Public-Exploring-Australian-Womens-Magazines

EXPLORING AUSTRALIAN
WOMEN’S MAGAZINES
A QUESTION
OF STYLE
ANA DIAZ
AMELIA AGOSTA
JULIA
GILLARD’S
SOLUTION

EXPLORING AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S MAGAZINES
Prepared by Andrea Andric
Bachelor of Communication (Journalism)
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Bachelor of Communication (Journalism)
(Honours)
RMIT University, Melbourne
Australia
Ph: 0424 796 556
Email: s3166055@student.rmit.edu.au
Supervisor: Dr Josie Vine
Faculty of Communication
RMIT University, Melbourne
Australia
Email: josie.vine@rmit.edu.au

ABSTRACT
This practice-led research of magazine feature writing aims to re-negotiate the idea of
the Australian women’s magazine. Born out of dissatisfaction with current commercial
Australian women’s magazine this study looks toward niche publications such as Vogue,
Harper’s Bazaar and The Monthly as inspiration for combining two fields of interest –
fashion and politics – in one publication. This combination of political commentary and
fashion editorial presents a new vantage point and magazine concept. To examine women’s
magazines this exegesis looks at Australian journalists and publications that informed the
writing of the articles. As well as this, the exegesis discusses critiques that have shaped and
initiated the discourse of women’s magazines. This research hopes to add to the Australian
academic discourse on magazines as well as present an untried magazine concept to be tested
by a focus group or other market research methodology.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Josie Vine for her unfailing support, advice and
encouragement. Thanks also to Honours Program Director Adrian Miles for always
challenging me to think laterally.
Thanks to my brother, George, for his love, understanding and tremendous talent; my mother
for believing in me every step of the way and Mish for his continuous positive energy.
To my Honours peers – this experience wouldn’t have been the same without you. Thank you
for your constructive feedback, friendship and all the fun. A special mention goes to Hannah
for her friendship and support through countless hours of Labsome insanity.

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP:
This project contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or
diploma in any tertiary institution, and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no
material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in
the text of this project.
Signed:
Date: / /

CONTENTS
Abstract
Statement of Authorship
Acknowledgements
Contents Page
Introduction 12
1. Literature Review 15
1.1 What is a feature article? 15
1.2 Difference between newspaper features and magazine features 16
1.3 The Nuts and Bolts 18
2. Theory 24
2.1 Women’s Magazine Themes 24
2.2 Critiques of Women’s Magazines 26
2.3 Dichotomies of Women’s Magazine Content 27
2.4 Advertising and Journalism in Women’s Magazines 28
3. Methodology 30
3.1 Practice-Led Research 30
3.2 Audience/Readership 31
3.3 Project – Processes and Considerations 32
3.4 The Conversation About Design 42
4. Limitations 43
5. Conclusion 45
Reference List 46
Appendix 1 – The Project 51
Appendix 2 – Readership Profile of The Monthly Magazine 60
Appendix 3 – Readership Profile of Vogue Magazine 61
Appendix 4 – Australian magazine readerships 62
Appendix 5 – HREC approval letter 66

12 Andrea Andric
INTRODUCTION
This study was born out of my dissatisfaction with commercial and general interest
Australian women’s magazines. It is unfortunate that magazines such as Cleo and
Cosmopolitan make assumptions about women’s interests, potentially leaving a potential
readership in the lurch. These assumptions, however, are predicated and derived from a
successful business model. They have long-standing and entrenched ideas abut the type of
content that sells magazines and generates revenue. These ideas were aimed at the sexually
liberated woman, evident in Buttrose’s editorial letter in Cleo (1972), and gave a voice to
issues previously not discussed freely in women’s magazines. It is this socio-political context
and unquestioned business models in place for the creation of Australian women’s magazines,
which spurred me to undertake a re-negotiation through practice-led research.
A study by David Gauntlett (2008) of British women’s magazines revealed common
themes in contemporary magazines as: men as sex objects, sex and sexuality, relationships,
transformation and empowerment. However, Gauntlett’s study also revealed “few, if any,
of the interviewees were entirely happy with the women’s magazines they read” (Gauntlett
2008, p. 212). While this type of study hasn’t been conducted in Australia, a lot of women’s
magazines published and syndicated for an Australian readership follow the same model.
This project is presenting an untried concept, which aims to re-negotiate the idea of the
Australian women’s magazine by combining political and fashion content. This concept
is presented using practice-led research. The project offers four feature articles: a political
commentary article, column, fashion designer profile and a Q&A piece. These articles are
examples of the type of content that may fit in an Australian women’s magazine. Therefore,
the project is intended to be viewed by a probable focus group, or used for other magazine
audience research methods, which would be the next stage taken in this process but is outside
the scope of this exegesis.
Throughout this study I realised that there are things about women’s magazines that greatly
appeal to me. Most of my appreciation is for high-end fashion magazines, such as Vogue and
Harper’s Bazaar, and related to the form of the magazines: their glossy pages, design and
fashion images. However, I also enjoy the focus on the love of fashion demonstrated in the
fashion features in these magazines. Also an avid reader of political commentary and news
magazines, I wanted this project and exegesis to propose a different perspective on the type
of content an Australian women’s magazine can feature. I aimed to do this by combining
fashion and political writing in one publication.
With this project I am assuming an audience of women who are of the A/B demographic,
which is discussed this further in Chapter 3. Readership statistics from the political and social

13Exploring Australian Women’s Magazines
commentary magazine The Monthly suggest that women in this demographic are interested in political
content. According to The Monthly’s readership profile, compiled by Roy Morgan Research, 40.51 per
cent of its readers are female. This means that 54,000, and nearly half of their whole readership, are
women. (For a full readership profile please refer to Appendix 2). It is curious that these interests are
not represented in women’s magazines since there seems to be a large female readership interested in
political content. Even though this project is not intended as a business proposal, this exegesis discusses
the audiences and readerships to provide a more clearly defined context for the project.
This study was completed from a journalistic point of view to investigate a re-negotiation of Australian
women’s magazines. In doing so, I examined the current body of knowledge on journalistic magazine
writing. This exegesis discusses where my project sits in relation to the existing ideas and practices
within journalism. Focusing specifically on feature writing, this study concentrates on feature writing
theories outlined by Australian journalist and academic Mathew Ricketson (2004) and scholars
Stephen Tanner, Molly Kasinger and Nick Richardson (2009). I am not endeavouring to invent a
‘new’ style of writing with this project but rather to borrow from existing styles and present them in a
different context.
This exegesis will discuss current industry examples such as Cleo, Cosmopolitan, The Australian
Women’s Weekly, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Russh, Frankie and Yen. Comparing and contrasting this
with the proposal I am making with my project, I will discuss how these publications and Australian
fashion journalists – such as Janice Breen Burns and Ita Buttrose, as well as political journalists such
as Michelle Grattan, Annabel Crabb and political commentary articles in The Monthly magazine –
informed my writing.
Since there is very little academic discourse in Australia on fashion and women’s magazines, this
exegesis will briefly discuss the international feminist critique of women’s magazines. These critiques,
mostly from first-wave feminist scholars such as Betty Friedan (1963), make up the bulk of academic
writing on magazines. Even though I do not agree with them wholly, they were important in locating
my own opinions within the discourse of women’s magazines. These critiques are valuable because
they initiated a discourse on magazines. In fact, Tim Holmes in Mapping The Magazine (2008)
observes that feminist scholars opened the research in the field, which might be characterised as
magazine studies (Holmes 2008, p. x)
The methodology chapter of this exegesis discusses the writing practices I employed in researching,
writing and editing the articles that comprise my project. It also discusses the importance of
undertaking this study as practice-led research and the decision to present the project as a mock-
up of a magazine. In this chapter, I will explore the idea of readership, the limitations and obstacles
I encountered in the development of the project and the importance of the choice made to present
the articles in the style of magazine pages. The conclusion will discuss possible future outcomes of
the project. These include the next steps that could be taken to compile a business proposal and
market research to determine whether the magazine would be a viable commercial product.

LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review looks at the body of work produced by Australian journalists and
scholars about the mechanics of feature writing. It will focus on Matthew Ricketson (2004)
and Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) as contemporary Australian nonfiction
theorists as well as touching on industry publications and journalists present in the
Australian magazine market that have directly informed journalistic discourse, and
practice, in magazine writing. Throughout the course of my research I have found that these
texts, as well as other notable textbooks written on feature stories by Sumner and Miller
(2005), Cunningham and Turner (2006), Kramer and Call (2007), Grundy (2007) and their
predecessors, Zinsser (1976) and Blundell (1988) propagate core values of non-fiction and
journalism writing.
WHAT IS A FEATURE ARTICLE?
“Submerged in an ocean of information, people are crying out for
life-line articles that seek to make sense of the daily rush of complex,
chaotic events” (Ricketson 1999, p. 184).
Ricketson (2004) and Sumner and Miller (2005) distinguish between hard news and
feature stories. They define hard news as stories written in the inverted pyramid, with the
most important facts at the beginning and the least important at the end. They say hard
news assumes the importance of information over emotion. Feature articles, according to
Ricketson (2004), are different to hard news because they contain emotion and analysis as
well as information. Sumner and Miller (2005) define features as articles that contextualize
the hard news story and go beyond the headlines, and the standard who, what, when and
where, to explore the “why” and the “how”. They add that these stories explore the wider
ramifications and implications of the news to the reader, providing background information
and explanation of events and trends. Sumner and Miller say, “If news reporters tell readers
‘here’s what’s happening,’ feature writers add ‘and here’s what it means to you’” (Sumner
& Miller 2005, p. vii). Writing the feature articles, which comprise my project, this was
important because it meant I could explain the relevance of the issues and people I was
writing about to the reader. It also allowed me to elaborate and write longer articles, in the
instances of Julia Gillard’s Solution and the designer profile of Ana Diaz to explain the ‘why’
– a luxury not afforded in hard news. This warranted longer, more carefully crafted, articles
typical of magazine writing.

