KASETSART UNIVERSITY

Analysis of editorials in womens magazines

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Flg.Off. Orapim Pakdeesongkram 01355583 English for Mass Communication

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INTRODUCTION Magazines become more popular these days because of the new technology in printing and also online, especially women and fashion magazine which was called consumer magazines that will carry a great deal of advertising and be available in a wide number of outlets (Whittaker, 2008 p.2). One important part of magazine which allows the reader to get the preview of articles that appear in the issue is editorial section which is material in a magazine generated by journalists and not by advertisers (McKay, 2000 p.256). Magazine editorials, express a personal opinion of the editor on such matters and may criticize, praise or merely discuss the actions of come public functionaries or group, which exhibit his/her personal creativity style. Even though editorial or opinion writing is persuasive, clearly written, and intended to entertain, satirize, convince, or prove a point regarding a specific issue (Lacie . 2008 p.341) which relate to newspaper genre as in media discourse (Bhatia, 2004) but it also shares the same communicative purpose with advertising genres as it intended to promote something which in this case is a feature article, people, fashion that are covered in the issue; editorial contents are carrying easily-recognizable traits of promotional texts (Renkema , 2009 p.270). As the magazine editorial column is used by editors to put forward an interesting topic in the issue and convey the message which they think are relevant to their readers interests (Thompson & de Klerk, 2002), the use of language in the context plays as an important role to communicate with the readers. The aim of this study is to identify the schematic structures use in magazines editorials from 5 womens magazine published in September 2013 (VOGUE, Marie Claire, Allure, GLAMOUR, and Company magazine), by attempted to answer the following question; 1. What are the schematic structures of editorial in women magazines?

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LITERATURE REVIEW As editorials intended to persuade, promote, and prove a point regarding a specific issue from a personal opinion of the editor, context in the editorials then become a code governs by the stylistic techniques. Thompson & de Klerk (2002) investigated the conventions and differences that exist across the genre of editorial column in magazines in an attempt to give a thicker description of the text-type. The data were collected from three very different types of magazines: a home/family oriented publication, Your Family, a womens interest magazine, Cosmopolitan; and a business/finance magazine, Financial Mail which the sample was limited to February-May 1999. The result shown the similarities in the form of the editorials, certain linguistic choices played a significant role in increasing solidarity between editor and reader and in transmitting implicit ideologies. Ashipu (2013) studied the persuasive and emotional effects of language and to understand the linguistic devices create these effects by using stylistic models to examine the rhetorical devices in Newswatch and Tell Magazine. The result shown the rhetorical devices are essential components for embellishing though and to reflect the local colour of language. Apart from textual analysis that can provide the whole contexts meaning, rhetorical structure is also show the significant in editorials as seen in Katajamaki & Koskela (2007) which studied the rhetorical structure of editorials in English, Swedish and Finnish business newspaper, Financeial Times, Dagens Industri, and Taloussanomat. The result shown the typical rhetorical structure for the editorials includes an introduction section, an intermediate section and a coda. This rhetorical structure of editorials was used as a framework by Bonyadi (2010), which most of the editorials followed the proposed model (p.326), to examine the schematic structures of Persian (Tehran Times) and English (The New York Times) newspaper editorials of criticism. The result shown the cultural constraints did not substantially affect the schematic structures of the editorials. Bhatia (1993) suggested the four-part cognitive structure as he claimed Even the discourse strategies and the finally emerging discourse regularities in such lead, articles and editorials have a lot in common with what we are very likely to find in many academic essays (p.165).

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METHODOLOGY Data Collection The data was collected from editorials in 5 womens magazines that was published in September 2013; VOGUE, Marie Claire, Allure, GLAMOUR, and Company.

Data Analysis A response to research question one, the schematic structures of editorial in women magazines, will be generated by the rhetorical structure proposed by Katajamaki & Koskela (2007) (Table 1) and the four-part cognitive structure proposed by Bhatia (1993) (Table 2) and the computer software called Tropes was used to analyse the context.

1) The introduction section 2) The intermediate section

3) Coda

Dealing with the event or a critical state of affairs. Dealing with the consequences of the event and the analysis, divided into two stages: intermediate stage and solution stage. Divided into two stages: conclusion and moral. Table 1 The rhetorical structure

1) Presenting the case

2) Offering the argument 3) Reaching the verdict

4) Recommending action

Concerns actual events, i.e., what is or what was in the world of everyday events. It may be seen as framing issue, clarifying choices or defining areas of concern. The editor discusses the possible alternative worlds, i.e., what was not or what might have been and can be seen Concerns the world of desired events, i.e., what should be or what should have been and is generally seen as the writers conclusion. The writer is seen as suggesting how the desired world of events can be relised.

