THE WORLDS IN HER WORLD : EXPLORING THE TEXTS AND THE READERS

Abstract

This thesis deals with the phenomenon of reading the local women's magazine Her World. The aim of this dissertation was to explore the nature of the relationship between the magazine and its readers. In view of such a relationship, the question was then what sort of influence does Her World have over its readers, and how did its readers negotiate the magazine. The approach to solving this sociological problematique was to conduct studies on both Her World and its readers. Thus, I took upon a reception analysis, which involves the study of the audiences of mass media, to investigate a network of Her World readers. Proceeding from the findings of the first stage of interviews with the network of readers on what it was they liked to read, I identified reading Her World both as a solitary activity the readers undertook in their private leisure time and as a shared experience which also locates reading Her World in the social dynamic between the individual and the social network she is in. I then went on to conduct a textual analysis of Her World based on the findings of the first session of interviews. The basis for my textual analysis was Foucault's Theory of Discourse. By which Her World was analysed with reference to three discourses, namely, fashion, the body (beauty) and men (sex). After which, I returned again to the network of readers to derive their attitudes towards the three discourses in Her World. The conclusion that I have come to on the Her World-reader relationship is that Her World has a diffused notion of influence on its readers, in not so much as ‘influencing their behaviour in terms of fashion, clothes and make-up, but rather Her World serves to contribute and sustain the discourse on women by their constant emphasis on fashion, beauty and men within its pages. And despite negotiation with the magazine, this network of Her World readers, they do so only with the three discourses of fashion, the body (beauty) and men (sex).