Dutch Magazine Research Articles

Tussen kosmopolitisme en gewetenswroeging

In this article I investigate the ‘adiaphorization’ of ethical discomfort in travel stories in the Dutch magazine Avenue (1965-2002) – a politically oriented, high-quality glossy that attracted a wealthy, anti-bourgeois, audience. Which became increasingly clear during this period, and also led to an international code of conduct for ethical tourism in the 1990s, is the fact that the desire to travel is at odds with its harmful effects. Traveling began to raise ethical dilemmas, for instance regarding encounters with ‘the Other’. How have Dutch travel authors, and popular magazines, in a period of ever-increasing mass tourism, dealt with this issue? In a heterogenous selection of four early Avenue travelogues (1967-1972), I will analyse the discursive strategies of romanticising travel and the role of a cosmopolitan discourse informed by insights from both postcolonial theory and travel writing studies. Furthermore, I will study the material qualities of the magazine (its photography and advertisements) and reflect on the effects of the fact that travel stories are mainly preserved in book form, stripped of their original glossy context and, possibly, of their ethical ambiguity.

Oeioei you just have to listen : Rock criticism in Hitweek. A categorization model for evaluation domains in rock music.

Rock criticism plays an important role in the formation of rock music as a cultural field in the 1960s. Criticism provides legitimization of taste, canonization and consecration. Nevertheless, the arguments and evaluations within rock criticism have been marginally studied, if at all in the Netherlands. Especially when you compare how literary criticism in its turn is studied as part of Dutch literary theory (see among others Van Rees 1985, Janssen 1994, and Van Dijk 2006). Rock criticism is mostly studied in cultural and music sociology. This research focuses on rock criticism as part of a cultural field (Lindberg et al. 2005). Within the humanities, the study of rock criticism offers an opportunity to map out which arguments are used in criticism and how they are applied. In research into literary criticism, Mooij, Boonstra, Praamstra, and, following them, Op de Beek and Linders, among others, categorize evaluative statements by critics. I will elaborate on their work in the categorisation of evaluative statements by rock critics. In this article, the categorization model of Op de Beek and Linders is applied and adapted to rock criticism. The corpus of this paper is the archive of Hitweek (1965). A Dutch magazine that appears weekly between 1965 and 1969 (in approximately 190 editions) and pays ample attention to Dutch rock music as part of youth culture. Hitweek is the first critical music magazine for rock music in the Netherlands and is therefore important for the formation of the cultural field of rock music in the Netherlands. For this study, the evaluative statements in the reviews of singles and albums by Dutch bands were examined. The statements are categorized and grouped to provide a picture of what criteria the reviewers of Hitweek used and how the model can help determine these criteria. This article is one of the few studies into evaluation criteria within Dutch rock criticism. For the time being, it is the only research into the evaluation criteria in Hitweek.

Сергей Третьяков и Эзра Паунд: диалог о коллективизации литературы между левыми и правыми

The paper is dedicated to the dialogue between Ezra Pound and Sergey Tretyakov on the pages of a Dutch magazine Front edited by a Dutch writer Sonja Prins, and other periodicals. This particular episode of Pound’s contacts with left-wing writers hasn’t been duly researched so far. In spite of the dangerous political atmosphere in the 1930s, authors with different ideological views could freely exchange their ideas in the periodicals. The Front published a wide range of anti-bourgeois authors — their views varied from communist to fascist. The Federation of Organizations of Soviet writers (FOSP) was mentioned as a co-founder of Front, although later its name was withdrawn because of the magazine’s publishing policy, which allowed right-wing writers. Tretyakov’s essay “Writer-kolkhoznik” was published in the first issue of the Front; the next issue contained Pound’s response to this essay. In spite of his pro-fascist views, Pound seemed interested in Tretyakov’s work on the kolkhoz. Later both writers continued to argue outside the magazine — Tretyakov mentioned Pound in his Berlin lecture The Writer and the Socialist Village, Pound referred to Tretyakov, this time purely ironically, in Italian press. In the end the dialogue failed, both writers tended to speak about their own main topics — Tretyakov continued to reflect on the writer in the kolkhoz, and Pound was interested in the classical Russian literature and in the attitude to the classical Russian literary heritage in the new socialist Russia.

