. Although not denying the relevance of this consensus view, my article explores the issue from a different angle. I consider how criticism of the oyama was often expressed in terms that highlighted the excess of femininity that was thought to accrue around these female impersonators. Taking a cue from the work of feminist film historian Miriam Hansen, my study devotes particular attention to how opponents of the oyama often linked their criticism of the practice with disapproving commentary on the troublesome impact that the female fans of the actors purportedly had on Japanese film. It was widely assumed among these critics that oyama, particularly the popular actor Tachibana Teijirô, served as the focal point for a community of female moviegoers who took excessive pleasure in the sentimental melodramas that were the specialty of these performers. More disturbing still was the apprehension that the female fans of oyama exhibited an overwrought fixation on their favorite stars that transgressed the bounds of womanly propriety. In short, it was judged that this community of fans, egged on by unscrupulous studios that supplied them with vehicles starring their oyama idols, embraced a feminine sensibility that threatened to derail attempts to elevate Japanese film culture. The article begins with an examination of positive treatments of oyama to get a sense of how the personae of these performers were constructed in commercial movie magazines and received by fans. The second half of the article focuses on the way that reformers and fans critical of the practice couched their objections in terms that highlighted the undesirable nature of the distinctive feminine sensibility attributed to oyama, their melodramatic vehicles, and their vocal female fan base.

Children of a lesser guild: An anarcho A–Z

Abstract One of the fallacies concerning the anarcho-punk movement, diligently dispelled by the recent work of Ian Glasper and others, is that it was a self-limiting oeuvre, peopled by the non-descript and musically unadventurous. While there was unarguably some sheep farming north of the Falklands latterly, that was far from the case originally; specifically in terms of the output of Crass Records, whose symbolically attired monochrome 45s surveyed an astonishing breadth of musical styles and ideas. Approximately three decades down the line we have a chance to look at new ‘product’ from two supposedly ‘anarcho’ bands who were equally innovative but sounded as distinct from each other in musical ethos as it is possible to imagine. Originally recording for the Subhumans’ Spiderleg imprint, Amebix’s thunderous early EPs and Arise album (Alternative Tentacles) still sound as if souls were being cheese-grated live in the studio and were hugely influential in bridging punk to dark metal, crust and beyond. Conversely Zounds’ winsome charms were rooted in a neo-folk musical vernacular that had trace elements of 1960s pop. Alex Ogg spoke first to Amebix’s Rob aka the Baron and subsequently to Steve Lake, whose The Redemption of Zounds is out now through Overground Records. The interviews were undertaken in 2011 and a small number of quotes from these exchanges were published in an article for commercial magazine Vive Le Rock.

An Interview with Teruo Okano, PhD

An Interview with Teruo Okano, PhD

The Application of Data Mining in Customer Management of Magazine Editing System

China's commercial magazine faces of increasingly fierce competition in the customer, so it must improve its management and marketing method to enhance competitiveness. It is the key point to strengthening customer relationship management. The study in this paper uses data mining techniques to enhance the management of the customer to explore new customers, maintain overall customers and accelerate the development of the magazine. Through the establishment of large database and data mining, we find useful data and the relevance to support decision-making and better improve the competitiveness of the magazine.

Kambal na Disyerto: Ang Kolonyal na Kanon at Komersyalismo at ang Panimulang Pagpapaagos ng Mga Agos sa Disyerto

