In the article authors, Frederick Grieve and Crystal Bonneau-Kaya, write of a study of popular magazines geared toward each sex. They were to examine two hypotheses. The first was that women’s magazines will have more advertisements and articles about weight loss than those intended for men. The second was that magazines intended for men will have more ads and articles regarding weight gain than those marketed toward women. Grieve and Bonneau-Kaya write that in this study, people unaware of its purpose were to count the number of articles and ads that met conditions for being either associated with weight loss or weight gain. The authors, leaders of the study, decided that to be associated with weight loss an article must contain phrases like “weight reduction,” “low carb,” or “slimmer.” For an ad to be considered associated with weight gain it must contain a phrase similar to “toning,” “weight lifting,” or “muscle building.” According to Grieve and Bonneau-Kaya, the results of the blind study supported the two hypotheses.
This article was published in March of 2007, making it recent and relevant. This article read very easily. Containing no psychology terms, it was readable for all audiences. The results of the study seem impartial because the raters of the magazines didn’t know what their findings were to support or disprove. The authors of the article Weight loss and muscle building content in popular magazines oriented toward women and men were Frederick G. Grieve and Crystal M. Bonneau-Kaya. A lot of the sources were also written by Grieve. This reflects him being an expert in this area of study. He is part of the Department of Psychology at the Western Kentucky University. Bonneau-Kaya was a psychology major minoring in women studies at the same university, giving her great background on the subject. One of the sources cited in this article was published by the American Psychology Association, making it a credible source. To find magazines that were “popular” the authors referenced the Audit Bureau of Circulation which is the standard for media audits.
**post write**
I think that the summary is the best I could do without taking the words form the authors. It remained unchanged as I completed my second draft. I feel it is clear exactly what has been done. I really like the paragraph examining the credibility of the authors and their sources. I bothered to “google” the authors and works they cited. I even visited the website for the university’s Dept. of Psychology. Overall, I think that I have fulfilled the expectations of this assignment.
2 comments:
Hi Michelle:
A solid job. You do well to provide a clear summary of the article's hypotheses. They would seem obvious to the lay person but academics sometime belabor the obvious (a point you may want to make later).
Your critique has lots going for it, especially the info about the design of the study. Perhaps the only sentence that seemed to add little was the statement of the author's purpose. Might it be more useful to say that the authors intended to change people's minds about something? What are the implications of this study for people who buy these magazines?
Good work, Michelle. Looking forward to reading your Talk Back, which I hope to receive by Monday.
I'd leave this out of the first paragraph, since you've included it above: In the article, Weight loss and muscle building content in popular magazines oriented toward women and men,
I followed both of your suggestions. I was a little lost when I added the statement of the authors' purpose. I was merely following an example of what was viewed on the projector in class. That has been taken out. I truly see no purpose to this study. The results were figures that anyone could have guessed. I also took out the article's title in the first paragraph.
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