How Magazine Changes the Way Female Shape Their Self-Identity - Literature review Example

How magazine changes the way female shape their self-identity? Introduction As per Gamson & Modigliani (1989), social constructivist approach of media impacts the media’s chief effect which is nothing but the construction of meaning in society. Researchers lamented that media subject is not always consistently or one-sidedly received in the same style by all people but negotiated by people in a dialogic process which offered them a degree of power. Identity can be explained as a state of being a particular individual or thing: Identity can be referred as one’s personality or individuality (Dobson 2012). Magazines play an important role for the establishment of an identity especially, among women. “Cosmopolitan magazine both online and offline of Australia (www.cosmopolitan.com.au)” offers wide range of information targeting women readers like fashion trends, what to wear , beauty tips for skin and hair , fitness advice like lifestyle and healthy eating , sex advice , sex positions , relationship advice and information about what men want from women. For instance, fashion magazines are often criticized for portraying lean and thin women models that obviously inspire young women to become to be thin as the fashion models as they used to see in such magazines.(Dittmar et al 2009:45). Further, some teen magazines particularly those aimed at young girls who want to become model, and these magazines help them to find out which clothes are considered to be fashionable at a specific point of time and what is expected to be pleasant to wear. Thus, for many young women, those images in the fashion magazines’ acts as a source of information as to what to wear and how to differentiate them from other girls. Thus, magazines play a greater role in shaping the self-identity of females (Kotler 2002).This research essay will discuss in detail with reflection on the engagement with theoretical concepts of the social interactionist theory about how magazines change the way female shape their self-identity? Methods In planning my research, I want to use secondary sources to prove my research question as there are plenty of earlier empirical studies were available on the subject. The main objective for the use of secondary resources is that it is not only cost-saving and but also not time consuming. Further, by using content analysis , we can evaluate the key trends of fashion, sociology, contemporary beliefs of women, women identity and by evaluating the various types of articles published in the Cosmopolitan magazine of Australia which has provided in-depth information to know how articles appearing in the magazines change the way female shape their self-identity. I have analysed three articles appeared in Cosmos.au which deals with how to dress in coping with the event or occasion by females , how a female model can keep her identity, and how the home made beauty product is a viable alternative for beautification of women to prove my research hypothesis. Key Definition Now media offers better opportunities for women to establish their identities on their own in the society. The articles in the women’s magazines like cosmopolitan that helps female readers to articulate their identities in more creative ways than other conventional media. Further, online magazines now help female to clear their doubts, to encourage their views and self-perceptions. This study employs the social interactionist theory to find out how women are able to establish a new reality for them by reading the magazines which assist them in influencing their identities. Literature Review There is abundant of earlier empirical research carried on women’s magazines and how they depict women. With multi perspectives, many earlier research was carried over on women’s magazines like Women’s Weekly to Cosmopolitan. Caldas-Coulthard classifies women’s magazines into two diverse groups: the newer glossy ones like Cosmopolitan and customary ones like “Women’s Own.”. Magazines which focuses its attention on young women are more categorical in their determination that women must carry out their function by themselves and to be offensively sexy and high-spirited as possible (Caldas-Coulthard 1996:253). The common intonation of magazine articles about self-help is that women can become just authoritative as the female political leaders , the female film icons, if they nurture the self-belief and confidence and chart out a strategy for their self-development. (Caldas-Coulthard 1996:253).Articles in women magazines give more focus that women can be independent and exceptionally strong while at the same time having perfect make-up and wearing high-heel shoes which appears to be direct effect on identities of young women.