16 Andrea Andric
Ricketson (2004) says feature stories decode the news instead of merely presenting it.
“Feature stories…flesh out the daily news skeleton by revealing emotions inherent in news
stories and clothe it by backgrounding and analysing the meaning of events” (Ricketson
2004, p. 4). This is one of the most appealing aspects of feature articles and it is what I am
aiming to do in my political analysis piece. (See Appendix 1). Sumner and Miller (2005)
argue this is increasingly one of the more important aspects of feature articles because the
immediacy of radio, television and the Internet means the facts are available as soon as they
appear, but their context and implications fall outside the scope of hard news.
In the context of my project, feature articles are important because they, according to
Ricketson (2004), make up the bulk of magazine content and also because they have a less
rigid structure, which allows for experimentation with personal voice, tone and style.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEWSPAPER FEATURES AND
MAGAZINE FEATURES
“By 1992 the size of the magazine market in Australia surpassed the
newspaper market for the first time - $810 million to $762 million”
(Ricketson 1999, p. 176).
There is a difference between newspaper features and magazine features. Ricketson (2004)
and Sumner and Miller (2005) recognise this difference. However, Sumner and Miller
(2005) note five specific distinctions that can be made between the two. Since my project
focuses on magazine writing I think it is important to make this distinction because
it affects the type, length and tone of my articles. For the complete project please see
Appendix 1.
As Sumner and Miller (2005) note, newspaper features are usually shorter and related to
the news of the day. Ricketson (2004) notes that the average length of a newspaper feature
can be between 1500-2000 words. Magazine features rely more on trends and issues in
the niche market they cover and thus have a longer shelf life. This extended shelf life is
also due to the amount of time that magazines have between editions (monthly, quarterly,
weekly) as opposed to newspapers, which are mostly published daily, tri, bi or weekly.
Newspaper features usually also aim to please a localised audience, whereas most magazine
writing is directed toward a “diverse but narrow target audience with specific interests and
demographic characteristics” (Sumner & Miller 2005, p. 8). This was important to me as a
writer because it informed the decisions I made about story ideas and also, the amount of
detail covered in the articles. When I thought about starting the project and the research,
I took into consideration the types of articles that are typical of women’s magazines. As

Ricketson (2004) notes the bulk of magazine content is feature articles, but in women’s
magazines there are also ‘packaged’ stories, these stories are accompanied by a fashion spread
or ‘break out boxes’. There are also features of varying lengths, some even shorter than the
typical 1500-2000 word feature.
While I wanted to keep some similarities with the women’s magazines that exist in the
Australian market today the project makes a proposition about the content of these
publications. The similarities between my project and the content of women’s magazines are:
it is written in the form of feature articles, there is a concentration on fashion, the design
of the magazine pages; the articles are written in a conversational tone; the use of language
specific to fashion; common themes involving fashion and empowering women through
providing positive and strong examples; and it makes assumptions about women’s interests.
However, this project presents a point of difference in the assumptions it makes about
women’s interests – incorporating political commentary and focusing on fashion thereby
eliminating the bulk of advice, service articles and male-objectification articles and images
present in general-interest women’s magazines. These assumptions target a niche audience,
which will be discussed in Chapter 3, and present a magazine concept as yet untested and
untried in Australia.
Sumner and Miller (2005) also note that while newspaper articles aim at remaining detached
and ‘objective’, magazine feature writers have more freedom to employ their personal voice,
interpretations, world-views and style. This is probably the most important and interesting
aspect of magazine feature writing in relation to my project because it allows an exploration
of literary voice and style.
The way newspaper and magazines function is also notably different. Newspapers employ
more staff and a few editors and magazines employ many editors and rarely any full-time
writers. According to Sumner and Miller (2005) freelance writers contribute most magazine
content. This works to the benefit of magazines because most are published nationally and
sometimes syndicated internationally, thriving due to the plurality of the contributor voices.
This is why the articles comprising my project indicate examples of the type of content in
this magazine concept. It is also one of the limitations of the project, an issue that will be
discussed further in Chapter 4.
Another important point of difference, according to Sumner and Miller (2005), is that
due to the longer time that magazines have between publishing, their readers expect more
complexity, analysis, originality, depth, sources and accuracy. Sumner and Miller say,
“magazine writing is more intellectually challenging for the reader and the writer” (Sumner
& Miller 2005, p. 9). American journalist and author Michael Evans (2004), also says readers
might set aside a whole afternoon with their favourite magazine whereas newspapers are

18 Andrea Andric
designed to be scanned or flicked through. What these authors agree on unequivocally is
the importance of the reader, and of capturing and keeping reader interest. Blundell (1988)
emphasises keeping the writing interesting. This has influenced my writing style because
one of the objectives of the project was to experiment with putting a more serious political
commentary feature into the genre of the woman’s magazine and in order to keep the
interest of the potential reader the tone and style of the article need to be appealing. In the
resulting article Julia Gillard’s Solution I tried my hand at a more conversational tone and
used examples such as, “Last year we had the largest boat arrival rate in 30 years but even at
that rate it would take at least 20 years to fill the MCG”. I felt this example would be more
interesting to the reader rather plain statistics or numbers, which might also be confusing.
According to Ricketson (2004) magazine features are usually longer than newspaper features
and therefore have to work harder at grabbing and maintaining the readers’ attention.
Blundell (1988) says in his introduction journalists have a responsibility to “…be tellers
of tales as well as purveyors of facts” (Blundell 1988, p. x). The general advice from both
Blundell (1988) and Ricketson (2004) in order to tell an interesting story is to do a lot of
thinking, reading and talking. These were the processes I employed writing the articles
that comprise the project and they formed the bulk of the pre-writing stage. (Pre-writing
is discussed more thoroughly in Chapter 3). In brief, I brainstormed story ideas then
discussed them with peers to gauge their opinions on the issue of asylum seekers. I also read
publications such as The Monthly magazine, The Australian and The Age newspapers and
Crikey to see what had already been written on the issue.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS
NEWS VALUES
While features are structured differently to hard news articles they still
share some news values. Ricketson says, “news and features are not
different worlds but different approaches to the same world”
Ricketson (2004) identifies news values as: ‘impact’, ‘relevance’, ‘proximity’, ‘prominence’,
‘timeliness’, ‘conflict’, ‘currency’ and ‘the unusual’. These news values are the most
commonly identified in other textbooks as well. Sumner and Miller (2005) and Blundell
(1988) have similar lists. These news values indicate the importance of news, however they
are more strongly associated with newspaper features. Ricketson (2004) notes all the news
values won’t all apply to feature articles all of the time. Ricketson says, “Some features are
published without any connection at all to the daily news agenda” (Ricketson 2004, p. 9).

Sumner and Miller (2005) note that a feature should adhere to at least one of the news values
in order to be relevant and successful. The news values that I have identified in my feature
articles (See Appendix 1) are:
Relevance – making the news relevant and understandable to the reader, instead of being
abstract. Rather than presenting the reader with a summary of events my aim is to provide
them with analysis and insight relevant to their interests. For example, in the column A
Question of Style I say: “This season Gillard’s asylum seeker policy is getting thrown out by
the High Court, in 2001 Howard was lambasted for the handling of Tampa”. This comparison
is relevant to the potential readership of the publication because it uses examples from
Australian politics and contextualises the argument of repetition and cycles within policy-
making.
Proximity – the premise of my project is that it speaks to Australian women from a particular
socio-economic background and the content of the three articles will reflect this. This is
perhaps best demonstrated in the article Julia Gillard’s Solution. I chose an issue (the asylum
seeker policy) and a politician (Prime Minister Julia Gillard) relevant to an Australian
audience. The designer profile piece on Ana Diaz and the Q&A with Amelia Agosta are about
Australian designers and the column A Question of Style uses examples from Australian
politics.
Currency – while the nature of magazine features – and this project being undertaken
over the course of a year – means that the articles cannot be timely but they can provide
background information on a current issue, trend or theme. Julia Gillard’s Solution tackles
the issue of the asylum seeker policy, which has been covered by the media extensively in
2011. Whereas the designer profile on Ana Diaz has currency because she is a relatively
unknown designer but indicates an upcoming trend. This is also a characteristic of fashion
magazines – identifying and championing trends.
TYPES OF FEATURE ARTICLES
Ricketson (2004) identifies a few broad categories of feature articles: the ‘colour story’,
‘human interest story’, ‘news feature’, ‘backgrounder’, ‘lifestyle feature’, ‘travel story’, a
‘general feature’, ‘interview piece’, ‘profile’, ‘investigative feature’, ‘column’ and ‘review’.
The articles that I have written as part of my project can’t be strictly defined by one of these
categories but I can identify the following as guides:
Interview Piece/ Profile – Even though Ricketson (2004) says that interview pieces can
be lazy and deteriorate to a simple Q&A, or “extensions of the PR industry” (Ricketson
2004, p. 24), they are a staple of magazines. He lists Rolling Stone and Playboy as the two

