(Inter)nationalizing Taiwanese Women's Magazines: Birth of Consuming Women
Yang, Fang-Chih Irene
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/87571
Description
Title
(Inter)nationalizing Taiwanese Women's Magazines: Birth of Consuming Women
Author(s)
Yang, Fang-Chih Irene
Issue Date
1999
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Hay, James
Department of Study
Speech Communication
Discipline
Speech Communication
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Mass Communications
Language
eng
Abstract
"My thesis engages in understanding how the media defines femininity. Using Taiwanese women's magazines as a site of analysis, my dissertation offers a history of the changing articulations of femininity from the 1950s to the present, with an emphasis on the relationships among gender identity, consumption, nation formation, and globalization. As scripts of femininity, women's magazines are produced out of particular cultural institutions which are situated within the larger global economy. My dissertation provides an analysis of the ""political economy"" of the magazine industry by emphasizing how the nation building project and global capitalism shaped the practices used in the magazine industry. Particularly, it looks into the mandatory use of market research---a result of the expansion of multinational ad agencies---in reconfiguring the ""field"" of magazine production. Second, it discusses the changing industrial practices in transforming the industry's ""imagined"" readers from patriotic and domestic housewives to ""public"" and ""international"" consumers. It looks into how the changing conception of readership shapes women's magazines' textual practices from an emphasis on defining femininity as private to femininity as public. It also explores how this changing gender identity enables women to participate in the process of globalization with respect to their role as workers and consumers. Third, the dissertation addresses the role of women's magazines in regulating women's sexual practices. In particular, it investigates the interrelationships between the normative sexual practices and the state's nation-building project through a discussion of Taiwan's population control policies and its economic and political imperatives to build an international nation. Finally, my dissertation concludes by identifying new possibilities and directions for feminist media studies in light of the findings of this study."
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