Finally,this study examined the differences between the two magazines in terms of how many articles focused on internal issues and how many focused on external issues.Again,a good portion of the literature involving women's magazines argues that the magazines focus too much on outer beauty and not enough on significant issues within a woman's life.The external category was coded as articles that focused on fashion,beauty and jewelry.These three items were chosen as they clearly are categories that demonstrate and article's attempt to show a woman how to improve her external beauty.The internal category was coded as to include articles on health,children's issues,relationships,family issues and social issues.These categories best typified the wider reach of interests that have been ignored in women's magazines.While we concede that women hold a vast sum of interests that go far beyond these few issues,the categories used here appeared to offer the best variety of internal issues based on what was available.Sex was left out of this analysis,as it did not clearly fall into either category.The spectrum of articles that deal with sex ranged from concerns about first-time sex as a married couple to risky analysis of how to sexually pleasure a partner.Given this kind of variety in foci,we thought it best to remove it from consideration.
The chi-square was again significant(2=25.63,p<.001)and of modest strength(phi=.220).It demonstrated that Bride's magazine had significantly fewer internal issue articles than Glamour did.It also demonstrated that Bride's magazine had significantly more articles that dealt with these external issues.This analysis again demonstrates that the bridal magazines not only follow the pattern of women's magazines,but are significantly different in a negative manner.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was not to argue as to the importance or lack of value held by bridal magazines.It was also not an attempt to apply feminist thought,advertising theories or any other mass media spin to this niche publication.Rather,it was an attempt to extend the argument that bridal magazines are a highly read and deterministic piece of American culture and it is important for researchers to examine them.By briefly examining these magazines in contrast to women's magazines,this study has clearly demonstrated that bridal magazines are not all that different from these constantly criticized magazines which are focused at young,single women.When the magazines have shown differences,it is bridal magazines that have been shown to provide significantly more superficial content.
In answering the research questions,it is clear that bridal magazines do have significantly more advertising than their traditional counterparts.More than two-thirds of the advertisements in these magazines is made up of beauty and fashion advertising.This clearly demonstrates that these magazines are both vehicles for advertising and the advertising is focused at externally beautifying women to help them reach a fantasized ideal.
Furthermore,bridal magazines contain far fewer articles that focus on intrinsic issues and improvements.While neither magazine appears to address a wide variety of social and psychological issues,Bride's magazine contains far fewer articles geared toward addressing important bride-oriented issues.The issues of physical health,relationship health and other issues geared toward a life preparation are eschewed in favor of articles that tell women how a type of makeup or dress will solve their problems.
As Boden(2001)explained,women envision themselves as being brides only once.They have a sense of fantasy in many cases and hope to see this once-in-a-lifetime event turn out in fairy-tale fashion.Bridal magazines set women up to believe that consumerism will help them create the perfect event.This kind of fear-based selling can do little more than damage a woman's self image,a criticism levied against traditional women's magazines for years.As this study has shown,the bridal magazines contain far more of what other researchers have called“damaging”items and does far less to assuage fears in a non-consumer oriented manner.
A few limitations exist in regard to this study.First,it needs to be replicated with other bridal magazines and other women's magazines.While it is highly unlikely that this set of findings is an anomaly,it bears repeating that research findings must be verified through replication.Perhaps in our effort to control for extraneous variables,our selection of two Conde Nast publications was unwise and somehow skewed the results.A replication using multiple magazines from a variety of publishing houses would be a logical extension of this work.Second,the study offers little in the realm of theory building.In attempting to demonstrate a finding without falling victim to the inherent limitations of certain theoretical backgrounds,this research could be seen as failing to endorse a theory to help explain its findings.While that assessment could be seen as valid,we instead argue that in creating this piece,we have opened the doors for research of all types.Advertising researchers could apply uses and gratifications to this type of material,while feminist scholars could continue to examine it through the lens of gender bias.The purpose of this piece was to shed light on a niche publication that has a great deal of influence,a pattern common with often-criticized magazines and an extremely limited set of scholarly work done on it.
