PSR 3: Primary Source Report on BP Magazine December 1935 Issue

 

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 BP magazine was first published in 1928 by Burns, Philip and Company, as a travel and lifestyle magazine. The price of an issue changed three times, with the final and cheapest cost being one shilling from 1930 to its last issue in 1942. This price was quite reasonable for its quality. I am not sure of the circulation, but it was apparently popular.

 

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?

The editor of the magazine was Dora Payter, who was one of only few female magazine editors at the time. Dora allowed the readership to help shape the magazine through a slogan contest, with the winning slogan reflecting the magazine: “A door to the world, the world to your door”.

 

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

The implied readers are middle class, white and adventurous travellers, as evidenced by most advertisements and articles featuring white models and citizens meant to reflect the targeted reader. Although most material is enticing adults to travel, there are also some pages of travel stories for children. Advertisements for banks and loans are numerous, suggesting many readers were not affluent.

 

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)

Most articles are related to travel and focused on overseas trips and exploration of strange and oriental locations. Nature is an important element in most of the travel illustrations.

 

b. Advertising: Ratio of advertising to other aspects of the text. What kind of advertising gets the most space? Anything else significant about advertising?

An advertisement trend is of travel to England, focusing on the modern European trends and culture rather than nature, again reflecting the white target audience. There are many products advertised relating to travel, such as alcohol, cameras, tinned food, and jewellery. Essentially most advertisements revolve around a reader contemplating travel and holiday. The remaining advertisements that are not directly related to travel are located among the last twenty pages of the issue.

 

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?

This issue had just over 100 pages, but the advertisements accounted for around 30% of the space. 16 pages contained colour and over half of the pictures were photos, mainly of scenic locations. Photos which focused on European locations, focused on the location itself, whereas photos related to non-European locations focused on the people’s way of life. The photos in general give a sense of European domination in nature, and this is summed up with the photos on the page 42 article entitled, “Logging among the kings”. Although the author is for the forest’s protection, the necessity of reshaping the environment for societies benefit.

 

References

Auslit. The B P Magazine. The University of Queensland.     https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C492939

The B P Magazine. Vol. 8, no. 1, 1935. Retrieved from photos.