Shutterstock In the classic comedy Ghostbusters (1984), newly hired secretary Janice raises the subject of reading, while idly flipping through the pages of a magazine. The scientist Egon Spengler responds with a brusque dismissal: “print is dead.” Egon’s words now seem prescient. The prevailing assumption of the past couple of decades is that print media is being slowly throttled by the rise of digital. Print magazines, in particular, are often perceived as being under threat. While not nearly as popular as they once were, magazines haven’t died. New ones have started since the dire predictio ..read more

Australian Women's Weekly covers, 1939. Virgil Reilly, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA The Australian Women’s Weekly, the first Australian magazine dedicated solely to the interests of women, turned 90 this year. The magazine is known for its coverage centred around the home and child-rearing, but the early editions of the Weekly also created a space for Australian women to engage with politics through the lens of womanhood. Since its first edition in June 1933, the Weekly has provided Australian women with a forum to learn, discuss and debate a range of issues. Its coverage throughout the 193 ..read more

Every week since August 2021, Australian author Bri Lee has released a regular weekly Substack newsletter, News & Reviews, to thousands of paid and unpaid subscribers. The “news” offers commentary on current events and Lee’s particular interests and knowledge areas. “Reviews” can be of just about anything, ranging from books and articles to film and television, or fashion, architecture, events and miscellaneous “fancy things”. The writing is erudite and well informed, but also very personal. The newsletter has been successful enough to support the launch of a monthly “magazine” edition of ..read more

In the summer of 1972, the Women’s Liberation Movement was fighting hard, through rallies and marches, for social, sexual and reproductive liberation. The “second wave” of feminism was at its peak, gaining notoriety after a group threw flour bombs at the Miss World beauty pageant in 1970, highlighting the objectification of women. It hit the news once again in the UK in 1972 when a group of women night cleaners went on strike in London for better working conditions. Unsurprisingly, not everyone at the time was on board with these women’s claims for equality and the British and American presses ..read more

The Victoria's Secret we've become accustomed to is no more. The brand has finally realized that diversity sells. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Victoria’s Secret recently announced a cast of new “angels.” They include American athlete Megan Rapinoe, actress and activist Priyanka Chopra Jonas and the brand’s first transgender model, Vanetina Sampaio. Together, they speak to a far more diverse image of beauty than was common for the once popular company. Victoria’s Secret learned a lesson other leading fashion brands and the industry at large are coming to realize: diversity sells. Better representation ..read more

Don't forget fans. Here, Phuong Nguyen (left) as Captain America with Derrick Petry as Deadpool, at Comic-Con International in July 2018, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) With the vast majority of North America’s thousand-plus fan conventions cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual conventions (called cons) have been a bright spot for fans in an otherwise bleak year. Although organizers have experimented with different ways to run an online convention, none had as high expectations as the San Diego Comic-Con’s Comic-Con@Home. The virtual event, held July 22–26, featured content d ..read more

www.shutterstock.com How many media analysts predicted it? In 2018 Australia’s Nine Entertainment absorbed Fairfax Media and its New Zealand subsidiary Stuff. Just under two years later chief executive Sinead Boucher bought Stuff from Nine for a dollar. The bold move saved New Zealand’s largest newspaper publisher and online news site from uncertainty at best, closure at worst. “Behold, Saint Sinead of Stuff”, wrote one observer, while pointing out what else would be needed: financial backing, government subsidies, and management of internal costs and debt. Media commentators, public media lo ..read more

The more television people watch the more they prefer a thinner female body type. Jean-Luc Jucker, Author provided Think about the last time you watched a film or picked up a magazine. Chances are the majority of models and actresses were young, beautiful and slim – or even underweight. Research shows that in films and TV programmes heavier characters are more likely to be lower status, the target of jokes and are less likely to be lead or romantic characters. This sends a very clear message: that thinness is normal and desirable. For many young people, this emphasis on extreme thinness in wom ..read more

Gravely misinformed ideas about health, beauty and body image still dominate, as derogatory reactions to plus size model Tess Holliday’s October Cosmopolitan UK magazine cover prove. TV presenter Piers Morgan, for example, posted a photo of the cover on Instagram with a caption that called out this “step forward for body positivity” as “a load of old baloney”. He went on to add: “This cover is just as dangerous and misguided as celebrating size zero models.” Debates along the same lines run throughout discussion of the magazine cover on social media, with many people arguing that the image pro ..read more

The magazine taught its readers to never swallow what they're served. Nick Lehr/The Conversation via Jasperdo, CC BY-NC-ND Mad Magazine is on life support. In April 2018, it launched a reboot, jokingly calling it its “first issue.” Now the magazine announced it will stop publishing new content, aside from year-end special issues. But in terms of cultural resonance and mass popularity, its clout has been fading for years. At its apex in the early 1970s, Mad’s circulation surpassed 2 million. As of 2017, it was 140,000. As strange as it sounds, I believe the “usual gang of idiots” that produced ..read more