20 Andrea Andric
magazines that were renowned for their interview pieces. Profile pieces are also popular in
women’s magazines because they are quick and easy to read. One of the aims of the profile,
according to Ricketson (2004), is to provide a few perspectives on one issue. Further, “some
aim to portray a particular job or group of people, one of whom is chosen as representative”
(Ricketson 2004, p. 25). I experimented with this genre using the interviews of two young
Australian fashion designers to create two articles This also provided the opportunity to
experiment with the packaging of stories, which is when stories in magazines are bundled
together as a showcase of a particular industry or issue.
Column – In The New Journalism (1973) Tom Wolfe critiques columnists and Ricketson (2004)
cites Zoe Heller, who wrote a ‘girl column’ for The Sunday Times, as saying that the experience
was “dispiriting”. However, Ricketson notes, “A good columnist brings knowledge, wit and
personality to their publication” (Ricketson 2004, p. 27). The columnist can also develop a
sustained relationship with their readers. “Good pundits have strong followings and apply
broad general knowledge and experience to the issues of the day” (Ricketson 2004, p. 28).
Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) also argue that columnists help readers identify (with)
the publication and can be a “vital” component to a publication. They cite Fleet Street editor
Brian MacArthur who wrote: “Good columnists set us up for the day, help to define our views,
make us argue or agree with them and quarrel with friends or colleagues” (Tanner, Kasinger
and Richardson 2009, p. 326). Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) argue columns are a
“growth industry” especially with the evolution of blogging.
Columns are also extremely popular with fashion readers and writers because they allow the
writer to bring his or her wit, personality and knowledge into the writing. Two of the best-
known Australian fashion columnists are Maggie Alderson from Good Weekend magazine
and Patty Huntington from The Sydney Morning Herald. Columns are also finding their
way back into publication such as Cosmopolitan, which features a sex and relationship
column by an anonymous writer. The conversational tone of columns and being able to give
a personal opinion on an issue inspired me to write A Question of Style. The column draws
some parallels between the worlds of politics and fashion and therefore joins the two fields of
interest in the magazine.
News Feature/Backgrounder – According to Ricketson, “Many readers struggle to find time
to keep up with news daily and welcome articles summarising and explaining news events”
(Ricketson 2004, p. 17). With my project I want to make the assertion that it is possible to
have a political analysis piece in a commercial Australian woman’s magazine. That is why I
used Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s one-year anniversary as an opportunity to discuss asylum
seeker decisions the government has made in the past year. I also aimed to provide some
background about Gillard’s political career rather than focusing on her personal life, which
has been the focus of many Australian women’s magazines (The Australians Women’s Weekly
August 2011 issue features an extensive article with the headline: Julia Gillard On Dating,
Drugs & Life With Tim: Her Most Revealing Interview Yet) at the time of the anniversary.

One of the limitations of this project is timeliness. Since the project was undertaken over the
course of a year, the asylum seeker policy debate and Julia Gillard’s anniversary were covered
with an assumed publication in August 2011. This issue of timeliness will be discussed
further in Chapter 4.
POLITICAL WRITING
Political features can be built around many different aspects of politics such as political
initiatives, legislation, reports, elections and changes of government, parliamentary Question
Time, intergovernmental relations, political wrongdoing and scandals and leadership
challenges to name a few. Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) argue that in a liberal
democracy, like Australia, the media assumes the role of watchdog. This role comes with the
“responsibility of keeping society abreast of what governments – and other sections of society,
including business and sport- are doing” (Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson 2009, p. 256).
This public-political discourse is also important for showcasing a diverse range of opinions
and offers the public an explanation of policies or probable consequences of these policies.
According to Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) politics provides a rich source of
material for issues-based features and tends to be written by two groups of people. The first
group includes political journalists, mostly operating out of the Canberra Press Gallery
or one of the state-based press galleries, and the second are experts and representatives of
various interest groups.
Well-known Australian political writers include Michelle Grattan, Laurie Oakes, Matt
Price, Mike Steketee, Annabel Crabb and Alan Ramsey. These writers, according to Tanner,
Kasinger and Richardson while “critical in their writing, can always be expected to be fair”
(Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson 2009, p. 257). Specialists, such as academics or former
politicians, representatives of special interest groups and lobbyists often write opinion pieces
or are cited as experts in their field. According to Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009)
they write from the perspective of a particular ideology or political stance.
Columnists such as Piers Akerman, former editor of the Herald Sun, Janet Albrechtsen from
The Australian, and Gerard Henderson, from The Sydney Morning Herald and Andrew Bolt
are often considered to be conservative; David Marr, former presenter of ABC’s Media Watch
and Phillip Adams, ABC Radio National presenter and columnist for The Australian, are seen
to be left-wing and Robert Manne might be labelled as ‘contrarian’.
Political features are often foreshadowed by hard news reports, TV news bulletins and
the immediacy of radio and Internet updates but they fulfil some important aspects of all
feature writing – explaining the why and the how of a story, simplifying complex issues and

22 Andrea Andric
providing background information on a person, issue or political trend. However, these
articles are not only confined to newspapers such as The Age, Herald Sun or The Australian.
Ricketson (2004) names two Australian newsmagazines: The Bulletin and Time Australia and
three with a focus on current-affairs: Quadrant, Eureka Street and Dissent. Published since
May 2005, The Monthly magazine can also be added to that list.
These magazines give their contributors more space and longer word counts to write political
features, essays and political commentary and opinion. While researching and writing Julia
Gillard’s Solution I was most influenced by The Monthly magazine and in particular Annabel
Crabb’s essay Prime Minister, Interrupted (The Monthly, August 2011). Crabb’s conversational
tone in the article is something that I hope I have achieved in Julia Gillard’s Solution
therefore making the issue more interesting to read about than if it were written in hard news
style. Crabb also frames her argument with solid evidence, research and interviews. This is
also something I tried to emulate as it makes the article more journalistically balanced. For
example, in Julia Gillard’s Solution I criticise the Prime Minister about the asylum seeker
policy but also say, “To be fair, Gillard is not the first prime minister to struggle in the first
12 months of office, by far”.
FASHION WRITING AND FASHION MAGAZINES
“You need to sleep with the enemy and not wake him when you leave”
(Tonchi, cited in Petronio 2008).
According to Ana Konig, fashion writing is a very specific form of journalism and has more
in common with feature writing than news journalism (Konig 2006, p. 209). It adheres to
the journalistic values Ricketson (2004) and Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) have
identified and desires to tell a story. Because it falls under the broad heading of ‘feature
writing’ it allows the writer to do so creatively.
Key Australian fashion writers include Janice Breen Burns and Rachel Wells from The Age,
Georgina Safe from The Australian, Patty Huntington from Frockwriter and Maggie Alderson
from Good Weekend Magazine.
Recently fashion blogs such as Lady Melbourne by RMIT Alum Phoebe Montague and The
Sartorialist by American photographer Scott Schuman have made an impact on fashion writing
and photography. However, the exploration of the effect of social media and blogs on the
fashion industry and magazines to its deserved length is beyond the scope of this exegesis.
Fashion articles are generally shorter features packaged with a fashion spread. This is
something that I have kept in mind while producing my fashion stories because it is

characteristic of fashion magazines. These are publications such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar,
W and InStyle. The American Vogue is seen to be a leader in the industry because it demands
a level of excellence both in the photography and fashion writing.
Having always been an avid reader of these magazines I paid particular attention while
writing the articles to the standard of writing in these publications. This is something that
I had always admired about them and what seems to set them apart from other women’s
magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Cleo. In particular I looked at how the writers at
Harper’s Bazaar created ‘fashion narratives’. Importantly, it is not just the content of the
feature articles within these magazines that creates the fashion narratives but the magazine
as a whole. The fashion spreads and products advertised in the magazine present a cohesive
narrative about the status of fashion. This is also an indicator of the business model fashion
magazines employ. Projecting certain images of luxury high-end fashion is followed up by
content and the products advertised in these magazines.
While a relatively small amount of research has been done on magazines in Australia,
Queensland-based academic France Bonner stands out having contributed to books such as
Fame Games: the production of celebrity in Australia (Turner, Bonner and Marshall 2000)
and the essay on magazines in Cunningham and Turner’s The Media and Communications
in Australia (2006). The need for more research on magazines has been outlined in Australia
by Turner et al (2000) and internationally by Anna Gough Yates (2003) and Tim Holmes
(2008). The bulk of the academic research about women’s magazines was initiated by feminist
scholars and will be discussed in Chapter 2. However, this research talks about general
interest women’s magazines and there have been no comprehensive studies of high-end
fashion magazines in particular.
The binary nature of fashion magazines is perhaps best described as the effort to eke out a
distinction between the advertorial and editorial content. It may well be that this in itself is
reflective of the different ways of perceiving these magazines. They can be perceived either
as propagators of a superficial multi-billion dollar industry or a legitimate cultural force of
artistic and creative energy. Unlike other women’s magazines such as Cleo, Cosmopolitan
and Marie Claire high-end fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar have a
clear and well-understood message: the perceived importance and beauty of fashion. All of
the images presented by these magazines are geared toward this one message and all of the
content reflects it as well. Both fashion and general interest women’s magazines propagate
these values because their business model, one that has been invariably successful, suggests
that these images generate revenue. The relationship between magazine journalism and
commercial interests will be discussed further in Chapter 2.

