Cleo is a magazine aimed at readers from eighteen to thirty-five years
of age. First published in Australia is 1972, it celebrated its twenty-fifth
birthday by reproducing all three hundred of its front covers in its November,
1997, spectacular with Kylie Minogue as its model on the cover. What differences
can be seen if one compares the two groups of covers published twenty-three to
twenty-five years apart ﹖ How has Cleo's `image' (and the images which make up
its `image') changed ﹖ To answer this, either in conversation at the
hairdressers or as an academic thesis, requires identification of observable
dimensions of the images in question (are the models who are depicted, older ﹖
are they differently dressed ﹖ for example) as well as a judgement about how
frequently various visual features appear in the periods that one chooses to
compare. In short, the answer requires a (visual) Content Analysis. This paper
outlines the assumptions, practices, limitations and advantages of explicit,
quantifiable analysis of visual content as a research method. It then returns to
the Cleo covers to exemplify the process.