Eccentric Feelings: Little Girls’ Pleasures on the Feminist Fashion Set

ABSTRACT In the face of commercial fashion photography's contribution to the shaping of the gendered public fantasy of the child, this article quarries, through a perspective shaped by queer affect theory, the kinds of figurations that in independent fashion magazines have stimulated alternative ways of thinking and feeling in relation to children. The case study, or scene, through which this analysis is conducted is ‘Juweeltje,’ a fashion editorial spread shot by feminist photographer Cornelie Tollens for Dutch magazine in 1995. In the midst of a controversial period dominated by collective media anxiety and moral panic around child pornography, and underpinned by conservative sentimentalising efforts to safeguard the Child, Dutch, an independent fashion magazine published between 1994 and 2002, grappled with such discourses by forging a visual trajectory for rethinking childhood through a queer affective prism. This article ultimately seeks to animate discussions around queer childhood and expand the current affective taxonomies associated with the child by unearthing the rich affective scenarios enacted by feminist fashion photography.

Lo verde como sistema: espacios verdes y vida al aire libre en la Holanda de entreguerras a través de las páginas de la publicación neerlandesa de 8 en Opbouw

Dutch Magazine de 8 en Opbouw, heir of i10 was from its beginnings in 1932, to its disappearance in 1943 for political reasons, one of the last refuge for the Neues Bauen. It was formed by two previous groups from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, de 8 and OPBOUW. The magazine was always vigilant of every experience coming from France, Germany, the URSS or the USA. They took on enthusiastically new theories about Lebensreform, and the necessity for redesigning the Nineteenth Century city. This work seeks for articles focused or related in some way to green areas or “Outdoor life” encouragement. We’ll discover how dramatic was their claim for public policies in hygienic improvements and new green areas necessity. We’ll also discover, specially from 1938, high urban and landscaping value projects, inspired from the german 20’s and the New Objectivity experiences, as the Amsterdam Bosch, Rotterdam Green Plan or several sports, bath and swimming complex or new schools.

Briefing: Governments as drivers for a circular economy

Governments play a key role in accelerating the development towards a circular economy. Integrating circularity into public procurement is high on the list of leading companies. Other needs are financial incentives for businesses and consumers, an EU directive for circular design and attractive research programmes. Creating a circular economy has risen fast on the political agenda over the past 3 years. It started in the UK with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, rapidly followed up by the Dutch Circle Economy. By now, a growing international arena of organisations is committed to the realisation of a circular economy. This is a translated and actualised version of an article published in the Dutch magazine Milieu in March 2016.

Literary, Artistic and Architectural Exchange between Dutch and Polish Avant-Gardes: A Case Study in European Cultural Mobility in the 1920s and 30s

This paper reflects on cultural mobility in the interwar Europe exemplified by mutual exchange between Dutch and Polish avant-garde formations such as De Stijl or Blok. Polish and Dutch groups and magazines belonged to an international, cross-border network of avant-garde writers, artists and architects who jointly struggled for new, modern art. Within this network, magazines and artists from Poland and the Netherlands were related to each other regardless of apparent cultural and linguistic boundaries – not only via other formations (e.g. French or German), but also directly based on personal contacts between particular representatives of given groups. These relationships enabled direct, mutual and reciprocal exchange of texts and reproductions of artworks and architectural projects between Polish and Dutch magazines. Based on such tangible traces, as well as private correspondence between the artists, I describe the history and the maelstroms of cultural exchange between Dutch and Polish avant-gardes, which – being part of the transnational European avant-garde network – significantly contributed to the development of modern literary, artistic and architectural thought.