24 Andrea Andric
THEORY
WOMEN’S MAGAZINES THEMES
Women’s magazines have a long publishing history. In Australia one of the oldest women’s
monthly magazines, The Australian Women’s Weekly, continues to enjoy high circulation
numbers (according to Roy Morgan Research on the ACP magazine website the circulation
for the period of January to June 2011 is 491,352) and just celebrated its 75th anniversary.
Women’s magazines, thematic like their predecessors in newspapers - the women’s pages –
are defined by the nature of their content and themes. According to Brooke Kroeger (1994)
women’s pages concerned themselves with society’s stories, fashions and lifestyle features.
Ricketson (1999) cites Henry Mayer whose study of the Australian news media outlines
“women’s features, which took in cookery, fashion, social, weddings, shopping, babies and
personalities” (Ricketson 1999, p. 171). These themes were understood to be of interest to
women. In her study of women’s American magazines Walker (1998) identifies a mix of
common elements:
Fiction (primarily short stories, but sometimes serialized novels);
poetry; articles on fashion and personal appearance; advice on
household management – including cooking, cleaning, budgeting,
child care, home decoration, and martial harmony; and features about
or written by famous people. In varying degrees, the magazines ran
articles on issues of wide cultural significance beyond the home, though
always selected according to the editors’ perceptions of women’s roles
and interest: for example, profiles of presidential candidates, articles
on advancements in medicine, the advantages and disadvantages of
television, and the American educational system (Walker 1998, p. 2).
The Australian Women’s Weekly website outlines the following as elements perceived to be
indicative of contemporary women’s interests: fashion, beauty, health, home, craft, gardening
and cooking. However, according to Ricketson (2004), The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Tilly
Shelton-Smith became the first Australian woman to cover the war in Singapore and Malaya
but in recent times has stopped featuring political commentary or reportage. The Australian
Women’s Weekly and magazines such as Cleo and Madison and their syndicated peers such as
Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire are considered to be general interest women’s magazines.
As the typical lifestyles of western women have changed and diversified profoundly over the last
few generations, representations and images of women in the media in general have changed.

The content of general interest women’s magazines has also evolved because the social, political
and economic status of women has changed. The changes in women’s magazines have largely
been credited to American Cosmopolitan magazine under the editorship of Helen Gurley
Brown. (Hebron 1983; Winship 1987). This commercially successful magazine was a departure
from the dominant women’s magazines at the time, yet not a feminist publication such as Gloria
Steinem’s Ms. In the early ‘70s. As shown by Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo (2011), an ABC
TV movie, the Australian counter-part, Cleo, did a similar thing for Australian female readers
under the editorship of Ita Buttrose when it premiered in 1972.
These magazines started featuring content that talked about sex and sexuality, gave a voice to
issues previously not discussed in commercial media and answered readers’ questions on these
issues. Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo (2011) shows how Ita Buttrose and her team of journalists
led the way in articulating a new way of thinking for Australian women in the changing
cultural, political and economic landscape. Cleo featured witty and intelligent articles and gave
a new confidence to women in the discourse against the entrenched patriarchy, perpetuated by
commercial media that had defined the relationship between the sexes for far too long. But as
Buttrose’s first editorial letter points out, Cleo wasn’t an aggressive Women’s Lib supporter and
sought to retain and bolster women’s feminine qualities.
Today these general interest women’s magazines publish a broad range of feature articles to
cater to the perceived changes in women’s interests. According to Gauntlett (2008) themes in
magazines include: men as sex objects, sex and sexuality, relationships, transformation and
empowerment. These themes are more prevalent in general interest magazines that cater to
women in their 20s and 30s such as Cleo, Madison and Cosmopolitan. However these themes
can be seen in all women’s magazines to varying degrees.
A prominent ‘sub-genre’ of women’s magazines is the high-end fashion publication. The two
major fashion publications in Australia are Vogue Australia and Harper’s Bazaar Australia.
Other Australian magazines such as Russh, Yen, Frankie and Nylon cater to an alternative
fashion audience and have been around since the mid-2000s. These publications that
informed my writing style and focus in the two fashion articles I produced as part of the
project. The distinctive and conversational tone and style of the articles in these magazines
appealed to me as well as their broad scope. For example, featuring lesser-known designers,
models and brands and having a more localised focus catering to their specifically Australian
audience. These magazines are almost niche in nature because they focus almost solely on
the fashion industry. Their readership profiles are also vastly different to that of publications
such as Cleo and Cosmopolitan. This issue of audience and readership will be discussed in
more detail in Chapter 3.

26 Andrea Andric
CRITIQUES OF WOMEN’S MAGAZINES
Media commentators like The Australian’s columnist Mark Day have said that women’s
magazines today are “the least credible print products” (Day, 2005). Sue Turnbull also
notes, “the focus on ‘serious’ journalism excludes more popular and tabloid forms of media,
especially those favoured by young people and women” (Turnbull as cited in Cunningham
& Turner 2006, p. 80). In fact, women’s magazines have been criticized for almost as long as
they have existed. As Walker points out:
As early as 1917, Current Opinion published ‘An Indictment of Women’s
Magazines Edited by Men,” which sounded one of the enduring critiques
of the magazines: that male control of periodicals intended for women
readers was just one more example of men exerting authority over
women’s lives (Walker 1998, p. 228).
Studies of women’s magazines, beginning with Betty Friedan’s seminal book The Feminine
Mystique (1963), were instigated by and, for a long time, remained the domain of feminist
scholars. The studies that followed by Cynthia White (1970) and Marjorie Ferguson (1983)
paved the way for Shevelow (1989), Ballaster et al. (1991), McRobbie (2000[1991]), McCracken
(1993), Hermes (1995), Beetham (1996) and Gough-Yates (2002).
The power-oriented critique of magazines offered by feminist scholars from first wave
feminists, predominantly from the 1970s, rejected women’s magazines because they deemed
them incompatible with the Women’s Liberation movement. Summarising the feminist
position espoused at the time by McRobbie and her peers, Gough Yates (2003) said they
argued magazines, being the products of monolithic media corporations, were guilty of
“conspiring in the promotion of both capitalism and patriarchy” and of being a “key site
through which oppressive feminine identities are constructed and disseminated” (Gough
Yates 2003, p. 7).
Joke Hermes (1995) also challenged the older feminist criticism by saying these feminists
spoke “on behalf of others who are, implicitly, thought to be unable to see for themselves
how bad such media texts as women’s magazines are” (Hermes 1995, p. 1). Disparaging the
‘holier than thou’ moralism of this perspective, she advocated a more post-modern and less
moralistic approach that acknowledged the agency of readers, writers and editors.
Dominant studies into women’s magazines, by scholars such as Hebron (1983) and Winship
(1987), were based on the work of Italian Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci (1971) and depicted
women’s magazines as a site within civil society that was part of the hegemonic framework
that subordinated women. Over the next two decades magazines changed dramatically, to

some extent led internationally by the success of the American Cosmopolitan under the
editorship of Helen Gurley Brown. Her clear calls for cultural change and empowerment
of women challenged the view that women’s magazines were, by their nature, repressive
and presented them as something clearly more complex. In response, academic researchers
were drawn to the work of post-modern and post-structuralist theorists, especially French
philosopher Michel Foucault.
In brief, Foucaultian discourse on a topic, or within a profession or culture, is “a field of
‘what can be said and what can be thought’” (McHoul & Grace 1993, p. 34). As a result of his
work, research into magazines in the last three decades (Hermes 1995; Gough Yates 2003)
has begun to analyse the role magazines play in the lives of contemporary women and the
cultures they live in, providing an alternative perspective to the earlier assessments that
framed readers as naïve and gullible.
DICHOTOMIES OF WOMEN’S MAGAZINE CONTENT
Feminist studies of women’s magazines have repeatedly pointed to the dichotomy of
information and images projected in the content of these publications. For example, as Janice
Winship points out:
Cosmo does not bother being consistent: one article would encourage
readers to be happy with their body size, whilst another would
encourage slimming; men are given both sympathy and criticism;
marriage might be endorsed or condemned; romance and fidelity might
be good or bad, depending on the article; and the style might be serious
or silly (Winship cited in Gauntlett 2008, p. 57).
However contradictory Cosmo’s messages and fantasy lifestyles may seem, it is important
not to forget that it was once a “vehicle for liberation and change, giving voice to ideas and
perspectives which had not previously been in mass circulation” (Winship cited in Gauntlett
2008, p. 58). According to Kayt Davies thesis, Women’s Magazine Editors: Story Tellers and
their Cultural Role (2009):
As women have negotiated and struggled to assume new positions in
both old and newly constructed social settings, women’s magazines have
changed with them – perhaps leading the way, perhaps as a medium
through which the struggled occurred, perhaps merely reporting its
passing (Davies 2009, pp. 4-5).

