To Be or Not To Be : Roles Assigned to Females in Women's Magazine Fiction 1970-80, A Thematic Content Analysis
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Date
1981Author
Ritzer, Mariann
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
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http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/79682Description
The messages media transmit play a part in shaping an d reinforcing the roles an individual plays in society. A woman's role in society is changing. Women's magazines would be expected to reflect these changing roles. In a study of women's magazine fiction conducted by Helen Franzwa (1975), it was discovered that from 1940-1970 women's magazine fiction gave only one answer when asked, “What is the proper role for women in
the middle of the twentieth century?” That answer was the role of
housewife and mother. The purpose of this study is to replicate Franzwa's study to discover the roles the fiction in Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, and Good Housekeeping has assigned to women in the decade of the 70s.