(Arvidssoarn 2009 :19). Further, cosmopolitan.au magazine always carry a specific message, since the wide range of titles aim an equally diverse set of female audience. Gauntlett (2008) refers a research study which enquired about how and whether the magazines assisted them to think of their own identity, the interviewees gave a mixture of following responses. On reading the articles in the cosmopolitan magazine, one 21 year old female said that “she used to look at the pictures of most successful, attractive, healthy and well-dressed women and try to change my identity(is this a direct quote?) yes to that of celebrities hopefully in the near future. Another young women commented that reading cosmopolitan magazine helped how not to entrench herself in the office politics, love affairs, addiction to alcohol, sex and violence. These magazines helped me to feel that I am in control of my own life and assists to follow an upwardly, young –mobile lifestyle” (if this is a direct quote you need to quote them) (Gauntlett 2008:209). ( I have paraphased the same and now added quote) Betty Friedan (cited in Friedan & Quindlen, 1963,32 came out with criticism that women magazines are overflowing with full of clothing, food, furniture, cosmetics and the beauty of young women bodies but they never touched the world of ideas and thoughts, the life of the spirit and mind. (Friedan & Quindlen 1963:32) Machin and Thornborrow (2003) study evaluated Cosmopolitan magazines published from 44 nations, mainly to find out the resemblances and variances in the philosophies and representations in them. They exposed that despite the fact that the Cosmopolitan appears to highlight women’s liberty and independent, but, the magazine really wanted that women should be unhappy and insecure in their physical shape or bodies and all the power the women had was chiefly emanated from their sexuality. Despite the fact, a woman is having all the liberty and freedom that a modern woman should have, women were yet expressed in relation to men and evaluated by their physical appearance. Gill (2007,94) was of the view that women’s magazines have at least some feminist characteristics in them. For example, their general perception about women that women magazine disseminates about women that they are having every right to work and vie with men in their workstation. Gill also advances an appositive perspective that women magazines put a vibrant emphasis on the appearances of women. Further, as per Gill, women magazines never present any structural inequalities which the women in general witness in their day to day life. Thus, women magazines offer individual transformation as the solution for any issues that women might face (2007:199-204). Gill also found that contents of the women’s magazines are greatly influenced by the needs of the advertisers, and she felt that objectives like empowerment of women are often thrown in the air to satisfy advertisers)The regular practice perused by editors’ of the women (gramma) magazine to tie the content of the articles that appear in the women’s magazines with the kind of advertisements that are published by the side of such articles. Thus, we can say that advertisers are having great influence in the reasons and motives behind women’s representation in women magazines like Cosmopolitan ( Gill 2007:202). Eggins and Iedema(1997, 168) were also found that women magazines offer more emphasize on women’s appearance and did give very little significance to social issues pertaining to womanhood (1997:168-169). Machin and Thornborrow (2003) are of the view that the fundamental values that the Cosmopolitan magazine is openly advocating are independence, power and fun to women. As per them, the Cosmopolitan magazine introduced the concept of the “Cosmo-girl” who embraces the values which the Cosmopolitan asserts and who actively adores by them. As Cosmopolitan magazine frequently uses a phrase referring women as a “fearless, fun female” and hence, Cosmopolitan magazine can be regarded as an active magazine meant for the modern, energetic, fun-loving women. Due to thought-provoking articles, Cosmopolitan magazine can be regarded as a magazine meant for independent, young women. If we analyze two articles appeared in the UK Cosmopolitan magazine in 2007 namely “Drop a dress size at your desk “and “Foxy lady” , the former article educates women what they should do to appear good, and the later article presents women as an idol to recognize and envy with. The main idea of the article “Drop a dress” is to stress upon the significance of losing weight, to be thin or slim and thus, slimmer is the preferable motive and slimming would offer the women reader to become a pre-defined beauty idol. The picture of model Kate Moss has appeared at the side of the article which makes the readers to make up their mind to become as thin and beautiful as the model Moss by dieting and by losing their weight. Thus, the above article supports the finding of Eggins & Iedema (1997:169) and Machin and Thornborrow (2003) who placed a great importance on appearance of women (Tiainen 2009). Kim & Ward used social interactionist theory to find out how women are able to establish a new reality for them by reading the Cosmopolitan magazine which assists them in influencing their identities. They found that women who are regularly going through Cosmo magazine were less likely to form an opinion that sexual intercourse is a risky activity and more likely to believe that women should be confident in prioritizing their sexual yearning for their own sake but not for the sake of their male partners. The above finding highlight that women magazines like Cosmo have probable mixed outcomes. As per Helen Gurley Brown, women magazines are really endeavoring to sexually emancipate women through the magazine. If a regular reader of the cosmopolitan magazine comes to an understanding and fair knowledge about safe sexual practices, then, it is to be noted that Cosmo really has an impact on women’s identity as it educates the reader what to do and what not to do (Kim & Ward 2012).