MEDIA-SERBIA: Women Magazines Flourish in Serbia

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jun 18 2002 (IPS) - Only 18,9 percent of people in Serbia are reported to purchase a daily newspaper.

Editors and owners of even the most respected political newspapers, prominent in their decade long campaign against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in the 90s, sadly admit that their papers struggle to generate a circulation of even 20,000 copies.

At the same time, however, women magazines have seen an explosion of success. Currently, there are more than 20 women magazines in circulation with the most popular amongst them boasting a circulation of 120,000.

Opinions differ as to what has resulted in a surge of interest in womens magazines but experts say it began with the fall of the decade long rule of Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000.

“To me, the explosion of women magazines comes as a logical consequence of a larger presence of women presence in the society,” says Sanja Popovic-Pantic, head of the Union of Business Women of Serbia. “The campaign against Milosevic and his regime at the time centered on raising the consciousness of women about how they could influence important changes and the effects last until today,” she explains.

According to statistics women make up more than the half the 6,2 million electoral body in Serbia and analysts of Milosevic’s defeat in 2000 indicate that women overwhelmingly voted for current president Vojislav Kostunica.

“Serbia is a society in transition, trying to make up for the decade it lost under Milosevic,” says Belgrade sociologist Isidora Jaric. “It’s female population is leaving the phase of self-sacrifice for the family and entering the phase of self-investment.”

The end of decade long isolation of Serbia under Milosevic brought foreign companies, new business and a new generation of educated and ambitious women onto the scene.

In Belgrade in the big towns of Novi Sad or Nis, thousands of women in their late 20s and early 30s have flourished into the new class of well paid and self conscious females. Relaxed new laws have led to hundreds of small business firms registered by agile women, running them with their female members of family or friends.

The headlines of some 20 women magazines in Serbia advise them on latest trends in cosmetics, fashion, exercise or diet. Smartly designed and printed on luxurious paper, they re-print articles from the most popular foreign magazines of the kind, balanced with texts by Serbian authors.

Unlike their mothers, the new Serbian women will scarcely find articles on traditional cooking or needlework in new magazines. Apart from a few women magazines in Milosevic’s era, the new ones carry no advice on how to make new clothes out of the old ones or make a delicious cake with only one egg.

“Our readers are mostly the young, liberal, open minded women between the ages of 18 and 30,” says Robert Coban, owner of the most popular magazine “Health and Beauty”.

“They want to know what is going on around us and what is trendy in the world. Besides, there are many segments among the large female population here. For one segment, it’s their looks and all the related matters that count. For the other, it’s love affairs of celebrities or Latin American soap operas. Each can find what they want,” Coban adds.

Names of women magazines clearly show such profiles. Besides “Health and Beauty”, there are “The World of Beauty”, “Viva”, “Lady”, but also “My Love Story”, “My Heart” or teenage editions like “Tina” or “Cool Girl”.

Some women admit that they buy magazines to escape reality.”It’s OK to daydream a bit,” says 22 year old Olga Markovic, a Belgrade student. “Sometimes I think that there’s no chance I’ll ever re-decorate my home like some rich lady.But on the other hand, why not see how she does it”.

Due to their enormous popularity by local standards, leading women magazines have taken the important segment of advertising business. Serious political magazines consider themselves lucky if they get ten pages of advertisements in their 50 page editions. Out of 172 pages of “Health and Beauty”, 72 are advertisements.

“It’s the market that finally started to work here,” says sociologist Isidora Jaric.