28 Andrea Andric
In Gauntlett’s study, “most readers agreed that the magazines communicated a picture
of assertive, independent women – although the emphasis on looking beautiful, too, was
generally inescapable” (Gauntlett 2008, p. 215). This tension, while problematic for first wave
feminists, was welcomed by editors such as Ita Buttrose in the ‘70s whose first editorial letter
states:
Like us, certain aspects of Women’s Lib appeal to you but you’re not
aggressive about it. And again like us, you’re all for men – as long as
they know their place! (Cleo Magazine, November 1972).
However, this liberation both in the way women’s magazines are perceived and the type of
content they feature happened in the ‘70s. Today, general interest women’s magazines still
feature a similar story cycle predicated by Cleo in Australia and Cosmopolitan in America.
So while Davis (2009) asserts that women’s magazines had grown with their readership it
appears a certain status quo has once again been established. This time the images are not
that of the oppressed housewife but the liberated super-woman whose sexual appetite is
seemingly unbridled. It is this socio-political context and unquestioned business models in
place for the creation of Australian women’s magazines, which spurred me to undertake a re-
negotiation through practice-led research. However, this project and exegesis recognise that
the audience for this proposed publication is niche and this audience is outlined in Chapter 3.
ADVERTISING AND JOURNALISM IN WOMEN’S MAGAZINES
Often, women’s magazines are questioned about journalistic probity in the creation
of editorial content and a reliance on commercial products and commodities. Fashion
magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, which rely heavily on the fashion industry
for their content, are generally not discussed in Australian journalism textbooks. Tanner,
Kasinger and Richardson (2009) give a few examples from Vogue and Marie Claire but
academics and journalists generally disregard these magazines, lumping them under the
umbrella term of ‘women’s magazines’. When speaking of ‘quality’ magazine journalism
most journalistic discourse focuses on magazines such as Time, The Atlantic Monthly, The
New Yorker and other similar publications.
Gough Yates (2003) recognises that the magazine industry has always been commercially led
and market oriented but according to her, “one that depends heavily on social and cultural
[emphasis by Gough Yates] processes for its effective operation” (Gough Yates 2003, p. 6). In
her study of the evolution of British women’s magazines through the 1980s and 1990s Gough
Yates (2003) documented a series of significant shifts in the print industry’s efforts to identify
and target female markets. She labels magazine editors as “cultural intermediaries” (Gough

Yates 2003, p. 153) who have the power to influence women and put companies who have
something to sell in direct view of the women who will buy their products. It is interesting
to note that most of Australia’s high circulation women’s magazines, such as The Australian
Women’s Weekly, assure advertisers they are women’s ‘trusted friends’.
Some of the ideals of journalism are its attachment to neutrality, objectivity and freedom
from commercial interest, which makes this an uncomfortable topic, but it has been
pointed out that “advertising money pays for most of Australia’s media, and one cannot be
understood without the other” (Windschuttle 1988, p. 3). Turnbull also notes:
For the commercial media, audiences mean money. At the most basic
level, the commercial media derive their money from the sale of a media
product to a consumer. Most commercial media, including the Internet,
derive the greater part of their income from advertising (Turnbull as
cited in Cunningham & Turner 2006, p. 81).
Critics would therefore argue women’s magazines operate a business model driven by the
commodity of advertising space rather than the interests of their readers. However, in The
Content Makers (2007) Australian journalist and author Margaret Simons points out:
There is nothing strong, independent or edifying about penury. If
experienced journalists are to be employed, to find things out, if
journalists are to be developed and trained, if institutional cultures are
to be built to support them in their dirty, vital work, then there must be
money (Simons 2007, p. 17).
It is this negative perception of women’s magazines that has tainted, not only critics, but also
readers’ opinions of these publications and created a general consensus of women’s magazines
as being unreliable sources of information.
It should be noted, Marie Claire regularly features human-interest pieces about current and
world affairs, and magazines such as Russh have themed editions with essay-length features
devoted to topics such as music. So far there hasn’t been a truly Australian publication (Marie
Claire was founded in France and is ‘imported’) that combines political commentary such
as that in The Monthly with fashion. Perhaps it is because the business model of women’s
magazine dictates a certain field of interests, discussed previously, but in the light of the
readership statistics of The Monthly magazine it is clear there is a niche female readership
interested in politics and therefore the introduction of these type of features wouldn’t be
harmful to women’s magazine sales.

30 Andrea Andric
METHODOLOGY
PRACTICE-LED RESEARCH
“In order to get the precept of journalism you have to do it every day”
(Gideon Haigh, lecture at RMIT University, Melbourne, September
2011).
The decision to undertake this study as practice-led research stems from my firm belief
that practicing journalism is the best way to become a better journalist. All of the literature
on journalistic practice and feature writing reviewed in this exegesis (Zinnser 1976;
Blundell 1988; Ricketson 2004; Sumner & Miller 2005; Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson
2009) suggests practicing journalism makes for better journalism. Quality of journalism is
important to my project because it makes a claim about re-negotiating the idea of women’s
magazines. As I have already discussed, critics of women’s magazines view them as an
unreliable source of ‘quality’ journalism. I felt re-negotiating women’s magazines from a
journalistic point of view is best undertaken as practice-led research. I also felt that a project
was the best way to demonstrate the ideas I had about the type of content I imagine would
shape a re-negotiation of women’s magazines.
According to Sandra Burr, “there are many burning issues facing the higher education
sector in relation to creative and practice-led research.” (Burr 2009, p. 2) Many of these
issues involve the validity of creative practice within the context of the university and the
relationship between the exegesis and the work itself. According to Linda Candy (2006) there
is another important distinction to be made in the scholarly discourse. This, she argues, is
the distinction between practice-based and practice-led research. She defines them in the
following ways:
1. If a creative artefact is the basis of the contribution to knowledge, the research is
practice-based.
2. If the research leads primarily to new understandings about practice, it is practice-led.
(Candy 2006, p. 1).
Further, Candy (2006) argues that practice-led research isn’t as new in the academy as it
looks, with the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS) introducing doctorates in Creative
Writing in 1984. Burr (2009) notes, from the Creative and Practice-led Research Symposium,
the landscape of the academy changed “with greatly increased demand for research higher
degree places in creative practice” (Burr 2009, p. 2). This changing landscape also means

different things for the way that research is conducted, validated and the way propositions
within disciplines are made. Further, Bell (2004) argues, “when critical theory and creative
practice become disengaged from each other within a field like media arts each domain pays
a heavy price in terms of loss of critical purchase” (Bell 2004, p. 737).
In the discipline of journalism it is therefore appropriate to learn through practice. As Candy
(2006) argues: “The significance and context of the claims are described in words, [but] a
full understanding can only be obtained with direct reference to the outcomes” (Candy 2006,
p. 1). The outcomes in the instance of my research problem are the articles comprising the
project. Therefore a re-negotiation of women’s magazines would be impossible to comprehend
without direct reference to these articles.
AUDIENCE/READERSHIP
Michael Evans outlines the importance of of thinking about a target audience or readership
extensively in his book The Layers of Magazine Editing (2004). He argues that identifying a
readership, having a clear mission statement and sticking to the perceived interests of that
readership keeps magazines in business. The Australian magazine industry is fairly large.
(For a list of magazine titles and readership figures please refer to Appendix 4). According
to Frances Bonner (2006), “Australians are renowned as the second highest per capita
consumers of magazine in the world after New Zealand” (Bonner cited in Cunningham &
Turner 2006, p. 193). Using an industry estimate based on ABC audited and non-audited
magazine sales in 2009, the Magazine Publishers of Australia claim more than 230 million
magazines are purchased annually. “That’s more than 13 for every person aged over 14 years”
(MPA 2011).
Ricketson (2004) notes that while newspapers are mainly driven by the news (and the news
cycle) “magazines are driven to meet the needs and desires if their readership” (Ricketson
2004, p. 8). As Turnbull notes, “it follows, then, that the commercial media have a great
deal of interest in knowing who their audience is an exactly what will attract and hold
their attention” (Turnbull as cited in Cunningham & Turner 2006, p. 81). While I haven’t
conducted any organised audience research, as this is outside the scope of this project, I have
a firmly established idea of my target readership.
My imagined target readership is closely modelled on the readerships of magazines such as
Vogue and The Monthly. While these two publications are seemingly different, it appears
their readerships, according to Roy Morgan research, are quite similar. In short, most of the
readers of both publications are 25-49 years old and identified as being part of the A/B Socio-
Economic Quintile. In the case of The Monthly, 69.49 per cent of its readers have a tertiary

32 Andrea Andric
degree or diploma. (For full readership profiles please refer to Appendices 2 and 3). Since my
project aims to combine political content and high-end fashion writing it is worthy to note
the similarities in the readerships of these publications. While this group is diverse it is also
well defined and I kept my ideal reader in mind throughout all stages of the project.
PROJECT – PROCESSES AND CONSIDERATIONS
The project comprises of four feature articles. They are:
• Julia Gillard’s Solution - a political commentary feature
• A Question of Style - column
• Ana Diaz – designer profile
• Amelia Agosta – Q&A
To write these feature articles I adhered to standard journalistic practice as outlined by the
journalists and academics reviewed earlier in this exegesis (Ricketson 2004; Tanner et al
2009; Sumner & Miller 2005; Blundell 1988). The stages I worked in can be described as:
• Pre-Writing
• Research
• Interviewing
• Writing
• Editing
While there are no hard and fast rules, all of the aforementioned authors and books provide
extensive advice and tips on how to undertake the various stages of producing a feature
article.
PRE-WRITING
“Fresh ideas, whether in journalism, literature, business and science
among other fields are always in short supply” (Ricketson 2004, p. 57).
Ricketson (2004) says that while nobody expects journalists to come up with completely
original or never-before-heard topics, the secret to generating fresh story ideas lies in
employing different methods of thinking to the events and issues in the news. Here Ricketson

