Dolly (magazine)

DOLLY is a bimonthly teen magazine started in 1970 by Fairfax Ltd. in Australia and New Zealand, and purchased by ACP in 1988. The current editor is Josephine Rozenberg-Clarke. The previous editor was Lucy Cousins. The magazine has its headquarters in Sydney.^[1]

Dolly was the basis and inspiration for Sassy Magazine (1987-1996) in the United States. The magazine is aimed at older teenage girls (13-17 age group) and covers celebrity news and gossip, fashion and beauty and various feature articles attractive to female teenagers and dealing with issues that are faced by this age group and gender. The magazine also has a website containing games, information on upcoming issues, quizzes and downloads. The magazine has now produced over 400 issues and as of 2007 has a readership of 505,000.

Launch

The magazine was launched by Jan Goldie^[2] in 1970.^[3]

Dolly Teen Choice Awards

Dolly Model Competition

The Dolly Model Competition is a branch from the Dolly magazine. It is a competition held for teen readers to enter to have the chance to win a modelling career. The competition first started in 1992 and ended in 2002 when the then editor in chief of Dolly, Mia Freedman felt it gave a negative impression towards young teenage girls and the Dolly brand.^[4] In 2012 it returned after a 10-year hiatus, with the winner announced as 13-year-old Kirsty Thatcher from Brisbane, Australia. The winner will be awarded a one year contract with Chadwick Modeling agency, a trip to New York to meet with Chadwick's US affiliates, and a fashion and cover shoot on Dolly Magazine.

Miranda Kerr (who won in 1997) is now known world-wide and is a former Victoria's Secret model.

Past Winners

Dolly Doctor

Dolly Doctor is a segment that has run in Dolly since its first issue, which answers readers' health questions.^[5]

John Wright was the first Dolly Doctor.^[6] Melissa Kang has been the Dolly Doctor since 1993.^[7] A Dolly Doctor standalone app was released in 2015.^[8]

A comparison of Dolly Doctor with other Australian magazines found that Dolly Doctor was the most accurate.^[9]

Controversy

In 2005, Dolly came into media attention for taking advantage of young people wanting to get into the magazine industry. Dolly was accused of soliciting, publishing and ridiculing unpaid articles from hopeful young women looking for a job in magazine journalism.^[10]

In Dolly's May 2007 issue featuring Christina Aguilera on the cover, controversy reigned supreme when a picture of a runway model's genitalia was published on page 24 in a section called Dollywood Gossip. The accompanying caption which included an arrow pointing to the model's genital region said "Look Closer, Eww! Not that close" and "Umm, we think you forgot something".^[11][12] Editor Bronwyn McCahon claimed that "It's a long story involving mag terms like "dyelines" and "corrupted PDFs", but we did cover the area originally, and the little spot we used somehow fell off the page just before printing and we didn't notice".^[13]

Cessation of print edition

In November 2016 it was announced that the December 2016 issue would be the last print issue of Dolly.^[14]

References

External links

• Dolly magazine website