Falling Between Two Stools: The Difficult Emancipation of Bisexuality in the Netherlands1

Over the last decade, media attention for bisexuality has increased in the Netherlands. Especially among younger people, there appears to be more openness and tolerance for bisexual feelings and behavior. Also, a growing number of individuals seem to identify themselves as bisexual. Has there indeed been a change in attitudes and behaviors involving bisexuality? In order to answer this question, the authors rely on a combination of historical and sociological approaches. First, they offer a historical overview of the sexological conceptualization of bisexuality. Second, they analyze the questions and the results of a number of sociological surveys on sexual attitudes and behavior. Third, the authors present a case study of how bisexual feelings and behavior were interpreted by readers and editors of a Dutch magazine popular among a young female readership.

A Cross-Cultural Content-Analytic Comparison of the Hookup Culture in U.S. and Dutch Teen Girl Magazines

This quantitative content analysis investigated the hookup culture in U.S. and Dutch teen girl magazines. Using Hofstede's cultural dimension of masculinity/femininity, the hookup culture (i.e., the relational context of sex, emotional context of sex, specific sexual activities, and contraceptives) was examined in 2,496 stories from all 2006 through 2008 issues of the three most popular U.S. (i.e., Seventeen, CosmoGirl! U.S. edition, and Teen) and Dutch teen girl magazines (i.e., Fancy, CosmoGirl! Netherlands edition, and Girlz!). Regarding the relational context of sex, stories about casual sex occurred more often in U.S. magazines, and Dutch magazines focused more on committed sex. Dutch magazines also emphasized sex within the emotional context of love more often than did U.S. magazines. In terms of sexual activities, coital sex was mentioned more often in U.S. coverage, while petting was mentioned more frequently in Dutch coverage. Condoms were covered more positively in U.S. magazines than in Dutch magazines. Overall, the hookup culture seems to be more visible in U.S. magazines for the occurrence of casual sex and lack of love stories, whereas it does not emerge in Dutch magazines due to the presence of committed sex and love-related articles.

'Zoo kunstenaar, zoo atelier.' De weergave van het atelier in Elsevier's Geïllustreerd Maandschrift (1891-1897)

According to nineteenth-century convictions, the studio reflected the soul of the artist. In the 1850s reporters started to write about visits to artists' studios. Every month, the Dutch magazine Elsevier's Geillustreerd Maandschrift published a story about a visit to the studio of an artist from the The Hague School. The aim of this article is to define what the editorial views were during the first seven years of its publication (1891-1898) on the relation between the artist and his studio. Like Emile Zola, the editors of Elsevier's believed that an artist's disposition is manifest in his work. And because the studio was supposed to reflect this disposition, they believed a description or depiction of an artist's studio would provide insight in his personality and work. Thus, an account of a visit to an artist's studio satisfied the curiosity of the public about the artist's 'true nature'. According to Elsevier's , an artist's studio embodied his personality: 'Like studio, like artist'.

Een problematisch symbool van vooruitgang. De representatie van de spoorwegen in De Hollandsche Illustratie (1864-1884)

The railways are one of the most vivid symbols of the Nineteenth Century. Their strong symbolic meaning is, however, far from unproblematic. Representations of the railways seem to reflect both a strong confidence in 'the genius' of the Nineteenth Century, but also a strong fear of what the future will bring. The railways figure prominently in the illustrations of one of the first Dutch illustrated periodicals: De Hollandsche Illustratie (1864-1884). The two symbolic meanings of the railways can be found in the pages of this Dutch magazine. In this article I argue that the character of these representations depends largely on the specific possibilities of the medium, i.e. the illustrated periodical in a Dutch context. The limited possibilities of the Hollandsche Illustratie are the reason why most of the illustrations have a foreign origin, despite the strong development of the Dutch railways in the period and the wish of the editors to create a magazine with 'national' content. The limited possibilities also prevented a quick reaction to current affairs. I argue that the editors of De Hollandsche Illustratie tried to increase the value of illustrations they bought from other magazines by giving them a stronger symbolic meaning.

Interpretation of Highly Visual ‘Open’ Advertisements in Dutch Magazines

In recent decades magazine advertisers have used an increasing number of highly visual open ads. Open ads do not guide consumers toward a specific interpretation as traditional ads do. An experiment was carried out to establish the effects of openness on interpretation. As expected, openness was found to have an overall negative effect on interpretation because more consumers were unable to interpret open ads and were not able to create their intended interpretation. Contrary to our expectations, however, we did not establish a higher number of alternative interpretations for open ads.

