Understanding Women's Magazines: Publishing, Markets and Readerships in Late-Twentieth Century Britain

Understanding Women's Magazines investigates the changing landscape of women's magazines. Anna Gough-Yates focuses on the successes, failures and shifting fortunes of a number of magazines including Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Frank, New Woman and Red and considers the dramatic developments that have taken place in women's magazine publishing in the last two decades.
Understanding Women's Magazines examines the transformation in the production, advertising and marketing practices of women's magazines. Arguing that these changes were driven by political and economic shifts, commercial cultures and the need to get closer to the reader, the book shows how this has led to an increased focus on consumer lifestyles and attempts by publishers to identify and target a 'new woman'.

Anna Gough-Yates is Lecturer in the Sociology of Culture and Communication at Brunel University. She is co-editor with Bill Osgerby of Action TV: Tough Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks, published by Routledge in 2001.