PSR 1: Primary Source Report on The
Australian Women's Weekly. (1933-1982)
Issue Vol. 1, no. 1
Image 1:
Circulation
What
can you find out about the circulation of the magazine? How would you
characterise the circulation--was it limited, or popular? Can you find out if that was considered
expensive?
The
magazine was started in 1933 by Frank Packer as a weekly publication.
As the magazine is still continuing on to this date, it is currently at its
peak, but however prior to the 2000’s, the magazine in the 1980s was read by
54% of females aged 14 and 19 in Australia.
By
1980, the magazine was selling at 50c a copy and included a regular television
supplement, and an editorial feature “The voice of the Australian Women”,
receiving 30000 women responses. Therefore it was seen as relatively cheap by
the 1980s, but the price had increased from the early 1930’s. By mid-1946 it
was selling 700,000 copies per week.
Editor
Does
the magazine have the same editor for a range of time? Can you find out
anything about this person? What is her
or her background, education, training? If the editor writes for the magazine,
what kind of things does he/she write?
Editors
of The Weekly over the years have included George Warnecke (1933-39), Alice
Mabel Jackson (1939-50), Esmé (Ezzie) Fenston (1950-72), Dorothy Drain (1972-75), Ita Buttrose (1975–76), Jennifer Rowe (1987-1992).
All editors have had different backgrounds and training experience in the
industry, Esme’ Fenston however was the longest lasting editor for the journal.
He only stopped editing when he passed away in 1971. (Born in Sydney 1908 29
July), youngest of 3 children and way married twice.
Implied Reader
After
studying thoroughly a single issue of the magazine--ads, articles, stories,
everything--consider its target reader implied by the magazine’s contents: age,
sex, economic class, intellectual class, race, political position, and anything
else that seems important
As
mentioned earlier, by the 1980’s 54% of FEMALES aged 14-19 in Australia had
been consistently reading the weekly publication. It is blatant that the
magazine was targeting women in their early to late teens. As hinted in the
title “Women’s Weekly”, the race can be diverse, as it isn’t stated or
opinionated to the white race, less so towards the 2000’s, differently from the
magazines closer to 1900. Considering the ages, it targeted, the teenagers may
be living in a supportive/average political and home socioeconomical position.
Contents
a. In
a single issue, what kind of content gets the most pages (creative: fiction,
poetry, drama, visual art, music/ critical: cultural, aesthetic, social,
political/ informative: travel, biography, history, news)
The main idea of
the women’s magazine prior to the world wars was to “divert their attention and
“softened war-related news”.
By the 1940’s The
Women’s Weekly began to focus heavily on fashion, employing Mary Hordern (younger
sister of Gretel Packer, Frank's wife) as a fashion contributor, and holding
four annual Paris fashion parades between 1946-1949. From 1947, Dorothy Drain
began penning her own column, 'It Seems To Me'. It remained a popular feature
of the magazine for sixteen years. This was a form of a non-fiction and
social/cultural fashion design in the magazine. This sold up 950 000 copies.
The magazine went
onto publishing for non-fiction, fashion, culture and romantic serials, all in
which highly requested from their audience. These are just few examples of
issue 1, but other stories, including women protests and propaganda is
scattered through many other issues and magazines in this time frame.
There were also
many other popular sections in the magazine (stories), these include pop
records, and an American comic strip, Teena, all in which succeeded quite well
with great reports.
b.
Advertising: Ratio of advertising to other aspects of the text. What kind of
advertising gets the most space? Anything else significant about advertising?
Image
2:
As mentioned earlier, the idea of grabbing
attention and drawing it away from the war, in the war related times, was a
clever advertising technique. Editor and Publisher George Warnecke achieved this by portraying
the women’s protesting, and sexualisation. Price is also advertised on the top
right hand corner, in big numbers.
In
this given example (image 2), during the times 1930’s-80’s, equal pay, sexualisation
and other discriminations were highly propagandic in magazines, promoting and
expressing how people feel. “Equal Social Rights for Sexes”, titled in issue 1,
this example displays how sexism was still a major issues and how they used
this magazine to educate both the young females of Australia and the little
percentage of men who may also be reading.
You can also see how fashion is greatly advertised and mentioned and displayed a lot in this page, “What Smart Sydney Women Are Wearing”, a sense of pride and courage is portrayed in this title as well. “Smart”, is used to show that women are people, and not just servants of men, they have a mind of their own, and by wearing this fashion is a sign of dignity.
c. If
the magazine attends to social, political, or cultural issues, is there
anything that helps you describe its position?
The current position that it is in, with the
help towards sexualism and their attempt of equal pay, the magazine would be in
a position of fight, where they will be fighting on equal pay, jobs and other
sex related discrimination. With the new implement of technology this has
worked. However, in a few issues, revealing photos are shown, in which can be
seen as sexualisation, which contradicts their whole purpose, for the purpose
of fashion.
Format
How
many average pages per issue? Did it use colour? How much?
Photography? How much? How are
images used? Do they illustrate stories
or article? If there are illustrations,
how do they make the magazine feel?
Each issue had approximately 240 pages,
selling at 50c in the 19802, as mentioned earlier. However, previously, once
first created in the 1930’s, issues barely made over 100 pages, as they had no
new stories and most of the stories and advertising was black and white and
dull. But, as the time progressed, the magazine moved towards colour, as shown
in image one, using demanding colours, such as read, to make you feel a sense
of power and pride as a woman. This is intentional, as they want the 54% of
Australian teens to get behind and support the battle of sexism.
Bibliography
Australian Dictionary of Bibliography. (n.d.).
Retrieved October 2, 2020, from
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fenston-esme-ezzie-10165
Australian food of history. (n.d.). 1933
Australian Women’s Weekly founded. Retrieved October 2, 2020, from
https://australianfoodtimeline.com.au/australian-womens-weekly/
Trove. (n.d.). The Australians Women Weekly.
Retrieved October 2, 2020, from https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/634568
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