Virginity Loss and Pregnancy in U.S. and Dutch Teen Girl Magazines

Using Hofstede’s cultural dimension of masculinity/femininity, this quantitative content analysis investigated the coverage of virginity loss (i.e., occurrence, tone, and association with negative consequences) and pregnancy (i.e., occurrence, tone, and negative consequence of sex) in 2,496 feature stories from all issues of three U.S. and three Dutch teen girl magazines from 2006 to 2008. Stories about virginity loss and pregnancy occurred equally often in the U.S. and Dutch magazines. Pregnancy was attached with a negative tone in both the United States and Dutch coverage. Virginity loss, however, was portrayed with a positive tone more often in the Dutch coverage than in the U.S. coverage. In addition, pregnancy was depicted as a negative consequence of sex more often in the U.S. coverage than in the Dutch coverage. Implications are discussed in terms of differences in adolescent sexual socialization in the United States and the Netherlands.

‘Would it not be better to just stop?’ Dutch medical aid in World War I and the medical anti-war movement in the interwar years

During World War I, the Netherlands sent several ambulances to assist the medical services of the warring nations. Although acting mostly far away from the battlefields, they encountered gruesome scenes, which they described in Dutch magazines. They themselves hardly ever concluded that therefore war must be stopped, let alone stop medical aid during wartime. But some of their colleagues, first some nurses and later also some physicians, did. They were already mostly politically left-wing oriented and, certainly in the case of the nurses, pleading for suffrage. Already in 1918 this resulted in an appeal to stop medical assistance – 20 years before Cambridge professor John Ryle made a similar plea. Stopping medical aid in wartime would prevent more people from getting wounded and dying than anything that medicine could cure. The medical experiences during the war further resulted in the interwar years in the formation of some medical peace movements, initially by nurses – generally embedded in the larger, common peace movement – and later by doctors, who distanced themselves from the common peace movement because this would endanger medical neutrality. This had, however, already weakened the medical peace movement. The threat of a new war put an end to medical peace action.

Scripts of Sexual Desire and Danger in US and Dutch Teen Girl Magazines: A Cross-National Content Analysis

The aim of this comparative quantitative content analysis was to investigate how US and Dutch teen girl magazines cover sexual desire (i.e., sexual wanting, and pleasure) and sexual danger (i.e., sexual risk, and negative physical/health consequences of sex). Relying on the sexual scripts framework and Hofstede’s cultural dimension of masculinity/femininity, we examined (a) how the coverage varied for boys and girls, (b) how it differed between the United States and the Netherlands, and (c) how gender differences varied by country. The sample comprised 627 sex-related feature stories from all 2006–2008 issues of three US (i.e., Seventeen, CosmoGirl! United States edition, and Teen) and three Dutch teen girl magazines (i.e., Fancy, CosmoGirl! Netherlands edition, and Girlz!). Overall, sexual wanting occurred more frequently in the US magazines than in the Dutch magazines. In the US coverage, boys’ sexual wanting received more attention than girls’ sexual wanting, whereas in the Dutch coverage sexual wanting was depicted equally often for boys and girls. The depiction of sexual pleasure did not vary by gender in either country, but was generally more visible in the Dutch magazines than in the US magazines. Sexual risks and the negative consequences of sex were associated with girls more than with boys, and were primarily depicted in the US magazines rather than in the Dutch magazines.

The Effects of Openness on Attitude toward the Ad, Attitude toward the Brand, and Brand Beliefs in Dutch Magazine Ads

In recent decades, magazine advertisers have used an increasing number of open ads. Open ads do not guide consumers towards a specific interpretation as traditional ads do, and they require more effort to decipher. An experiment was carried out to determine the effects of ad openness on the attitude towards the ad, brand beliefs, the attitude towards the brand, and the moderating role of ease of comprehension on the attitude towards the ad. We also assessed the effects of openness in relation to an individual's need for cognition. As expected, openness was found to have an overall negative effect on the attitude towards the ad, brand beliefs, and the attitude towards the brand. The negative effect of openness was related to the difficulty participants experience searching for an interpretation. Contrary to expectations, however, need for cognition did not moderate the effects of openness on the attitude towards the ad and the ability to interpret open ads.

