Leafing Men and Ladies: Fan Magazines and Reading Strategies

This chapter is inspired by Sally Stein’s 1985 article ‘The Graphic Ordering of Desire: Modernization of A Middle-Class Women’s Magazine, 1914-1939’. Stein examined the distribution of editorial and advertising content at five-year intervals in Ladies Home Journal, arguing that advertisement placement is significant, with many ads continued towards the end of magazines alongside the conclusion of editorial content. Encouraging readers to leaf to the back of a magazine to finish features means that they are led to advertising content. Rather than considering one magazine over time, this chapter focuses on single issues of three different UK fan magazines from the same date, September 1955, looking at content - readers’ letters, fictionalisations, articles on stars - which began towards the front of the publication, and again concluded at the rear. The chapter further considers the content of these advertisements, and if they appear to have had a particular gender address.We cannot know how readers consumed their magazines, or indeed who, if anyone, bought the products advertised. But considering which types of coverage featured at the back of fan magazines yields useful insights into the priorities of editorial and advertising teams on different fan magazine titles.