Within UNESCO’s Academy of Young Women, Ms. Susana Pletea, editorial director Burda Romania, one of the main publishers on the market, part of Hubert Burda Media, talked about the importance of approaching particular target groups in the magazine industry, and how we could use the publications to tackle today’s important issues such as the fight against xenophobia, extremism and aggression directed to women.
Ways used by Burda to address these are interviews with women belonging to minorities, the inclusion of unedited pictures on the covers, underlying the acceptance and celebration of all body types. Also, magazines create networks among their readership, which are very useful for support and advice giving.
Among the concerns raised by the participants, the issue of superficiality in magazine content was touched upon and to what extent magazines should identify themselves as profit-making entities constrained to include in their pages the trends society is attracted to. It was agreed that there is need of a more diverse representation of women inside magazines pages and on the covers.
Other subjects discussed upon were the challenge of intra-trust competition, and strategies to individualise similar magazines owned by the same company.