(2004) underlines a few different tips, they are: read voraciously, talk to anyone and everyone,
draw on your own experience and keep an ideas file. He also lists some that are similar to the
advice Blundell (1988) gives: think laterally, extrapolate, use synthesis to connect the dots,
find something new about an old subject, think local, change points of view, project into the
future or be a ‘lone wolf’.
During the pre-writing stage I thought about the topics I wanted to cover with the feature
articles and how many articles there would be. Initially I wanted to write three articles:
a political feature about Australia’s foreign policy, a column/opinion piece and a fashion
designer profile. However, while I was generating story ideas I decided to change the political
feature to something more relatable and specific to an Australian readership. This is where
I took Ricketson’s (2004) advice to think about what my audience would be interested in
reading. One of the bigger issues in the news at the time was the asylum seeker policy debate.
It also happened to be one year since Julia Gillard became Prime Minister. This answered the
question Ricketson (2004) poses: “why does this story need to be written now?” (Ricketson
2004, p. 73). I thought about how I could discuss these issues in the article. I decided to
do something that would be uncharacteristic of a women’s magazine: to write a political
commentary article that discusses the Gillard government’s proposed asylum seeker policy
rather than a feature about Julia Gillard’s private life.
This seemed problematic for a women’s magazine but I looked at articles by Michelle Grattan
and Annabel Crabb for inspiration and aimed to make the article balanced according to
journalism theory. Grattan and Crabb are both prominent political writers but their articles
are characterised by their strong authorial voices thus making them interesting to read. This
being an important aspect of feature writing I was bemused about the lack of stronger female
voices in women’s magazines.
The column was inspired by the idea that the world of fashion and politics are similar. This
idea came from a quote by Sarah Jessica Parker, playing Carrie Bradshaw, in the popular
television series Sex and the City: “I figured we made a good match. I was adept at fashion; he
was adept at politics. And really, what’s the difference? They’re both about recycling shop-
worn ideas and making them seem fresh and inspiring” (Sex and the City 2000).
Taking into account that Ricketson (2004) also says readers like a ‘personal voice’ I decided
that a column would be and appropriate way to exercise my personal voice. I feel that the
column also acts as a solid joiner of my two fields of interest: politics and fashion.
The third article I wanted to write was a profile piece of a fashion designer. In the research
stage I found two young designers whose work I liked and who were accessible. I ended up
having access to both of them and therefore decided to have a fashion ‘package’ story, giving
different perspectives on the design process and industry.

34 Andrea Andric
RESEARCH
Researching the four stories involved different processes. As Ricketson says, journalists
use three main sources for gathering information: documents, interviews and first-hand
observation (Ricketson 2004, p. 96). He also lists important factors needed to write a story
such as: facts and figures, anecdotes, quotes, atmosphere, analysis and telling detail. The
story I felt needed the most research was the political commentary article Julia Gillard’s
Solution. This is because there were a lot of different statistics, opinions and complex social
implications in the issue of asylum seekers. In order to form an argument and produce a
journalistically balanced article I read a broad range of material.
In the third year of my Bachelor of Journalism degree I had produced a TV story about the
Sri Lankan civil war resulting in a large number of Tamil asylum seekers so I already had
some knowledge of the policies and the debate. To research the new policy and the debate
around it, I looked at a number of documents and articles already written on the topic. These
include:
• Needham, K 2011, ‘Boat children put PM’s tough line to the test’, The Age, 5 August
• Crowe, D 2011, ‘Rudd ahead of Gillard’, The Australian Financial Review, 4 August
• Peake, R 2011, ‘Boy to be test case for children in Gillard’s people swap deal’, The
Canberra Times, 3 August
• Franklin, M 2011, ‘Different, but deal delivers reform as promised: Gillard’, The
Australian, 3 August
• Carney, S 2011, ‘Entitlement mentality has made nothing worth doing’, The Age, 6
August
• Jackman, C 2011, ‘A woman of influence’, The Australian Magazine, 6 August
• Vasek, L 2011, ‘Coalition’s plan to solve refugee impasse’, The Australian, 6 August
• Pearson, C 2011, ‘Gillard walks, chews gum and is stuck with tax’, The Australian, 6
August
• Burnisde, J 2011, ‘Remember our responsibility to protect refugees’, The Australian, 2
September
• Massola, J 2011, ‘PM eyes deal with Tony Abbott to process detainees offshore, but not a
Nauru-only solution’, The Australian, 5 September
• Keane, B 2011, ‘How does the coalition really feel about asylum seekers?’, Crikey, 11 May
• Grattan, M 2011, ‘Labor’s policies need some serious definition’, The Age, 18 September
• Grattan, M 2011, ‘Gillard not coming to the party on gay marriage’, The Age, 28 August
• Grattan, M 2011, ‘A disaster waiting to happen’, The Age, 2 September
• Crabb, A 2011, ‘Prime minister, interrupted: why one year after the election voters still
don’t know who Gillard is’, The Monthly, August

As well as this I looked at a paper by Janet Phillips, Asylum Seekers and Refugees: what are the
facts?, from the Parliamentary Library of Australia updated in July 2011. This helped me form an
idea about what I wanted to discuss in the article and also to formulate a view about the policy.
The column was a little harder to research because it started as a hunch I had about how
fashion and politics are similar. I did a few Google searches to see if anything had been
written on the topic and I found an essay by W.J.T. Mitchell, a professor at the University
of Chicago, Revolution and Your Wardrobe: Fashion and Politics in the Photography of Jane
Stravs, and while interesting the essay wasn’t exactly what I wanted to discuss in the column.
Then I decided to read a few blogs and found Theatre of Fashion by Amber Jane Butchart
(ENG), The Style of Politics by Christina Logothetis (USA), Political Style by Laura Emily
(USA) and the better-known Politico (USA) and The Huffington Post (USA). I skimmed
through the blogs but they were mostly talking about what people in politics wear rather than
the similarity of the political and fashion worlds. I thought about what I wanted to say with
the column and how I had arrived at these ideas in the first place.
So, I researched popular culture texts, such as The Devil Wears Prada, a film based on the
book of the same name, and built up my ideas from there. The central idea I took from
the film is that fashion designers and magazine editors from influential magazine such as
Vogue set the agenda for the entire industry each season. The column is an exploration of
how similar this might be to political agendas set in parliament. The column makes the
contention that leaders in both fashion and politics get together and make decisions and set
agendas for the rest of the population. Thus, it draws parallels between these two ‘worlds’ and
also contextualises the project as a whole – asserting bringing together fashion and politics
isn’t necessarily an arbitrary endeavour.
To write the profile pieces I researched the fashion designers online and read articles
previously written about them. Because they aren’t famous there wasn’t a lot of material.
However, I liked this because it made them accessible to me. Ana Diaz had a website and a
few more articles written about her because of a successful debut at the L’Oreal Fashion Week
in Melbourne. The bulk of the research used to write these articles were the interviews with
the designers themselves.

36 Andrea Andric
INTERVIEWING
“Interviewing, then, is at its heart a presumptuous, impolite activity”
During the interviewing process I used all of the interviewing skills I had been taught in
my undergraduate Journalism degree, and skills I learnt writing articles for the Melbourne
Weekly magazine, City Journal and the Pause Fest website. Ricketson (2004) also gives some
useful interview strategies such as, listening to the subject and having a flexible approach.
These are the two guiding principles I adopted in the interviewing process. I felt I had done
enough research to be sure of the information I needed and the questions I wanted answered.
For example, for the asylum seeker feature I needed some background information on the
debate but I also wanted to hear the opinion from the experts, Dr Fethi Mansouri from
Deakin University and Professor John Langmore from the United Nations Association
of Australia. With the fashion designers, Amelia Agosta and Ana Diaz, I was looking for
anecdotes and an insight into what they thought about their designs and their design
processes and philosophy.
Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) recognize that interviewing can be daunting but
also that the interviewer always has one advantage: “very few people do not want to spend
time talking about what they do, why they do it and what they will do next” (Tanner,
Kasinger and Richardson 2009, p. 52). It can perhaps be argued that in women’s magazines
this willingness of the subject is a little more pronounced because in most cases profile
pieces are mutually beneficial. For example, a designer would benefit by being featured in
a magazine because their products would be exposed to a large audience and the magazine
would benefit from featuring a new or prestigious designer. The magazines depend heavily
on the fashion industry and very rarely criticize a major designer, label or product. This is the
kind of friction that became clear to me early on in the process of writing the fashion pieces.
For a discussion on the tensions between advertising and journalism in women’s magazines
please refer to Chapter 2.
Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) also discuss the fear of falling in love with the
interview subject. To avoid this they suggest asking more probing questions or framing the
questions from a different perspective. I tried to do this while writing the fashion pieces
in particular. For example, with Ana Diaz the topic about her feeling nervous at runway
shows came up pretty quickly and I wasn’t expecting it. Rather than turn away from this
subject, which is not often discussed in fashion magazines, I asked her to describe these
moments to me and asked her to think about why she has these fears. Realistically, this is not
something she could answer within the scope of the interview and I am not pretending to be
a psychologist of any kind but it did prove fruitful – it gave me the anecdote I used as the lead
for the story. Since this project wasn’t influenced by raising advertising revenue, circulation

