Overview

This book provides the most in-depth analysis of contemporary Japanese women's magazines to date. It focuses on the period from the 1970s to the 1990s, as these decades have seen significant and long-lasting changes in many aspects of Japanese society, in particular regarding Japanese women. Discourses on 'marriage,' 'love,' 'sexuality,' and 'masculinity' lie at the core of a qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The book provides detailed accounts of the history and production of women's magazines as well as their consumption by readers as well as in public discourse. Holthus then focuses on partner relationships as they are discussed, argued, constructed, and construed by women's magazines. Discourses on 'marriage', 'love', 'sexuality', and 'masculinity' lie at the core of a qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The author's findings point to the heterogeneity of magazine discourses, the construction of an idealized 'West', and the importance of 'age' in gendered discourses. Her understanding of women's magazines as 'biography generators' is a unique way of trying to make sense of this highly consumed mass media genre.

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9780773438989

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... an important contribution to both the field of media studies and to the field of gender studies of contemporary Japan.... it deconstructs the supposed homogeneity of the media as well as of gender discourse, in Japan, and, at the same time, succeeds in describing some very distinctive features of both these aspects of contemporary Japanese society. - Prof. Ulrike Wohr Hiroshima City University Providing a great deal of historical and social context and a comparison with similar magazines in other countries, notably the USA and Germany, [Holthus] guides the reader to an informed appreciation of Japanese women's magazines. - Prof. Florian Coulmas Duisburg-Essen University

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