(it is good to see lots of research of academic studies here, but you need to be careful and put them in correct position. On the other hand, this doesn’t have to be this long because remember you are using cosmopolitan.au as an example. Cosmopolitan offers social interaction facility so that its readers can discuss about the articles with their friends through social networking websites like linkedin , Facebook or Twitter. (good analysis)Cosmopolitan fulfills the requirements of its readers and the first one being women is to be educated and well-informed. Articles appearing in Cosmos facilitate the women reader to access more knowledge and skills on how to fascinate the guys and how to make them content. As per George Gerbner, cultivation theory refers to dramatic violence with an explicit expression of physical force initiating an action against one’s volition on intimidation or threat to become a prey as part of the plot. For instance, a high- school student in USA would have viewed at least 13,000 violent deaths in TV serials and might have cultivated violence in his mind. (Eastin 2013:92). Cultivation theory is footed upon the presumption that women magazine like Cosmopolitan of Australia is a socializing agent. It functions as a dictating source of information in Australian society and conveys the comparatively uniform messages of social veracity. Long term vulnerability to the symbolic articles in Cosmopolitan magazine results to reader’s formation of insight about the real world. Footed upon these notions, the theory indicates that constant reading of beauty, sex, body slimming articles appearing in Cosmopolitan magazine are more probable to perceive society in manners congruent with those depicted in such magazine articles (Zhang & Kremar 2004). As per Berger & Luckman (1997), social construction of reality theory is one where reality is socially established as it is perceived by individuals and not accurately perceived out there. The media like a women magazine is one noteworthy platform where people create, reproduce and fine-tune their definitions of reality. As per Fira Basuki Baskoro, the editor of Cosmopolitan of Indonesia, when Cosmopolitan was launched in Indonesia, it transformed the manner the Indonesian women perceive about sex. women readers to change their identity and perception on their sexual life (Zimmerman 2012). By reading articles in Cosmos, a girl may have a good advice for not indulging in bad practices that may impact her health. For instance, Cosmos never encourages plastic surgery and has carried many articles disputing breast implants. With the “body love “section that is appearing in its U.S. edition, Cosmos attempts to inspire women to feel good about their body shape despite their size. This is some kind of instilling confidence on those women who are not beauty with either very thin or fat body. Croatia edition of Cosmos carries articles about women acting courageously on their own, which is very famous in that nation. Likewise, the articles appearing in Kazakhstan give more coverage about travel and women’s career prospects. In general, articles appearing in Cosmos are promoting advancement of women and equality, mainly through the good advice about women’s sexuality, health and career issues (Zimmerman 2012). The Guardian – Cosmopolitan Magazine’s ‘size hero’ campaign makes ‘zero’ sense . The August 2013 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine was dedicated to assist ‘average’ women to find fitting clothes to their body shape. Cosmopolitan magazine focuses on its reader’s wish to appear sexually, and this does not connote that it is neglecting or lowering their inner lives. Cosmos concentrates on ‘ outer features ‘ of public lives since the outer beauty significant to people as people always desire to be sexy. Readers want that other people should find them sexy and also good-looking. As per critics , Cosmos is stressing more on how a woman is to appear, which is still the most significant factor, and but it does not concern with women’s inner lives or what one can achieve. The most destructive and disturbing thing about Cosmos’s propaganda is the manner in which it minimizes women’s anxiety with modern , well-ftting dresses to this moronic purpose of sexiness (Campbell 2013). Cosmopolitan – The Perfect Neckline for any event The above article is dealing through cultivation theory with how much of a woman’s chest should be exposed footed upon the social event like either it be a job interview or a funeral. A model image that appeared on the side of the article depicted the model’s breast in revealing blouses. Thus , this article educates young women readers how to dress in coping with the event or occasion. Thus , in a social party , a girl may wear a low-cut blouse whereas in an interview , if she wears such dress , it may spoil her opportunity to get the appointment, or it may increase the chances for the appointment according to the reaction