In recent years, men¡¦s fashion magazines have become a new media genre that attracts lots of attention. The sales, advertisements, and publications of the men¡¦s fashion magazines have reached a remarkable performance. Media is an important social institution to shape gender images. Thus, this study aims to explore what kind of masculinity that men¡¦s fashion magazines in Taiwan represents? How to achieve the masculinity through consumption? Are there any differences in masculinity between transnational and local men¡¦s fashion magazines? What is the variation in men¡¦s fashion magazines in different periods? This study expects to describe the masculinity represented in men¡¦s fashion magazines of Taiwan to enrich the media and men¡¦s research resources.
This study drawn on the masculinity theory based on the sociologist R.W. Connell¡¦s, and applied a methodology of quantitative content analysis. The subjects were the international Chinese edition of men¡¦s fashion magazine GQ and the local men¡¦s fashion magazine men¡¦s uno. The reason to focus the analysis on GQ and men¡¦s uno is due to the fact that they are the most popular and long-running men¡¦s fashion magazines in Taiwan respectively. By means of analyzing these two magazines published during 1997 to 2006, this research tries to understand the masculinity styles represented on the magazines¡¦ cover.
The major finding revealed that the large numbers of men represented in men¡¦s fashion magazines of Taiwan were young men who aged between 18 and 35 (with 74.8% appearing in the ¡§cover figure¡¨ category and 71.2% in the ¡§featured people¡¨ category). Most of the men in the magazines were entertainment workers with appealing looks (with 90.1% appearing in the ¡§cover figure¡¨ category and 81.9% in the ¡§featured people¡¨ category). As for men¡¦s appearance types, the Trendy Cool type (43.2%) was the majority, the next types were Gentle (14.4%), Tough/Strong (11.7%), and Serious/Sophisticated (11.7%). Secondly, 60.5% of the article headlines on the magazines¡¦ covers were related to the consumption issues. The topics of the headlines were centered on fashion (39.6%) and featured people (29.8%). Furthermore, comparing the transnational with the local magazine, there were differences in men¡¦s age, occupation, appearance type, body type, and the topic and product category that the magazine emphasized.
In conclusion, men¡¦s fashion magazines of Taiwan indeed appear a different kind of masculinity that I identify as ¡§stylish masculinity¡¨. This kind of masculinity focuses much attention on men¡¦s appearances, and it¡¦s achieved through a variety of ways of product consumption. The stylish masculinity overthrows some definitions of the traditional masculinity, but on the other hand, it still maintained some disciplines of traditional masculinity. Analyzing the transnational and local men¡¦s fashion magazines, we can understand even if the international men¡¦s fashion magazine, like GQ, appeared and influenced the local male in a global way. From different cultures, magazine origins and readerships, the local men¡¦s fashion magazine still can present some diverse features in many aspects. Finally, when the transnational fashion magazines introduce the international fashion information to local readers, it also conveys many global viewpoints about masculinity at the same time. However, it¡¦s still possible that the publisher takes a localized strategy in order to cater for the local life and culture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0324107-141029 |
| Date | 24 March 2007 |
| Creators | Yuan, Tzu-hsiang |
| Contributors | Li-ling Tsai, Zhi-xian Chen, Ping Shaw |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0324107-141029 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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