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Were women’s magazines one of the first steps towards social media?
07th November 2011. Posted by Sam Dowling. Trackback
Last week, one of the UK’s best-selling magazines, Woman’s Weekly, celebrated its 100th birthday. First launched in 1911, it has remained increasingly popular with a current circulation of 339,993, but it’s probably not what you would immediately think of as one of the first steps towards social media. Indeed, as social media is defined as an interactive dialogue using web-based and mobile technologies, many of which have only been developed in the last 50 years, you may be forgiven for wondering where I’m going with this. However, the phrase ‘interactive dialogue’ is the key here and when you start to look a little bit closer you realise that these types of magazines exhibit a lot of traits similar to what we nowadays associate with social media.
Similarly to today’s publications, the first magazines such as Woman’s Weekly, offered readers in 1911 everything from advice on how to shift excessive pounds to amusing ‘husband bashing’ columns allowing wives to share their husband-related grievances. In a recent Daily Mail article around the 100th anniversary of the publication, it explains that before the age of celebrity chefs women turned to other women for cooking advice. They did this through magazines such as Woman’s Weekly by sharing favourite recipes and offering each other top culinary tips. These tips and recipes were sent in by ordinary women and herein we take our first step. These kinds of features allowed for two-way communication between reader and writer/publication, and consequently one could argue also allowed one of the first types of virtual communities to develop. Magazines, even in 1911, are published frequently allowing the reader the opportunity to turn to them regularly for advice, empathy and suggestions. The idea that a reader can publish a question and receive nationwide replies from outside of their ordinary social circle is, in my opinion, evidence of the development of virtual community.
Nowadays, the platform may have evolved but the principle is still the same. For example, think about how many times you might turn to social media to answer a question, even something as silly as whether anyone knows a good handyman they can recommend (one of mine!). Platforms such as Twitter allow us to develop our own virtual community of contacts outside of our everyday social circles. I currently have 729 of these contacts and whilst I’ve never actually met most of them in person I still feel that I’ve developed an online friendship with people who I can call upon for advice and general conversation.
I’m not saying that all social media derives from this type of publication but simply that it’s interesting to consider that even in 1911 we were looking for platforms to provide us with the same type of communication that social media gives us today. However, what I find most interesting is how far these ‘virtual communities’ have come in 100 years – who knows what the 3011 generation will make of our medieval style of social media!