and readership numbers I concentrated on making the articles balanced for the benefit of my
perceived readership.
A great help was reading Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Russh to see how they had written
features about designers and read the Q&As to get an idea of the questions they posed. This
helped me set up a framework for the interviews. I also tried to keep in mind Ricketson’s
(2004) advice to ask open-ended questions and ‘dumb’ questions. According to Ricketson
(2004) it is harder to spot the dumb question than it looks. “Most journalists, if they were
honest, would admit that all too often the most obvious question about a story is the one
they failed to ask” (Ricketson 2004, p. 122). My approach to the interview was to do enough
research to know the questions I would like to ask but didn’t write a list of questions. In the
interview with Ana Diaz, I had jotted down some talking points about areas of interest but let
the conversation flow more naturally. When I was interviewing Dr Mansouri from Deaking
University I asked him to explain Australia’s asylum seeker policy so that I understood it
better. While, with Professor Langmore, I already had enough information and I wanted his
opinion. I felt that as a representative of the United Nations Association of Australia, he was
qualified to give it.
During this process I encountered a problem with fashion design student Amelia Agosta.
While a talented designer, she didn’t have much to say and wasn’t experienced talking to the
press like my other interviewees. I found it hard to strike up a flowing conversation with
her even though the interview was face-to-face. I have only used about half (or less) of the
information from the interview with Amelia in the final product because there was a lot that,
when put on paper, just became irrelevant or nonsensical. I chose information that reflected
her as a designer and was the most interesting. I felt this was an important journalistic skill I
learned this year – deciding what to leave out in order to shape the feature articles.
With Ana Diaz, however, the interview came naturally and we chatted for about 40 minutes.
I had tried to organise a face-to-face interview with her but this just proved impossible
because she lives in Brisbane and the times she was in Melbourne we didn’t get a chance to
speak. However the conversation flowed and this might be because we were both a little more
relaxed talking over the phone. Overall I felt there was nothing wrong with doing a phone
interview in this instance as Ana was forthcoming with information about herself and there
weren’t any confrontational or investigative aspects of the interview. I felt this ease in the
conversation was reflected in the final article. Resorting to phone interviews, and adapting
to them, is an important journalistic skill, even if it isn’t an ideal interview situation. This is
usually employed by journalists with tight deadlines or when the interview subject is overseas
or in a different state, as was the case with Ana Diaz.
After the interviews I spent quite a bit of time transcribing, which is not my favourite thing
to do but it’s part of the process. However, during the transcribing stage I had room to think

38 Andrea Andric
about which parts of the interview I really liked and which ones I didn’t. What I might
include and what can go and how I can frame the story. So in a way I guess this part of the
process can be put into the ‘pre-writing’ stage.
WRITING
“It was Red Smith who said, sure writing is easy – all you have to do is
sit down at the typewriter and open a vein” (Ricketson 2004, p. 214).
Throughout the pre-writing process I had already thought about possible story structures.
For example, I had already decided, based on the interview, that the best thing to do with
the Amelia Agosta interview was to turn it into a Q&A piece. However these decisions were
based on advice from Blundell (1988), Ricketson (2004) and Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson
(2009). The most important piece of advice Blundell (1988) offered was to tell a story and to
keep it lively and in terms of structure, the one thing that stuck in my mind was to keep all
relevant information together. Ricketson (2004) also lists some common feature structures as:
‘the state of play, or round up’, ‘time lines’, ‘narrative drive’, ‘thematic’ and ‘the package’.
Ricketson’s advice to “let your mind roam for a while” (Ricketson 2004, p. 149) was
important to me. I had the luxury of taking time to think about story structures more
intuitively and what would be best for each story. I kept in mind leads and closes, grammar
and punctuation but I felt that the stories evolved naturally.
Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) take a practical approach to giving advice on feature
articles. Their section on developing writing techniques and structures names a few models
such as: the ‘list story’, the ‘Q&A’, the ‘fact, quote and anecdote model’, the ‘Sleepy P’, the
‘flashback’, ‘tuning fork structure’, ‘multi-layer structure’ and the ‘break out box’.
The Q&A- During the process of interviewing and researching I found that the interviews
with fashion student Amelia Agosta, wasn’t interesting enough to warrant a long piece.
There was also very little information available about her other than what I gleaned from the
interview. However, I still wanted to feature some of her work. For me, the logical conclusion
was to convert it into a Q&A and package it with the longer fashion piece on Ana Diaz as
a whole fashion spread. The Q&A was helpful because it allowed me to present the most
interesting information and I followed the structure that Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson
(2009) outlined, with a short introductory paragraph about Amelia. I feel that this Q&A
reflects the need for variety in magazines; some time-poor readers might want to glance over
a page or get some quick information.

The fact, quote and anecdote model - This is the structure I tried to keep with the longer
fashion piece on young fashion designer Ana Diaz. This structure, which Tanner, Kasinger
and Richardson (2009) attribute to Maurice Dunlevy, is useful when developing a theme
throughout a story and is a narrative structure. With the Ana Diaz article I was working
around the theme ‘having a dream and making it happen’. I felt this was a particular theme
from the interview and from what she has done so far in her career – starting her own label
straight out of university. Since she was friendly, open and interesting it wasn’t hard to find
quotes and anecdotes that would illustrate the story. For example, the anecdote used in
the opening par about her feeling anxious and insecure at the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion
Festival Graduate Parade before her models stepped out onto the runway or how she learnt to
use a ’60s sewing machine to do the special stitches on her knitwear pieces.
Bookend structure- According to Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson, “When you ‘bookend’
you are mirroring the beginning of your story with the end of your story” (Tanner, Kasinger
and Richardson 2009, p. 106). This is the model I looked at when I was writing the political
commentary piece. It helped me put the argument into context and talk about Julia Gillard
in a way that is atypical of women’s magazines. That is, to discuss her policy and decision-
making processes rather than her wardrobe, lifestyle or partner. Having done a lot of
research on Julia Gillard it was difficult to sort through all the information. Also, I didn’t
want to write a biography of her political career and, as previously stated, I didn’t see the
value in discussing her private life – that has been done aptly by most women’s magazines
in Australia (perhaps most thoroughly in The Australian Women’s Weekly). I chose an issue,
which is current and ongoing and then used the information about Gillard to bookend the
story. For example, I began the article talking about Gillard’s troubles with policies such
as gay marriage rights, carbon tax and the health reform and then listed the ‘Malaysia
Solution’ as one of the latest issues. I elaborated on the asylum seeker issue by explaining its
implications and finished the article saying: “To be fair, Gillard is not the first prime minister
to struggle in the first 12 months of office, by far”. The two end paragraphs give a summary
of some of the issues Gillard has faced throughout her first year as Prime Minister.
The breakout box – According to Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson, “A breakout box is an
important facet of many stories” (Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson 2009, p. 110). It is most
commonly used to give quick facts or include information that would affect the flow of the
feature. I used a breakout box for the political commentary article to provide some more
information and numbers on the Malaysia swap deal, which would be cumbersome in the
article itself. Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson say, “Every publication from The Australian,
to Cleo, to Vogue, to FHM uses breakout boxes, each in its own way” (Tanner, Kasinger and
Richardson 2009, p. 111).
An exciting or ‘hook’ lead is something that Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) argue is
integral to convincing the reader to take the time to read the feature. They argue that the lead
can take many different approaches but it sets the atmosphere of the article, introducing the

40 Andrea Andric
theme, person or issue that the feature will develop. In magazines sometimes half of the work
is done by the headline and the ‘kicker’, the text directly under the headline that describes
what the article is about and who the author is. For example:
‘Streets Ahead’, Harper’s Bazaar
Fashion industry insiders are enjoying (for the most part) their moment
in the sun as designers look to them for style inspiration, says Claire
Brayford (Harper’s Bazaar, September 2011, p. 118).
However, it is still important to start a story with an interesting lead and fulfill the promises
of the ‘kicker’. Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) list several types of leads: the
‘anecdotal lead’, the ‘mislead’, the ‘question lead’, the ‘scene-setter lead’ and the ‘get-the-
reader involved’ lead.
The Anecdotal Lead – Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson say anecdotes provide a sense
of immediacy for readers and take them “into the mind and experiences of the writer or
transporting them to another world and into a key moment of someone else’s life” (Tanner,
Kasinger and Richardson 2009, p. 112). This is the effect I tried to emulate in the story about
Ana Diaz because I wanted to describe how she felt during the Graduate fashion show. This
was something we had talked about in the interview quite a bit and it is something that is not
often talked about in fashion magazines – the nervousness the designer feels before showing
a collection.
The Question Lead – The rule, according to Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009), with
this type of lead is that the answer must be given fairly early on in the article so the reader
isn’t left hanging or confused. This is the type of lead I was aiming for in the column. The
column is written as a comparison – using similes and metaphors to illustrate points. I think
the column as a whole provides my answer to the question of the similarities between the
fashion industry and the world of politics. Also, I answered the direct questions in the article
as promptly as I posed them thus fulfilling the rule.
THE LUMP IN THE MIDDLE
“Style is tied to the psyche, and writing has deep psychological roots”
(Zinsser 1976, p. 22).
Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) discuss developing language, creating mood,
building character, description and point of view as important factors to think about when
writing the story. While I considered the mechanics of this when writing I didn’t actively

