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The Ideologies

Magazines make a considerable contribution to our cultural landscape. In looking at magazine discourse, it is useful to ask what cultural assumptions are being produced and circulated. The discourse is produced by words, images, layout and even the quality of the paper the magazine is printed on. In this way, magazine writers, illustrators, photographers, editors and business owners are commentators and opinion makers.


Women’s magazines, for example, while offering stories that entertain, can also be seen as cultural vessels reinforcing ideologies. The Foreward to the book New Zealand Women’s Weekly, 70 Years: From Pavlovas to Prime Ministers begins “If you grew up in New Zealand, chances are you grew up with New Zealand Woman’s Weekly. It was the magazine that taught generations of us how to cook, how to raise our families, how to sew, and how to keep house.” Such magazines tell readers what it means to live ‘the good life’ – to have the perfect house, perfect children, a perfect relationship, perfect skin, hair and clothes. Telling people how to look and how to spend their money creates demand and thus reinforces capitalism’s basic tenet, which is that, for the capitalist system to work, people must consume. Arguing that they are giving women what they want, such magazines focus on the same kinds of stories each week. These include:

  •  celebrities – the British royal family, film stars, sports stars, television presenters, politicians
  • personal stories – people triumphing over adversity
  • fashion – clothes, accessories, hair, make-up, the body (weight, fitness)
  • babies and children
  • cooking
  • home decorating and design
  • fiction – short stories light romance
  • travel
  • crafts (e.g.sewing)
  • lifestyle.

Men’s magazines generally have a different perspective, focusing on leisure, money and sex as legitimate and worthy goals.  

Because there is such a wide range of magazines, it can also be seen that while they reinforce dominant ideologies, they can also contest those ideologies and to stir up debate. An example of this occurred when North and South magazine, which describes itself as being ‘for thinking New Zealanders’, published a cover story by Deborah Coddington in its December 2006 issue titled “Asian Angst: is it time to send some back?” In the article, Coddington discussed immigration policy and made several contentious claims about the Asian crime rate in New Zealand. The article generated a lot of discussion in the media and a number of people made formal complaints to the New Zealand Press Council. These complaints were upheld, and the Council found the magazine breached its principles on accuracy and discrimination. Story. 



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