Women’s Magazines

MIT3214

Technologies of the Self

• Michel Foucault/Disciplinary Power• Discourse/Power/the Subject• Production of Knowledge• Disciplinary techniques – how we become self-regulating subjects– private selves

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Governmentality/Technologies of Self

• Neoliberalism• Expert Advice and Individual Freedom

(Technologies of Freedom)• N. Rose• Women’s magazines as “cultural

technologies”

Dr. Phil/Technologies of Self

• Self-work/Self-Management• Formula/Technique/Strategy• Personal Accountability

Techniques• “Lifestyle Audit”• “Life Laws”/“Life Manager”

Enterprising Self• Externally “Managed Self” – flight attendant uniform– external managerial control– Physical appearance, behavior,

attire monitored, regulated by company

• “Enterprising Self”– business executive: self-

selected attire

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Enterprising Self• Technical system for managing

the self– Dress manuals: “Molloy’s”– Image consultants; “wardrobe

engineering”

• Not genuine freedom– regime of self-management

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Cosmo/Disciplinary Power

• Pleasure/Techniques/Work• Sex Advice (Instruction?)– “invasion of play by the rhetoric of achievement”

• Attraction/Efficiency/Rationality– manual for heterosexual

attractiveness/sociability/sexual relations

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Discourse: Effects of Representation (Kilbourne)

• Manufactured body• Segmented body• Self-objectification/Male Objectification

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McCracken –Decoding Women’s Magazines

Covert Advertising• techniques/themes linking

editorial material to purchased advertising

• integrated system• Ads as natural extension of

editorial content

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McCracken –Decoding Women’s Magazines

1. Covert Advertising2. “Naturalize” Consumption3. Reification: products as

solutions to social problems4. strategies for “beautifying”

self, optimizing behaviour

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Covert Advertising: Placement

• adjacency

makeup ads w/ beauty stories

Advertisers request favorable placement, beside specific ed. copy, in some cases

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Covert Ad: Editorial Tie-in1. Running shoe ads followed

by “10 easy steps to a good work-out” story

2. thematic tie-in

3. celebrities: ed/ad same issue

4. “how buy car” story as as tie-in for current/potential car advertisers

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Covert Advertising: Relay texts/devices

1. Physically: article continues in back pages

2. Colour: facing page ed./ad colour links

3. Visual impression of ed/ad integration

4. Shared idiom of ad/ed1. ‘turn on the lights in your

hair’

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Covert Advertising: Melding Formats

advertorials –deception, look like editorial

editorial in ad-like form

naturalize discourse of advertising

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Covert Advertising: Brand Reciprocity

Brand Reciprocity• showcase brands/ads in

suitable ed. environment– cosmetics beyond make-

up ads: but fashion, advice columns, etc.

• Editors recommending products/ “ask the editors”

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Covert: Ideology of Advice • Create new needs, amplify

existing ones• assumed objectivity• Products as solutions• Personal inadequacy• Makeover feature (ordinary

to glamorous)• Consumption as solution to

personal/social problems (Reification)

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Covert Advertising: Ideology of Information

• “Cult of the New”• Introduce new

products/services• Render old obsolete/

old-fashioned

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