International Women's Magazines and the Production of Sexuality in Taiwan

Abstract

A magazine revolution took place in Taiwan during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Corporate-based multinational publishing companies such as Hua-Shang and Hachette Cultural Enterprise were established at this time with financial backing from local and foreign investments. Existing local giants such as china Times Publications also began to diversify and expanded their markets by cooperating with transnational publishing companies. These corporate-based publishing companies introduced international womens magazines such as Cosmo Elle and Marie Claire to Taiwan pushing out local individual- and family-owned magazine business such as The Woman. In order to compete in the market local magazines emulated international magazines adopting their methods of business management and imitating their format and content. The dominance of these international womens magazines in Taiwans marker has a significant bearing on feminists because as feminine popular culture magazines play an important role in shaping womens identities. International womens magazines therefore constitute a significant site for exploring the interaction between the local and global dynamics in the domain of culture and how that dynamic is played out in the structuring of womens self-formation. (excerpt)