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Theories for the impact of mass media on american culture
Theories for the impact of mass media on american culture
To what extent can mass media bring about cultural changes in a society
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A women’s magazine provides a detailed intake on women’s life. Magazines are filled with a vast variety of content as well as advertisements. One single advertisement on a certain product can give the readers an inclusive intake on what if occuring in American culture. American culture is expanding with an open mind on new possibilities, especially diversity and the December 2017 issue of Vogue sets a perfect example of this. Aside from the issue being an interesting read, the readers of this magazine get to learn a lot about what has occured over the years in American culture in different aspects, such as, dance, fashion and many more. The cultural shifts that have occurred also impact the products that women value the most in life. These
In the article, “The Fashion Industry: Free to Be an Individual” by Hanna Berry, Berry discusses how for decades women have been told to use certain products and that if they used those products they would be beautiful. Women over the years have believed this idea and would purchase items that promised to make them prettier, thinner, smarter and even more loved. However, in reality it was never what they wore on their bodies that helped them be any of those things; but what it did help with was to empower women to become fearless and bold by what they chose to wear on their bodies as a form of expression.
“The story is worth more than the paper it is printed on.” Frank Munsey’s words symbolized the history of the pulp magazine. Frank Munsey started the pulp magazine craze with his first magazine, the Argosy, in 1896. The Argosy was a revamping of his children’s magazine, the Golden Argosy, shifting its focus from children to adults. The Argosy offered large amounts of fiction for a low price, because these stories would be printed on cheap pulpwood scraps, thus gaining the name ‘pulp magazine’. The pulp magazine has been a part of American history for well over a hundred years. During the late 1890’s, there was a period of high immigration. These immigrants and other working poor had no source of inexpensive literature, and this led to the development of the pulp magazine. Pulp magazines held a collection of stories in every issue, serialized so that in the following issue the next chapter of the story would appear. Since the first pulp magazine’s success, the Argosy, other magazines spawned, such as All-Story and Weird Story, and sinc...
Ed. Katherine E. Kurzman, Kate Sheehan Roach, and Stasia Zomkowski. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 1998. 242,243. Print.
People have used women in print media to sell their products since the mid-19th century. The women in the ads were portrayed with thin waists, large breasts and stylish clothing. As the roaring 1920’s moved in, American women scored voting rights and birth control. Due to World War I, it became necessary for women to work. The print world began to portray women in a boyish, sexy fashion. Hemlines rose for sex appeal. Breasts were bound so women didn’t appear too feminine in the work-place. Hair was cut shorter for convenience and the flapper-girl was born.
Fashion and celebrity, prominent in such magazines, are also tied into the system of consumption. It is seen to be unusual to not be interested in hairstyles, cleansing and all the other intimate rituals that are an intrinsic part of being a woman in contemporary consumer culture. The second study I will be looking at is Marjorie Ferguson (1983). Ferguson conducted a detailed content analysis and interview study of three of the largest selling women’s magazines.
Breazeale claims that society’s view of women has everything to do with how consumerism has been viewed primarily as a feminine attribute, and describes how men believe women are just poor consumers. Additionally, Breazeale describes how showing women in erotic, sexual ways made men feel that women were solely objects of their desire and nothing more. Breazeale effectively convinces the audience that society’s perception of women today has been significantly swayed by their constant portrayal as consumers through an in-depth look at Esquire Magazine and how it not only portrayed women as lavish, silly spenders, but simply as objects of the male
This phenomenon suggests that all women are required to remain loyal wives and stay at home mothers who aspire to achieve perfection. In “Mirrors of Masculinity: Representation and Identity in Advertising Images,” Jonathon E. Schroeder and Detlev Zwick claim that “highly abstract connections are made between the models, a lifestyle, and the brand” resulting in a need to associate these products with a specific way of living (25). Instead of simply displaying these luxurious bracelets and handbags, the ad creates an elegant environment through the incorporation of sophisticated items. The women are dressed elegantly in dresses and blouses, adding a conservative element to the ad. The ad presents a rather stereotypical image of the very successful heads-of-household type mothers who have brunch with other elite women in an exclusive circle. Everything from the merchandise they sport to the champagne glasses down to the neatly manicured fingernails provides insight into the class of women presented in this ad. The body language of the women strips the image of the reality element and instead appears to be staged or frozen in time. This directly contributes to the concept of the gendered American dream that urges women to put up a picture-perfect image for the world to see. Instead of embracing individual struggle and realities, the American dream encourages women to live out a fabricated
Many factors can determine why someone belongs to a specific taste culture, but one factor that Gans (1974) believes is the most impactful is socioeconomic class. Growing up in a typical middle-class home with two parents who have only received a high school diploma, according to Gans, I belong in the lower-middle taste culture. However, I “turn to fiction that depicts the struggle of women to compete with men in male-dominated enterprises...and more recently, the potentialities and problems of women’s liberation (106). “ I read the New Yorker and Vogue, and shy away from Cosmopolitan or other women’s and homemaking magazines, which in essence means that I share more cultural
The content of the article revealed products from numerous countries, such as the United States, Germany and from the author Tahlia Pritchard’s home country of Australia. The globalization of gender based consumer products expands to a wide range of industries. The industries providing these constant reminders that men and women are different are primarily the food, health and fitness industries, but also oddly include the home organization and tool industries. I have had exposure to some of these products as a consumer and observer of what gender specific products others seem to buy. Companies making these various products capitalize on consumers who wouldn’t dare to bu...