Table 2 The four-part cognitive structure

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RESULTS Identification of the schematic structures 1) The introduction section, which in this part is meant to be an opening part of editorials, to get readers attention by inform them about the main theme of the current issue. In this part consist of: 1.1 Stating the main purpose 1.1.1 Name of the column, which is one of the important parts to let the reader understand the purpose of the column, in this case is an editorial which Marie Claire and Company used Editors Letter and VOGUE and Allure used Letter from the Editor, while Glamour used From me to you. In this part will state the writing style which is letter writing style which informal as all of selected editorials used most of the first person pronoun in the context I and we and the second pronoun you which help create a friendlike intimate atmosphere to move and persuade the reader. 1.1.2 Headline this is the most important part of the editorial in order to grab the readers attention and encourage them to read for more information about what is going on in the current issue which 4 out of 5 are consisted with headline; except Marie Claire. 1.2 Presenting the main topic This part is defining areas of concern, by generalise the context, which state the theme of the issue. Each magazines editorial having a recognizably different style in keeping with the magazines tone and focus (Thompson & de Klerk, 2002 p.108-109), even though it is in the same type of magazine as women magazine which might depend on the perspective of the editor as an editorial intended to show an opinion and attitude of the writer toward the story. As Glamour, Company and Marie Claire shown argumentative in the context by added the rhetorical questions to encourage the reader to contribute their thought; for examples: Women making jobs for other women?, what makes a good columnist, and But should we really be so surprised? which immediate purpose is to get readers to see the problem, not the solution while Vogue and Allure are more descriptive. 2) The intermediate section, which is a body part of editorials, provided the message that editors want to send to readers to clarify the issue which they state an opinion as a thesis statement, promoting an article, and also praise the writers and people who related to the issue. In this part consist of: 2.1 Offering the supporting detail This part intended to provide the reader more information that supports the introduction section which base on the editors opinion and their experiences or to strengthen argument by adding the source, in this case is the writer for the article, to help convince the reader that this is not just only from the editors point of view. As seen in VOGUE: It was certainly a love match between Jennifer and the writer

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Jonathan Van Mete, who profiles her in this issue ("Star Quality"). Jonathan e-mailed me directly after he met her, brimming with excitement about her wickedly funny sense of humor, and I certainly heard the same And in GLAMOUR: I insisted on interviewing her myself (see here) because I wanted you all to meet the Kerry I know: fun, focused, and committed to making a difference in the world, all in a series of astonishingly good outfits. 2.2 Reaching the verdict This part can be seen as an editors conclusion about the issue. As seen in Allure: Fashion this season is offering up uniforms, but they're nothing like my white shift or dress-for-success armor. There's an Ivory jacket and pleated skirt from Calvin Klein and a femmefatale suit with deep cuffs and dangerous curves from Prada. There's also a sneaky little pantsuit by Narcio Rodriguez that looks nothing like carrie Mathison's in Homeland. They're quirky and appealing and almost defy the term "uniform." And in Company: I'm joking, obviously. But see what I mean - it's EASY to be offensive. So I'm taking this opp to congratulate our female columnists Jameela and Gem, for being amazing women who support other women and come up with clever, funny copy that doesn't need to have a go at others to entertain. Very Company. 3) Coda, which is a closing part of editorials, can be seen as a conclusion of the main topic, stating the regard or recommending action; in this case is response from the readers which was revealed in the selected editorials that have different rhetorical strategies in the ending section. As 4 out of 5 have this part; except VOGUE. In this part consist of: 3.1 Recommending action This part is the most used in the selected editorials which can be recognise by the use of rhetorical question to encourage the reader to respond. As seen in Marie Claire: What do you think? We'd love you to tweet us or email your views. Didn't take me long to get back to those digital devices now, did it?

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CONCLUSION

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References Ashipu, K. B. C. (2013). A Rhetorical Analysis of Selected Editorials of Newswatch and Tell Magazines. Studies in Literature and Language, 6(1), 48-53. Bonyadi, A. (2010). The rhetorical properties of the schematic structures of newspaper editorials: A comparative study of English and Persian editorials.Discourse & Communication, 4(4), 323-342. Katajamaki, H., & Koskela, M. (2007). The rhetorical structure of editorials in English, Swedish and Finnish business newspapers. In Teoksessa Proceedings of the 5th International Aelfe Conference (pp. 215-219). Lacie, C. (2008). Barron's English for Foreign Languages Speakers: The Easy Way. Barron's Online Bookstore. McKay, J. (Ed.). (2000). The magazines handbook. Psychology Press. Renkema, J. (Ed.). (2009). Discourse, of course: An overview of research in discourse studies. John Benjamins Publishing. Thompson, S., & de Klerk, V. (2002). Dear Reader: A textual analysis of magazine editorials. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 20(1-2), 105-118. Whittaker, J. (2008). Magazine production. Taylor & Francis.