PSR 2- Walkabout, September 1935

 

PSR 2: Primary Source Report

Walkabout – Australia and the South Seas, September 1935 Issue

By Hayley Fitzgerald

  Image provided by: Trove via nla.gov.au

 

 

Circulation

Walkabout was an Australian illustrated magazine that consisted of geographic, culture an and travel literature content. In terms of circulation, the magazine was published during the years 1934 -1974, the starting price for it was one shilling. As the magazine grossed in popularity the price increased for the first time in 1959 to 1/6d which equalled to one shilling and 6 pence. The magazine would be considered expensive due to the price rising throughout the years and more copies were being published, as well as majority of this magazine is illustrated as well as contain photographs by Australian photojournalists which would be more expensive to print.

Editor 

The magazine had three main editors over it is the 40 years it was published for. During the 1930s the founding managing editor was Charles Holmes, after he retired Basil Atkinson was editor until the 1960s and from there photojournalist Brian McArdle was the editor.

Implied Reader 

The September 1935 issue of Walkabout provides ads, articles and stories that has a focus on travel, which is meant for an implied reader of a class that has the expenses to travel. The magazine advertises national and international travel including destinations such as India, New Zealand, China, Japan, and other locations. It also advertises ways of travel such as trains and ocean liners. The magazines target audience during this time period would be anyone from the middle to upper class, those who have money and expenses to travel the world but do not shut off from the lower class. For example, on the first page of this issue there is an advertisement for an ocean liner that is extending a service that they are taking a tourist class to travel.

Contents

In a single issue, the content that gets the most pages are between cultural and informative subjects. Throughout the magazine, there are articles published that discuss Australian culture and what you can find travelling the country. It also discusses and advertises national and international travel and shows illustrations some tourist attractions with those advertisements.

The advertising throughout this geographic magazine is spread throughout the mass articles and illustrations and photographs. The advertisements in this particular issue include ocean liner, alcohol, and cigarettes ads. During this time period advertising for cigarettes and alcohol were common throughout magazines.

Walkabout is a geographic informative magazine that provides articles from different writers and photojournalists, they don’t specify any issues but inform of Australia’s cultural history and information of travelling whether it’s national or international.

Format

Walkabout is a dense magazine; this particular issue has 65 pages in totals. The format is all in black out and provides both photos and illustrations by a variety of artists and photojournalists. They provide photos or illustrations with the corresponding article to provide imagery to the reader This helps with advertising with travel, with using imagery with advertisements the reader can envision themselves on that particular trip,  if it targets the correct audience with expenses they may pursue the trip as a result of the advertisement. Overall, the density of articles, information, illustrations, and photographs make the magazine feel high quality and that it’s made for a particular audience.

References

Walkabout Vol. 1 No. 11 (1 September 1935). Trove. (2020). Retrieved  from https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-715103014/view?partId=nla.obj-715122558#page/n0/mode/1up.

Walkabout. Nla.gov.au. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.nla.gov.au/stories/blog/trove/2019/03/18/walkabout.