remind myself to do these things. Rather, they came naturally. I found I thought more during
the editing phase.
I found William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1976
[2001]) particularly helpful when I was writing the articles. His instructions are to eliminate
clutter and to simplify writing. He demonstrates this well in his own book by being concise
and providing clear examples. E.B. White and Strunk (1918), Zinsser (1976) and Blundell
(1988) are classic texts on non-fiction writing and are cited by both Ricketson (2004) and
Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009). These books have remained in print since their
publication and while their rules can be (and often are) broken, these texts have laid down
some of the basics of non-fiction writing.
Their basic messages are: simplify – omit needless words/get rid of clutter, avoid jargon,
technical terms and ‘journalese’; show, don’t tell; be concise and specific; consider the
audience; use a conversational tone and your own point of view where appropriate and re-
write. Ricketson (2004) and Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson (2009) repeat this advice and
provide their own examples. Whether I have succeeded in employing this advice is up to the
reader to judge but I have worked hard on understanding these ‘rules’ of non-fiction writing
and considering them during all the stages of the writing process.
EDITING
“I once heard Tom Wolfe say that his standard is twelves pages a day.
Twelve pages a day!?!? That knocked me out! That amazed me! I just do
the best I can do every day” (Gay Talese cited in Boynton 2005, p. 375).
Editing the articles was one of the more rewarding parts of the process for me. It was in the
editing stages, and I include drafting in this, that I really worked out what my ideas were and what
needed to go or stay. Ricketson (2004) identifies four stages of editing: filling in the gaps, reading
it out loud, editing line-by-line and proofreading.
As with the writing process, I feel that the editing process was very instinctive for me. I also
found the way I edit best is to print the article out and then read over it, editing with a pen on a
hard copy. This is where the line by line editing and proofreading took place. Reading out loud, as
Ricketson (2004) suggests, was also very helpful. Particularly because it helped me express tone,
style and voice. Ricketson also suggests finding someone who will read the feature carefully and
offer honest, constructive criticism (Ricketson 2004, p. 216). I found it particularly helpful in this
instance to have class-members read the articles and give me feedback as well as my supervisor.
I have no magazine or section editor, so it was important for me to trust the opinion of my peers
and supervisor and follow my instincts when editing the stories.

42 Andrea Andric
THE CONVERSATION ABOUT DESIGN
“Paper is here to stay. Indeed, paper is hard to compete with precisely
because it has so many wonderful qualities: It looks beautiful, with
many choices of smoothness, brilliance of white, depth of black, and
richness of colour” (Moggridge 2010, pp. 3-4).
Throughout this year I have come to realise that women’s magazine content is inexplicably
linked to the form of the magazine and its presentation. For example, it would be nonsensical
to write a profile of a fashion designer and not show the reader any examples of their
designs and magazines’ glossy pages support the theme of high fashion. Another important
realisation for me has been that I enjoy looking at women’s magazines such as Russh, Vogue
and Harper’s Bazaar. I like how they feel, their size and how they are presented. I like the
large images and quality of paper. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the images or messages
of these magazines but I do enjoy looking at them. With a magazine like The Monthly,
however, the design is nothing astounding and the emphasis is on the articles. Since I am
making a claim in women’s magazine content I felt the need to present the articles in the
same form. Taking these two pleasures – of body and intellect, if the problem is perceived
through the lens of Cartesian Dualism – and combining them has been one of the objectives
of this problem. Presenting this project as a magazine mock-up is also important for the
intended next stage – focus group analysis and other market research methodologies.
Because I am not a designer I didn’t deign to undertake the task of designing the magazine. I
also wanted to keep this project and exegesis limited to the production of magazine content.
However, I felt that the best way of presenting the project would be as a mock-up of magazine
pages. Therefore to complete the project, I consulted with a designer.
I explained the concept of the magazine and had a copy of The Monthly, Russh and Harper’s
Bazaar and showed him the features from each magazine that appealed to me. My main
directives were: I wanted it to look clean, uncluttered and stylish. I showed the designer some
examples of the types of fonts I thought looked good and also how Russh magazine treats
its fashion shoots, instead of being a full-page picture they put a white frame around it. The
designer also came up with some ideas about working across two pages with pictures and
different ways of using the magazine page.
One of the main issues that arose while designing the magazine mock-ups was whether to do
a mock-up of the front page of the magazine. This proved to be a difficult task because there
aren’t many associations between fashion and politics that could easily be represented in
one image. After much deliberation I decided I would include the magazine mock-up in the
appendix of the exegesis and therefore present the title page as a mock-up front page of the
magazine concept.

The working name of this concept magazine is Public. I needed a magazine title and it was
hard to pick a title, however I decided on Public because it could relate to a lot of different
issues such as, public policy, public image, and public interest. The image inside the female
silhouette was made famous on television news during the ‘People Overboard’ asylum-seeker
scandal and I felt this was appropriate because it directly related to the issue discussed by the
political commentary feature Julia Gillard’s Solution.
The process of designing the magazine worked through a lot of communication about aspects
of women’s magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Russh and The Monthly I liked and didn’t
like. However, I respected the designer’s expertise and aesthetic and since I have no formal
knowledge about design principles I left most of the design decisions to him.
LIMITATIONS
As with all projects of this size, there are some limitations that must be addressed. These are:
• Issues of time and timeliness
• Magazine conventions
• Readership considerations
• Expertise
While I realise I had more time than the average deadline-bound journalist to write and edit
the feature articles this meant that I could not fulfil an important news value: timeliness.
Even though feature and magazine articles have a longer shelf life, there were details I
couldn’t include in the articles. For example, after writing the political commentary article
the issue of asylum seekers continued to be talked about in the news and politics. However,
I had come to a point at which I needed to stop writing and researching and get to editing
and refining the story. Otherwise, I would have been stuck in a long and endless cycle. The
articles would therefore be ideally published in an August 2011 magazine issue.
There was another consideration in the gathering of research for the articles: the ethics
committee approval. The process of filling out paperwork and ‘pitching’ the research to the
HREC committee was one that required a significant amount of time and therefore meant
I couldn’t complete any interviews until the research was approved. For a letter of approval
please see Appendix 5.
Another important factor I considered while writing the articles are the conventions of
women’s magazines. I could have written longer articles but I felt that if they were too long

44 Andrea Andric
the magazine would be text-heavy and, as already discussed, I wanted to keep some of the
elements of design seen in women’s magazines. I also wanted to have a variety of article
lengths so that a time-poor reader might be able to quickly skim over the Amelia Agosta
Q&A or read the Column while taking a short break. Whereas if the reader had more time
they could immerse themselves in the longer profile piece or political commentary feature.
However, even with these articles I didn’t want to go into excess so I tried to keep them to
a reasonable length. Tanner, Kasinger and Richardson say, “Feature writing can take many
forms, and while we tend to refer to it as longer-form writing, it need not be. Some effective
features can be short and punchy, running to perhaps a few hundred words” (Tanner,
Kasinger and Richardson 2009, p. ix).
In the instance of political commentary article, as previously discussed, most of the
journalists who write these articles work out of the Canberra Press Gallery. They are experts
in their field and often have a better insight into policy and politicians because they work
almost intimately with them. In an interview for Slow TV, The Rise (and Fall) of the Ruddbot:
Annabel Crabb with Julian Morrow (2010) Annabel Crabb talks about having dinner with
Kevin Rudd and his wife. This is not to say that their choices as journalists are compromised
but simply to point to the fact that I do not have such privilege or years of experience in the
field. However, I do feel I have done an amount of research that is satisfactory to present
these articles as examples of the type of content the magazine concept I am proposing would
feature. Also, as already discussed, the majority of magazine articles are written by a number
of contributors therefore presenting many different points of view and voices. I realise that
being one author I couldn’t emulate this aspect of magazine convention. However, as already
stated, the articles comprising the project are to be understood as examples of content in the
proposed magazine.

CONCLUSION
This study undertook the challenge to re-negotiate a fixed cultural artefact steeped in many
years of history and to break the entrenched perspectives of its readers. I attempted to do this
though practice-led research and journalistic values resulting in four feature articles. The
project attempts to give a new context and an alternative concept of an Australian women’s
magazine different to any existing business model currently employed by commercial
women’s magazines.
The content of the magazine concentrated on two areas of personal interest: fashion and
politics. I attempted to cohesively combine these interests through focus on personal voice,
tone, style and other journalistic values pertaining to feature writing. These two areas of
interest were chosen because they lend themselves to longer feature articles, a more expert
opinion and outlook, and the exploration of interesting and complex issues and ideas.
To present the content I enlisted the help of a designer whose expertise allowed the project to
be presented as a whole magazine concept. This concept is therefore not a business plan but a
ready example for a focus group or other such methodology of market research. To judge the
success of this magazine concept the next logical steps would be to test the product using the
appropriate methodologies and draw up an appropriate business plan. Unfortunately, these
endeavours fall outside of the scope of the Honours year.
However, the outcomes that can be clearly seen as a result of this project and exegesis are:
it would be possible for an Australian women’s magazine to present a more diverse range of
feature articles. These feature articles would also cater to a market of educated women who
have been shown to be the readership of magazines such as Vogue and The Monthly, two
seemingly different publications.
The personal outcomes of this practice-led research have been the “clearing of the throat”
and discovery of my voice as a writer and a greater understanding of journalistic practice.

46
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