Desperately Seeking Women Readers

Dr. Harp uses key moments in U.S. media history to show the women's section as a staple of the newspaper and how it was abandoned, made over, and reintroduced as one industry's impoverished attempt to appeal to women. -- Therese L. Lueck, professor of communication, University of Akron
...this book is a thoughtful follow-up to Kay Mills's A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page (1988). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. -- R.A. Logan, emeritus, University of Missouri?Columbia * CHOICE *
It is very readable and well-organized with excellent chapter and section summaries. There are enough notes and documentation to satisfy the academic. Graduate-level students of journalism or mass-media will find this a fascinating study and an excellent example of what can happen at the intersection of media and culture and how economic systems can impact news content. -- . * American Journalism: A Media History Journal, Winter 2008 *
A particular strength lies in the integration of economic and editorial issues in analyzing newspaper women's pages from an historical perspective as a product of mass communication in a capitalistic, consumption-oriented society. This work should be of interest to all involved in graduate level journalistic studies. It offers an excellent discussion of the complexities of defining news by gender as well as the profit-driven motivations for doing so. It is an original and stimulating work, presenting insights not available in other literature. -- Maurine H. Beasley, University of Maryland College Park