Generic technologies for single- and multi-document summarization

The technologies for single- and multi-document summarization that are described and evaluated in this article can be used on heterogeneous texts for different summarization tasks. They refer to the extraction of important sentences from the documents, compressing the sentences to their essential or relevant content, and detecting redundant content across sentences. The technologies are tested at the Document Understanding Conference, organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA in 2002 and 2003. The system obtained good to very good results in this competition. We tested our summarization system also on a variety of English Encyclopedia texts and on Dutch magazine articles. The results show that relying on generic linguistic resources and statistical techniques offer a basis for text summarization.

Challenging globalisation: toward a feminist understanding of resistance

‘Given the success of Naomi Klein with her book No Logo and Noreena Hertz's The Silent Takeover, can we infer from this that feminists are finding themselves in the limelight of the anti-globalisation movement?’ With this question a reporter of the Dutch magazine Op Gelijke Voet approached me about two years ago.

Analyzing rhetorical devices in print advertisements

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Evening Primrose Oil and Fish Oil for Severe Chronic Mastalgia: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Trial

Recently evening primrose oil has been a popular holistic recommendation for the treatment of mastalgia because of its ability to affect prostaglandin metabolism. To investigate the ability of evening primrose oil to alleviate symptoms of mastalgia, the authors conducted a randomized, double-blind clinical trial. Fish oil was included in the study because it also is known to produce changes in prostaglandin metabolism. Control oils were corn oil and wheat germ oil, which were chosen for their common usage and similarity in color to the study oils. Participants for the study were recruited in Holland from 1993 through 1996 through an extensive publicity campaign involving general practitioners, surgeons, patient organizations, Dutch magazines, and posted advertisements. Women who enrolled in the study met these five criteria: cyclic or noncyclic mastalgia for more than 6 months, a minimum of 5 days and a median of at least 7 days of pain per menstrual cycle, age between 18 and 45 years, premenopausal state, and at least one functioning ovary. One hundred twenty women, 94 with cyclic and 26 with noncyclic mastalgia, enrolled in the study. Their mean age was 37.6 years. After the first clinical visit, all patients began keeping a daily pain diary, which included days with pain, severity of pain, and menstrual periods. At 3 months participants returned for a second evaluation. The 120 women recorded a mean number of 70.5 pain days in the 3-month period. On a scale of 1 to 3, the mean severity of pain was 1.64. At this time the patients were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups that received daily regimens of 3 g of two different treatment oils. The first group received fish oil and control oil (FC); the second, evening primrose oil and control oil (EC); the third, fish oil and evening primrose oil (EF); and the fourth, two control oils (CC). Twelve women dropped out of the trial: eight because of adverse side effects, one for treatment failure, one because she became pregnant, and two because their symptoms had improved. Fifteen patients took fewer than the prescribed numbers of pills, including seven who took less than half of the doses. Eleven women complained of side effects, and four had difficulty taking or remembering pills. Side effects of treatments and placebos included gastric and abdominal symptoms, skin complaints, and weight gain. Women taking fish oil had the most trouble with gastric symptoms (belching, nausea, acidity, pain, fullness, and vomiting); 43% of those in the FC group and 60% of those in the EF group had these problems, compared with 20% and 27% of those in the EC and CC groups, respectively (P <.001). Other side effects were fairly evenly distributed. All patients experienced a decrease in the number of pain days. Fish oil registered a 15.5% decrease in pain days compared with 10.6% for its control oil, and evening primrose oil had a 12.3% decrease, compared with 13.8% for its control oil. The differences were not statistically significant. A slight decrease in severity of pain was reported by the women in all groups (0.06% to 0.08%).