Women in Capricho Magazine: an Analysis of the Readers’ Profile Throughout Time

Abstract

Capricho magazine (published by Abril) is considered to be the touchstone of the birth of Brazilian female press. It was founded in 1952 as a biweekly issue which targeted wives or women wanting to get married. For many years, the essays focused on how to be a perfect housewife. In the last five decades, however, Capricho went through a series of graphical and editorial transformations that lead to changes in the age-range of its readers. The most dramatic of these renewals happened in the 1980’s, when Capricho became a magazine focused on teenage girls, under the slogan “A Revista da Gatinha” (The Kitty’s Magazine - in Brazilian Portuguese, the expression “Gatinha” designates a beautiful young girl). Nowadays, as stated in its website, Capricho has the mission of assembling, informing, and connecting the biggest network of stylish and hype girls in the country. By using French Semiotics, this article aims at verifying if the change in the target-audience has corresponded to a significant transformation of the magazine’s content. The analysis of the editions published between 1971 and 2008 has showed that, despite the social and target-audience changes that occurred over these years, today’s reader of Capricho is not that different from the reader 50 years ago.