Dissertation 2013 Spring

Feminine subject-positions in a global mediascape: An audience study of Chinese women fashion magazine readers in Shanghai
Adonais Gonzalez 12210130121 University no. 10246 May 21, 2013

Fudan University Msc Global Media and communications


School of journalism
ADVISOR: DOUG YOUNG
20130513

Dissertation submitted to the school of journalism and communications, Fudan University, May 2013, in partial fulllment of the requirements for the Msc in Global Media and Communications

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank my advisor and mentor Doug Young for his indispensible efforts in my work in progress contributing suggestions and amendments. I could not have ventured to engage such a complex subject matter in China without Fudan Universitys school of journalism staff and administration. I acknowledge their guide and support in my research process.

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School of journalism
TABLE OF CONTENTS
20130513 Truth isnt outside power...Truth is a thing of this world; it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each regime has its regime of truth; that is, the types of discourse which enables one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned...the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true (Foucault, 1980, p. 114-5).

Introduction 1 Theoretical Framework/ Literature Review 3
Representation 4
Cultural Studies 4 Constructionist Approach 5 Meaning 5 Power through Representation 6 Discourse 7

Discourse Power 8
The Subject 8

Identity 9 Identity o f Chinese Women 10

Essentialism 10 Anti-Essentialism 11 Post-Constructionism 11 Post-Modern 12 And Beyond 13 Gender theory 14

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Conceptual Framework 14
Globalization 14 Post-structuralist representation 15 Subject-positions 15 Difference as signifying practice 16 Objectives and contributions 16

Methodology 17
Interviews 17
Sampling 18 Shtructure 19 Analysis Method 19 Basic themes 20 Thematic Network 21

Analysis 21
General Consumption Trends 21 Detachment and approximation 21 Hypotheses 22 Western Beauty Ideals 27 Divided Loyalties 28 Style and Age 28 Relatable imagery and authenticity 30 Hybridity 31 Poses and sexuality 32 Sexualization of Western female representations 32 Figures G and H 33 Chinese poses and smiles 34 Detachment and Asymmetrical disinterest 36 Dangling theme of fatigue 39

Conclusion 40 Works consulted 42 Appendix A Ethical considerations 47 Appendix B Consent Form 51 Appendix C Transcription codes 52 Appendix D Interview guide 53 Appendix E Transcribed Focus Group Interview Sample 55 Appendix F Thematic Network 64
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[A] separate individual is an abstraction unknown to experience, and so likewise is society when regarded as something apart from individuals, [for] society and the individual do not denote separable phenomena but are simply collective and distributive aspects of the same thing (Cooley, 2009 ed., p. 142) ABSTRACT

Departing from cultural studies in representation, I investigated fashion magazine images in

China of both Western and Chinese publications to tease out a rhizomic identity construction and negotiation through media representations informing Chinese women audiences in the globalized mediascape of Shanghai, China. Implicating a discursive post-structuralist approach to explore commercial representations through audience perception, I explored how women position themselves around Western and Chinese media rhetoric utilizing these specifically narrow media representations to articulate self, and to dictate consumer choices. This specifically narrow group of modern, internationally inclined, young Chinese women, engaging international and national media to highlight the shifting powers in discourse formation and appropriation embedded in fashion magazine symbols detailed how they help make and break style trends. Postmodern assumptions on identity as intersections and process enabled me to use self-articulation as a primary interpretive tool to frame my research. In-depth qualitative interviews helped dialogue inductively engage the themes of exploration, including media representations, identity construction, and shifting circuits of power proliferating discourse through media imagery targeting a specific gendered demographic. After transcribing the texts, and sensing themes through recurring patterns and words, I ultimately organized over-arching codes into a thematic network. My findings allowed the emergence of categorical themes branching out of the process of detachment and approximation from representations in Chinese and Western media, informed by a commercial global media discourse. ! Weaving in and out of media interpretations of sexuality in poses, differentiating Western and Chinese style, anxieties around age instead of beauty standards, I found this Chinese audience more autonomous and nationalistic than expected. As the women appropriated definitions and representations of both Western and Chinese fashion magazine images, by connecting to their diverse nodes of meaning and content, an active identification process balanced gender values with already definitive notions of self. Through Western exclusion of a pure Chinese style, many women handled this space of exclusion, by turning away from its demands. Exactly how (its contours) is described in this study.
KEYWORDS: Chinese womens fashion magazines, representation, subject-positions, consumers trends, identity v