Advice column
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In colloquial language, a letterbox uncle (or letterbox aunt) is a person who answers readers' or listeners' queries about human problems in the column of a magazine or on the radio (advice journalist). The letterbox uncle is rarely a real person, but usually a pseudonym behind which several editors work for the column, and often carries an academic degree. The topics covered are interpersonal relationships in general and sexuality in particular, parenting, illnesses and other life crises, through to issues relating to housekeeping, gardening and the automobile.
One of Germany's best-known mailbox uncles was Dr. Sommer, an alleged psychologist behind whom an editorial team from the youth magazine Bravo hid. The inquiries are selected - if not freely invented - from the point of view of the extent to which they might interest the target group. It is often implied that the published questions and advice serve more to entertain and bind the readership than to support those seeking help; conversely, questions are sometimes launched in order to see a particular topic published at all.
With the easier research on the Internet, the function of providing information according to reader requests has lost importance and has largely disappeared as a formerly fixed column of a large part of newspapers and magazines.
See also
- Cummerbund
