In this thesis, I analyse the representation of grooming in Australian men’s lifestyle magazines to explore the emergence of new masculine subjectivities constructed around narcissism and the adoption of previously feminine-coded products and practices which may indicate important shifts in the cultural meanings of Australian masculinity. However, in order to talk about ‘new’ subjectivities and ‘shifts’ in masculine behaviours and cultural ideals, then it is imperative to demonstrate ‘old’ practices and ideologies, and so while the thesis is concerned with discourses of grooming and models of masculinity presented in the new genre of men’s lifestyle titles which appeared on the Australian market in the late 1990s, it frames this discussion with detailed analyses of previously unexplored Australian men’s general interest magazines from the 1930s. According to Frank Mort consumption, traditionally associated with the feminine has now become a central part of imagining men (1996: 17-18) while the representation and sale of masculinity is an increasingly important part of the ‘cultural economy’ (Mikosza, 2003). In this thesis I am concerned with the role of men’s lifestyle magazines and magazine representations of masculinity in the ‘cultural economy’ of mediated male grooming cultures.

The music press and music journalism are rarely subjected to substantial academic investigation. Analysis of journalism often focuses on the production of news across various platforms to understand the nature of politics and public debate in the contemporary era. But it is not possible, nor is it necessary, to analyse all emerging forms of journalism in the same way for they usually serve quite different purposes. Music journalism, for example, offers consumer guidance based on the creation and maintenance of a relationship between reader and writer. By focusing on the changing aspects of this relationship, an analysis of music journalism gives us an understanding of the changing nature of media production, media texts and media readerships. Music journalism is dialogue. It is a dialogue produced within particular critical frameworks that speak to different readers of the music press in different ways. These frameworks are continually evolving and reflect the broader social trajectory in which music journalism operates. Importantly, the evolving nature of music journalism reveals much about the changing consumption of popular music. Different types of consumers respond to different types of guidance that employ a variety of critical approaches. This thesis, therefore, argues that the production of music journalism is one that is influenced by the practices of consumption.