Twin Deserts: Colonial Canon and Commercialism and the First Streams of Mga Agos sa Disyerto In tracing the beginnings of the overemphasis on canon in Filipino literature, Jose Garcia Villa is undoubtedly one of the first names that come to mind. To Filipino writers in English, he and his annual “Honor and Horror Lists” of poetry and short stories represented ideal standards to strive for. Inclusion in his annual selections was a legitimate seal of approval that signified one’s entry into the canon, more than the numerous literary contests existing at the time. As Villa upheld Western standards in selecting what he considered the best of Filipino literature in English, he paved the way for a concept of canon that, according to critic Jonathan Chua, silenced the “Filipino” while highlighting “Literature” and weakened the dichotomies of American/Filipino, center/margin, civilized/savage, and colonizer/colonized. It served as an opiate that blotted out the memory of Filipinos’ “sour” acceptance of their American colonizers. Filipino writers were put at a disadvantage by Villa’s canon, which placed the English language and Western standards at the center. Writers were confined to these western standards in the American colonial state. This was reinforced by the American curriculum, which positioned their “canon” as a major influence on Filipinos’ literary tastes. As a result, the production of Tagalog literature was limited to commercial magazines. By 1943, two decades after Villa’s work, very little had changed. The rush toward a cosmopolitan American lifestyle drew attention away from a thorough understanding of the nation’s experiences and created an obsession with making money. This was also the case for Filipino writers in Tagalog. Publication in commercial magazines brought income and popularity which, together with the colonial concept of canon, dried up the landscape of Tagalog literature, especially the Tagalog short story. Neither the contributions of wellknown writers such as Lope K. Santos, Valeriano Hernandez Pena, and Patricio Mariano, nor the publication of collections such as Clodualdo del Mundo’s Parolang Ginto or Alejandro Abadilla’s Talaang Bughaw – works that first challenged the existing culture of Kritika Kultura 21/22 (2013/2014): –117 © Ateneo de Manila University commercialism and its emphasis on income and popularity – could address this. The arrival of Japanese colonizers did not change these circumstances, either, as writers during this period were motivated mainly by the need to survive in those tight times. The formulaic writing (entertainment and didacticism) of Tagalog writers for Liwayway magazine thrived under the management of Agustin C. Fabian. Readers’ patronage of this style of writing kept the magazine afloat and ensured its success. It is in this context, with the English language laying the foundation for Western standards and commercialized creation, that young writers such as Rogelio Sikat, Efren Abueg, Edgardo M. Reyes, Eduardo B. Reyes, Rogelio Ordonez, and Dominador Mirasol would create new streams for what they considered the “desert” of the Tagalog short story. All former writers for commercial magazines, these young men, the “New Blood”, found a venue for fighting against western canon and commercialism in The Quezonian, the campus publication of Manuel L. Quezon University. The same education used by the colonizers to blind the people was used by the young writers to create streams that flowed into the desert like state of the Tagalog short story thus the term “Agos” was conceived. Exposure to the works of Hemingway and other writers opened the doors for creating stories that went beyond overused themes, erratic points of view, and idealization of subjects. Their stories expressed their opposition to the status quo and led to the publication of the 1965 anthology Mga Agos sa Disyerto, which revealed the new standards of these young writers. Mga Agos sa Disyerto formally declared a new direction for the Tagalog short story and would be recognized by critics as a pioneer, a herald of a new way of looking at the world, of turning a critical eye toward established traditions, with the intention of changing the way of life.

Adult Supervision Required: Private Freedom and Public Constraints for Parents and Children By Markella B. Rutherford Rutgers University Press. 2011. 208 pages. $45.95 cloth

Just a generation or two ago, it was not only acceptable but also encouraged for children to roam their neighborhoods from dawn until dusk, negotiate their social worlds without constant adult intervention and contribute to the running of their households in indispensable ways. Today, an eight-year-old child wandering through the streets alone, planning the family meals and grocery shopping and freely talking to strangers invites shock, concern, or possibly a call to the Department of Social Services. This profound transformation in the social construction of childhood lies at the heart of Markella B. Rutherford's Adult Supervision Required: Private Freedoms and Public Constraints for Parents and Children (2011). Drawing on an analysis of parenting advice in readily accessible commercial magazines over time, Rutherford astutely documents the increasing privatization of children and childhood and what this privatization portends for parenting, changing definitions of the public/private sphere, freedom, autonomy and democracy. While other sociologists have examined advice columns to study changing definitions of good mothering or intimate relationships, Rutherford takes an innovative approach, investigating the kinds of assumptions about the public/private divide that the parenting literature makes explicit. She traces the increasing equation of parental supervision within the home with good parenting, demonstrating that as children's autonomy outside the home has diminished, their freedoms within it—in terms of what they wear, when they eat and sleep and how they talk to their parents—have grown exponentially. Central to this shift, she convincingly argues, is the decline in informal community networks and the increasing intervention of the state in parent's lives. Without a publicly shared sense of responsibility for raising children, parents are now on their own to figure out how to raise a child equipped for the demands of 21st century life. Consequently, while parents have more freedom to define parenting on their own terms, they are also increasingly (and anxiously) concerned with raising “my kid” in the private sphere rather than “our kids” in the public one.

