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Debates about entertainment and polarisation are far from new. This project examines Finnish popular media -and the people who produced and shaped it - in Finland from the 1950s to the 1980s. In particular, it explores how the Tampere-based publishing house Lehtimiehet Oy (“Magazine Men”) and the magazines it published contributed to post-war social change, especially through their reworking of hegemonic gender roles.

The central research question asks how Lehtimiehet Oy and its magazines participated in these wider social transformations and, more specifically, how they challenged and reshaped dominant conceptions of gender. To address this, we draw on the company’s own publications, media and legal sources related to its operations, as well as oral history and other memory-based materials.

Our analysis focuses both on the gendered representations within the magazines and on gendered forms of agency within the company’s production practices. Through this dual approach, we aim to offer new perspectives in Finnish gender history and everyday history, using Lehtimiehet Oy’s publications and professional practices as a case study.

The project is led by Dr Hannah Kaarina Yoken, who will work on it from September 2025 to the end of 2026. FT Juho Saksholm is contributing to the project during 2024–2025. The project also funds PhD researcher FM Aino Ollila from 2024 to 2026, and FK Pia Komonen works periodically as the project’s research assistant.