Cervical Cancer 19
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to assess the amount of threat and efficacious messages
regarding cervical cancer in six popular women’s magazines overall, and to compare such
messages in three magazines targeted to younger women and three magazines targeted to older
women.
Analyses of the sample as a whole revealed messages that could enhance self-efficacy
were very rare, while messages that could induce feelings of threat were most common. In fact,
severity was covered nearly twice as often as susceptibility, response-efficacy, and self-efficacy.
Theoretically, then, cervical cancer articles in women’s magazines have the potential to make
readers feel threatened by the possibility of developing cervical cancer, but lack efficacious
messages that could help women deal with the threat.
Each magazine was analyzed individually to determine if there was balance between
threat and efficacy messages in each publication. Overall, Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, and
Ladies’ Home Journal contained the most even coverage among all six magazines, addressing
the threat (severity and susceptibility) and countering the threat with nearly equal amounts of
efficacy messages (particularly response-efficacy messages). Mademoiselle also appeared to be
fairly balanced, however, only 4 articles in the past 13 years of the publication even mentioned
cervical cancer. Mademoiselle, Woman’s Day, and Ladies Home Journal contained relatively
few articles covering cervical cancer over 13 years. This presents a problem in that these
women’s magazines are failing to cover a significant women’s health issue. Interestingly, five of
the six Woman’s Day articles gave a “1-800” number to call for more information, as did 2 of the
13 the Glamour articles. Though not specifically coded for, this feature can be somewhat
empowering for readers, particularly those who feel they might be at risk but aren’t sure or those
Convention