and taste of the interviewer (Blonde ,2001,p.27). Cosmopolitan-au. The New Face of Modeling -Cosmo-au - August 14, 2014 Nikia Phoenix, an American model shared her experience where the ad agencies asked her to shed her weight for signing contract with her. However, she said “no” to them as she felt that she is comfortable and healthy. She told them that she was not prepared to drop down her size to please their needs. She took inspiration from those bad experiences, now she turns to be a winner of the healthy model movement and places’ faith on ad agents and casting directors as they have to start to encourage the health of their models instead of asking them to slim down to score jobs. Nikia Phoenix experiences offer a lesson from interactionist theory how a female model can keep her identity without succumbing to pressures from ad agencies to slim down the size , but still able to be successful in her profession. (www.cosmopolitan .com.au, 2014). No Doubt – The best body scrub, made free at home – Cosmopolitan.au – June 5, 2014 Babytales through the social construction of reality theory, illustrates how the home-made beauty product which is a viable alternative for beautification of women in general. She is of the opinion that such products would help to smooth, energise and relax one’s skin. She writes that she has been using her own beauty products made at home for many years without any issue. Hence, she advises other female readers not to go to spa on daily basis and waste their money. She is able to make hair & lip treatments, face masks, tanners, eye lash, anti-aging, ingrown hair treatments and creams at home. She is able to make body scrubs by using oils and sugars as body scrubs helps to remove dead skin cells on the body surface and leaving one with healthy, soft skin underneath. Exfoliation permits new skin cells to regenerate so that one may have all over the body glow. Such homemade body scrubs permits one’s body to absorb moisture it requires to remain soft, and its aromatherapy features can have wonderful results. She describes how to make homemade body scrub ; essentials .1 cup brown or white sugar for sensitive skin 2) half-cup of oatmeal 3) one TBS ground coffee 4) 2 TBS honey with olive oil 5) few drops of Vanilla essence. By mixing the above, one has to place in a microwave for 30 seconds, and your homemade body scrub is ready. This is a very good beauty tip which educates the other female readers how to beautify themselves by using homemade body scrubs (www.Cosmopoliant.com.au 2014). Discussion Magazines play an important role for the establishment of an identity especially, among women. For the majority of the young women, those images in the fashion magazines’ acts as a source of information as to what to wear and how to differentiate them from other girls. Hence, women magazines play a greater role in shaping the self-identity of females. Women readers are of the view that the articles appearing the women magazines help to change their identity to that of celebrities hopefully in the near future and also cosmopolitan magazine helped them how not to entrench herself in the office politics, love affairs, addiction to alcohol, sex and violence. As per Betty Friedan, women magazine never touched the world of ideas and thoughts, the life of the spirit and mind of women. Conclusion As per Gill, women magazines never present any structural inequalities which the women in general witness in their day to day life. Gill is of the view that women’s magazines are greatly influenced by the needs of the advertisers, and she felt that objectives like empowerment of women are often thrown in the air to satisfy advertisers. Thus, the advertisers are having great influence in the reasons and motives behind women’s representation in women magazines like Cosmopolitan. Eggins and Iedema were also found that women magazines offer more emphasize on women’s appearance and did give very little significance to social issues pertaining to womanhood. Women magazine like Cosmo has helped the Indonesian Muslim women to cross the religious fatwas and has given them courage to discuss and learn about sex, which has really changed their identity and perception. Further, as per Zimmerman, Cosmos has changed the women identity and perception as regards to their marriage perception in India and Cosmos has really helped their Indian women readers to change their identity and perception on their sexual life (Zimmerman 2012).] Thus, in general, in view of the above findings, we can conclude that articles appearing in Cosmos are promoting advancement of women and equality, mainly through the good advice about women’s sexuality, health and career issues. List of References Arvidsson , S. (2009) A Gender Based Adjectival Study of Women’s and Men’s Magazines. [online] available from < http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:225148/FULLTEXT01.pdf> [accessed 20 October 2014] Berger, P & Luckman, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Anchor Books Blonde, L. (2001) Sexiest Discourse in Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health. [online] available from [accessed 30 September2014] Caldas –Coulthard C R. (1996) Women who pay for sex. And Enjoy it. 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