Resources for reading.

The families in the study all have a variety of print resources in their homes. Four of the families have members that read the newspaper. Lynne, Beth and Michelle subscribe to the newspaper daily, while Jill has home delivery on Fridays and Saturdays. Jane had been getting the newspaper on a regular basis, but discontinued her subscription because, as she said "I found it-it was getting expensive so I just stopped. "Beth states that she likes to read and looks forward to her morning paper, "That's the first thing I do when I come home from [her job delivering] the papers…Sit down and pour a glass of pop and read the newspaper." Her husband, however, says that he only reads the local newspaper a couple of times a month.

Beth mentions, "once in a while I'll splurge and buy myself a couple [of magazines] at the grocery store." Other times she trades with friends. She particularly enjoys the soap opera guides and women's magazines. Michelle indicates that she purchases women's magazines like Cosmopolitan or Chatelaine once every few months. Lynne reports that she sometimes picks up the magazines or newspapers that are left in the motel rooms where she works as a chambermaid and she reads these on her breaks at work, but she doesn't bring them home. She explains "The Enquirer, stuff like that… People leave them in their room and they're no good…We bring them on dinner times and we have a chance to look at it."

Andrea, the participant with the highest level of formal education of any of the women interviewed, occasionally buys tabloids at the store if the cover story interests her. She has copies of the National Enquirer on a table in the living room and talks about "read[ing] the junk papers sometimes…I read the Enquiry, Star, Midnight. I buy them at the store." She states that she does not subscribe to the local or other newspapers, but maybe three or four times a month she buys these "junk papers" for particular stories that she likes to follow, "Well, I don't pick them up all the time. It's only certain stories I'm interested…especially Princess Diana…and [murdered child] case."