Educating readers: breast cancer in Australian womenʹs magazines

Womenʹs magazines in Australia have become increasingly involved in various public health awareness campaigns. In particular, breast cancer has been targeted as an issue for attention. This disease occupies a privileged position in womenʹs magazines, being represented as treatable and survivable with an emphasis on the advocacy of early detection through breast self‐examination and screening programs. In this way, womenʹs magazines can be seen to be proactive in serving the public interest of their readers. Information and advice about breast cancer are not limited to medical articles, advice columns and diet pages, but occur, perhaps more accessibly, in feature articles of personal accounts of experiences with breast cancer. This paper looks at coverage of the disease in Australian womenʹs magazines over the last 3 years to see how this role in public health awareness operates. It pays particular attention to illness narratives in feature articles and to stories associated with the magazinesʹ own breast cancer campaigns.