Roy Raymond was shopping at a department store section for lingerie for his wife to only find ugly floral-print nightgowns and a sales associate with made him felt even more uncomfortable while shopping there and realizing that other males must feel the same way. He saw an opportunity to design a lingerie store where both males and females would feel comfortable shopping there (Barr). He wanted to create an environment “where it was exciting, a sexy process that would make the men feel comfortable, not perverted.”(Schlossberg). Ever since Roy Raymond sold Victoria’s Secret to the company the Limited in 1982, the company had increased in popularity immensely because through the use of advertisements that, “was able to bring Victoria’s Secret to become a very powerful almost-monopoly in the lingerie market” (“Victoria’s Secret”:Brandopedia). With an extreme growth of popularity, the company expanded its advertising methods with the use of monthly catalogues, annual fashion shows, print advertisements, and most importantly the supermodels. Victoria’s Secret has set an image to make young girls feel insecure about their own bodies because they are so exposed to these kinds
I have examined and analyzed the COVERGIRL™ NatureLuxe advertisement that uses common feminine stereotypes. In this advertisement, COVERGIRL™, which runs in Seventeen magazines, targets women through their choices of colors, fonts, and images used. Certain stereotypes are used; such as, those who are more feminine tend to prefer lighter, happier colors, such as pink. Also, the use of a celebrity, who many young women look to as an icon, assists in the advertisement of the COVERGIRL™ product. COVERGIRL™, more than likely, is able to successfully market their lip-gloss product in the United States by using common gender stereotypes to show femininity and how those, mainly women, should be presented in today’s society.
In our house, we have a girls' bathroom and a boys' bathroom. When entering into the women's private sphere of the bathroom, one cannot help but notice the mountain of women's magazines on top of the toilet. Similarly, the men's bathroom has its share of men's magazines stacked in their domain of masculinity. This essay will take a look at the advertisements in these infamous periodicals, to attempt to gain a better understanding of their message(s), and their appeal. Interestingly enough, both the men's and women's magazines tend to represent women in the same fashion.
and also it gives me a chance to look at the way these types of
Most photos and titles draw in the male gaze, with female bodies half-naked paired with ‘Ladies love this!’. Pairing these particular items together creates an atmosphere which reinforces male expectations and norms to their audience. GQ, while appearing as a harmless fashion magazine, sends out a number of subconscious messages to their viewers of what it means to be a well-respected, successful male in today’s world. Gentlemen Quarterly, like many other magazines, implements the gender binary into its readers through its advertisements and articles.
The underlying philosophical paradigm used by Diamond et al. (2009) in the American Girl article is interpretivist research. The authors don’t predefine variables (Myers, 2013) to explain the American Girl brand, but use social activities, costs, facts, images, meanings and differences (Kozinets, 2001) to make sense of the American Girl phenomenon. To gain an in-depth understanding and broader context (Myers, 2013) of the multi-ethic, multi-generational and multi-national (Diamond et al., 2009) nature of the American Girl environment, the research method used was an ethnographic exploration. For three...