Darkroom Alchemy: The Photographic Art of Studio Manassé

Darkroom AlchemyThe Photographic Art of Studio Manassé Kristine Somerville . [End Page 115] In 1934, an entire edition of Muskete, a humorous magazine known for its caricature and pictorial jokes, was confiscated by Austrian censors because the Wlassics, a husband-and-wife team of photographers who operated Studio Manassé in Vienna, had failed to remove in the darkroom all traces of pubic hair on their nude cover photo. The image was one of their “photographic jokes,” a genre of work popularized by picture postcards of the early twentieth century that employed trick photography to depict whimsical images such as pretty girls growing on trees, the cherubic face of a loved one appearing in a wreath of pipe smoke or a lithe young woman hanging seductively from a businessman’s necktie. The Wlassics were some of the best European photographers working within this tradition. But the hint of pubic hair was a major misstep. The prevailing standards of beauty demanded that the female bodies appear luminous, as perfected creatures of light, marble, glass. The Wlassics went back to their studio and amended the photo, and the next month the magazine was republished without issue. Despite this slip, the Wlassics were known as experts of the well-placed brush stroke. From 1922 to 1938, with their keen technical ability and glamorous styling, Olga and Adorján Wlassics created fanciful photomontages, convincing illusions and graphically compelling images that filled the pages of a wide variety of commercial magazines, making Studio Manassé one of the most popular photography businesses in Europe. Their clients ran the gamut from magazine editors and advertising agencies to private buyers. Styling, staging and photographic work was handled by Olga. She created the glamorous Manassé vision in their small but dazzling apartment, which also served as their studio in Vienna’s city center. The rooms and reception area were filled with lavish furnishings—bearskin rugs, Baroque furniture, tapestries, gilded mirrors, paintings and Greek pillars used as flower stands—which often appeared as backgrounds or props. In directorial mode, Olga liked to arrange her scantily costumed models to create comic allegories and theatrical fictions. She also created quasi-cinematic sequences intended to replicate what viewers had already come to expect from the movies. Adorján handled the artistic corrections and montages. He devoted a remarkable amount of time and ingenuity to perfecting techniques— primarily retouching, painting and overlaying images—to enhance Olga’s photographs. Her clever lighting gave the portraits a clear, concise line, but to capture the late-’20s female ideal of a girl-woman with [End Page 116] . [End Page 117] her slimness and athletic build, Adorján made “improvements” to the shapes of the models’ bodies, ridding them of dreaded “curve trouble.” Fashion magazines proclaimed fat to be a menace and offered diets to achieve movie-star slenderness. Adorján was the doctor of the negative, subtracting blemishes, body fullness in the models and surface irregularities in the props, while also adding background detail. Married in 1920, the Wlassics were part of Vienna’s high society, yet very little is known about their lives, education and training. Wiener Magazin, a publication that frequently featured their work, published rare photos of the couple with captions proclaiming the delightful extravagance of their lifestyle and their skill at discovering international beauties. They were early masters of the spreading dream of luxury. Studio Manassé’s rich visual legacy in part chronicles the golden era of cinema and theater in Europe. Expressionist filmmaking had its origins in Germany and Austria, with a crossover in talent between the two industries of theater and film. From 1919 to 1922, the Austrian film industry produced more than 140 movies that found a global market. Popular variety shows flourished as well, bringing in international stars such as Josephine Baker and the Tiller Girls, a popular British dance troupe. As the movie industry skyrocketed and the world of theater remained robust, commercial magazines—about thirty publications in Vienna and even more in Berlin—aimed to satisfy a public obsessed with this world of perceived wealth and glamour. They needed images to accompany the increasing number of articles on film and theater, in addition to gossip columns, sports news...

‘A Shock to the System’: Feminist Interventions in Youth Subculture—The Adventures of Shocking Pink

For feminists of the second wave, feminism was understood to be a social movement ‘outside’ of, and usually in opposition to, mainstream popular culture. The idea that girls and young women were socialized into identifying with ‘false images’ of femininity through popular culture was a widely adopted view within feminism of this period. Magazines for girls and young women inevitably became a concern both for feminists working in academic disciplines and to those more widely within feminism. From this perspective, magazines demanded a feminist intervention that would show ‘real’ images of girls and young women. This article explores one such intervention—Shocking Pink, a magazine that appeared between 1981 and 1982, and then resurfaced between 1987 and 1992. Perceived as a challenge to commercial magazines for young women (e.g. Jackie and My Guy), Shocking Pink included articles on politics, sexuality and ‘race’, along with radical re-appropriations of mainstream teen magazine staples such as photostrip love stories. This article traces the history of Shocking Pink and argues that although being a feminist magazine, Shocking Pink engaged with and took advantage of a wider range of changes in young women's experiences, identities and expressions during the 1980s. In addition, it was also a contradictory text for many established forms of feminism of the period. Whilst it explored the ways in which gender inequalities are produced and reproduced through mainstream magazines, it also examined the ways in which feminism had reproduced other sorts of power relations. Shocking Pink was a magazine produced by a collective of young women, for young women, and, as such, it also offered a challenge to older (largely white, middle-class) feminist critics of popular culture, problematizing their distinctions between ‘real’, or ‘good’ young feminist identities, and ‘bad’.

What's Up with the Cover?

Covers of both commercial and scientific magazines have changed dramatically with time.[1][1] Commercial magazines in the United States started publishing in the 1700s, and the first medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine ( NEJM ), debuted in 1811. Early periodicals had no covers, and

Modern Tastes in Rhythm: The Visual and Verbal Culture of Advertisements in Modernist Magazines

This article analyses the role of advertisements in the visual and verbal culture of modernist ‘little magazines’, and focuses upon Rhythm (1911–13), the magazine edited by Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry. It traces how advertisements are implicated in the culture of the ‘little magazine’ as much as in commercial magazines, and indicates how Rhythm provides an interesting case-study for demonstrating how modernism engages critically with the commodification represented by the discourse of advertising. The article analyses how the visual ‘look’ of Rhythm as an avant-garde magazine, as applied in the illustrations to poems by Mansfield, also extends to the design of advertisements for commercial organisations such as the department store Heals. Rhythm thus demonstrates a dilemma over the relation between art and commercial culture that runs throughout modernism, one which is noticed most acutely in modernist magazines.