Cover Journal of Psychosocial Studies
Journal of Psychosocial Studies

Melancholic communities: trauma, neoliberalism and the rise of Chat magazine

Author: Lucinda Rose Stroud1
View author details View Less
  • 1 Independent scholar, , Scotland
Article Category:
Research Article
Copyright:
© Policy Press 2022
Online Publication Date:
01 Feb 2022
Pages:
2–15
Publisher:
Policy Press
Volume/Issue:
Volume 15: Issue 1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1332/147867321X16401162893334
Restricted access
Get eTOC alerts
Rights and permissions Cite this article
Add to cart (GBP  £25.00)

Weekly real-life magazines (RLMs) for women form a genre that has experienced sustained popularity for more than three decades and are constructed from claims to represent their readerships’ lives. Strikingly, during the COVID-19 pandemic where other magazines have witnessed a decline in sales and many closures, real-life titles have experienced continuous success. This article reads RLMs through a psychosocial lens as a symptom of an emerging social melancholia that began to form from the late 1970s in the United Kingdom. Through an analysis of Chat magazine, the article illustrates how the genre was constructed and argues that it resonates with a form of melancholia that has led to the creation of communities bonded through shared collective experiences that have found the semblance of resolution within this genre’s creation.

  • Antheunis, M., Vanden Abeele, M.M.P. and Kanters, S. (2015) The Impact of Facebook Use on Micro-Level Social Capital: A Synthesis. Societies, 5(2): 399–419. doi: 10.3390/soc5020399

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Baddeley, M., Martin, R. and Tyler, P. (1998) Transitory shock or structural shift? The impact of the early 1980s recession on British regional unemployment, Applied Economics, 30(1): 19–30. doi: 10.1080/000368498326100

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Bainbridge, C. and Yates, C. (2014) Media and the Inner World: Psycho-cultural Approaches to Emotion, Media and Popular Culture, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

  • Brennan, T. (2014) The Transmission of Affect, New York, NY: Cornell University Press.

  • Butler, J. (2018) My life, your life: equality and the philosophy of Non-violence, The Gifford Lectures, University of Glasgow, 1 October.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chat (1995a) 11(5).

  • Chat (1995b) 11(21).

  • Chat (1997) 13(36).

  • Chat (2001) 14(1).

  • Chat (2003) 13(1).

  • Chat Facebook (2014a) If you could ask the Prime Minister one question, what would it be?, https://www.facebook.com/page/111281175568022/search/?q=claiming%20benefits.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chat Facebook (2014b) Why do some women find it so hard to saying something nice about themselves? Do you think it’s to do with self-esteem problems, or the worry you might be seen as big headed? We’d love to hear your thoughts, https://www.facebook.com/page/111281175568022/search/?q=self%20esteem.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chat Facebook (2015) Are you or have you ever been unemployed? If so, what’s the toughest thing about it – feeling judged, struggling financially, worrying about your kids? And finally, do you feel there’s enough support for job-seekers out there?, https://www.facebook.com/page/111281175568022/search/?q=benefits%20street.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chat Facebook (2016) What annoys you more – people who fiddle their benefits or massive companies avoiding paying their tax?, https://www.facebook.com/page/111281175568022/search/?q=claiming%20benefits.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chat Facebook (2017a) How much of a sense of community where you live?, https://www.facebook.com/ChatMagazine/photos/a.111303368899136.13142.111281175568022/1740716315957825/?type=3.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Chat Facebook (2017b) What you up to tonight?, https://www.facebook.com/ChatMagazine/photos/a.111303368899136.13142.111281175568022/1754513937911396/?type=3.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Corbu, N., Popescu-Jourdy, D. and Vlad, T. (2014) Identity and Intercultural Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

  • Crehan, K. (2016) Gramsci’s Common Sense Inequality and Its Narratives, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

  • Dean, H. and Taylor-Gooby, P. (1992) Dependency Culture: The Explosion of a Myth, London: Simon & Schuster International Group.

  • Eng, D. (2000) Melancholia in the late twentieth century, Signs, 25(4): 1275–81. doi: 10.1086/495560

  • Freud, S. (2005) On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia, London: Penguin Classics.

  • Frosh, S. (2014) Temporal vertigo: mourning, loss, and survival response to Lynne Segal: Thatcher’s legacy, Psychodynamic Practice Individuals, Groups and Organisations, 20(1): 20–4. doi: 10.1080/14753634.2014.872876

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Frosh, S. (2018) Rethinking psychoanalysis in the psychosocial, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 23(1): 5–14. doi: 10.1057/s41282-018-0072-5

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gill, R. (2007) Gender and the Media, Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Harkins, G. (2009) Everybody’s Family Romance: Reading Incest in Neoliberal America, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

  • Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Holmes, T. (2007) Mapping the magazine, Journalism Studies, 8(4): 510–21. doi: 10.1080/14616700701411714

  • Kristeva, J. (1989) Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

  • Miles, L. (1985a) Don’t be fiddled out of FIS, Chat, 5 November, p 5.

  • Miles, L. (1985b) Hello, Chat, 22 October, p 2.

  • Minsky, R. (1998) Psychoanalysis and Culture: Contemporary States of Mind, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

  • Monkey, M. (2002) What Chat editor Paul Merrill said about his readers, The Guardian [Online], https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/nov/01/mediamonkey.pressandpublishing.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Print Power (2020) Print Power lean magazines, https://www.printpower.eu/insight/lean-magazines.

  • Rimé, B, (2009) Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review, Emotion Review, 1(1): 60–85. doi: 10.1177/1754073908097189

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sinclair, G. (2005) ‘Chat’, Chat magazine, 17 November, p 3.

  • Sinclair, G. (2018) The original real-life magazine, Chat, 28 June, p 1.

  • Skeggs, B. (2016) Class: disidentification, singular selves and person-value [published in Portuguese as classe: disidenificacao, selves singulars e valor da pessoa], http://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/18996.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Winship, J. (1987) Inside Women’s Magazines, London: Pandora Press.

Lucinda Rose Stroud1
  • 1 Independent scholar, , Scotland

stroud_lucy@yahoo.co.uk

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 21 21 21
Full Text Views 102 102 5
PDF Downloads 80 80 6

Altmetrics

Dimensions