Lifestyle Magazines Research Articles

Spiritual Branding and Corporate Profit in the Japanese Modern Mystery School

This article analyzes the irreducibility of spiritual branding, theologies of self-divinity and the business practices of a global esoteric company. Based on fieldwork with the Modern Mystery School (MMS) in Tokyo, I show how initiates, by purchasing an ascending syllabus of esoteric courses, recognize their own divinity and parlay this recognition into a spiritual brand that helps them market to their own clientele niche. The spiritual transformation of recognizing one’s transcendent individual royalty is necessarily monetized as Adepts transition from paying clients to income-generating spiritual therapists. Parallel to this, top leadership have consciously fused MMS as an ancient hermetic lineage with a modern-day entertainment company, fashion company and lifestyle magazine. This has given MMS in Japan a recognizable public aesthetic which, combined with teachings about opposite but complementary Divine Masculinity and Femininity, advances gender normative ideologies often experienced by followers as spiritual alternativity. This article theorizes the intertwined relationship of other-worldly self-branding and this-worldly business acumen without reifying the binary between religion and economy or reducing meaningful spiritual transformation to corporate profit.

How to be a fanboy: Wizard magazine and the pedagogy of comic book fandom

ABSTRACT The 1990s were a pivotal time in comics history, and during this period, there was arguably no more important outlet than Wizard magazine. The magazine played an important pedagogical role as both a gateway to and a gatekeeper of fandom. Initially launched as a guide to collecting comic books, Wizard later evolved into a lifestyle and entertainment magazine for a loosely defined “fanboy” readership. While arguably more accessible than the comics it covered, it addressed its audience in exclusive terms, assuming a normatively male, heterosexual, and white fan. Based on a close reading of a sample of eight self-reflective “milestone” issues, this article assesses Wizard as not merely a purveyor of market intelligence to comic book speculators but as a cultural artifact engaged in defining the meaning of fandom for a generation of comic book readers.

Designing for Modern Living

This study delves into the evolving landscape of modern living in South Korea, which has the widespread apartment complexes that have emerged from the efficiency centric approaches of industrial capitalism. It explores the paradigm shift in the 21st-century capitalist society, which now values creativity and individual expression over functionality and uniformity. This shift has led to a noticeable disparity between the monotonous spatial composition of mass-produced housing and the dynamic, creative lifestyles of contemporary residents. The research method involves a comprehensive analysis of both lifestyle and architectural magazines, providing insights into the changing preferences and lifestyles of residents, as well as the perspectives of professionals. The study aimed to highlight the changing nature of residential spaces and the design strategies, moving away from the conventional utility-focused designs, towards environments that foster creativity and reflect the individuality of inhabitants. Key findings indicate a growing public preference for residential spaces that are versatile, creatively stimulating, and aligned with the multifaceted nature of modern lifestyles. Contrasting these views, architectural experts emphasize the fundamental values of living, advocating for spaces that connect residents with nature and enrich everyday experiences through sensory engagement. The study concludes that while there is a divergence in perspectives between the general public and architectural specialists, both recognize the necessity for sustainable housing solutions. These solutions should cater to contemporary societal changes while preserving essential life values, thereby overcoming the limitations of the prevalent apartment centric urban housing model in South Korea.

Anxiety and Post‐Authoritarian Societies: Insights from 1980s Greece

AbstractThis article discusses anxiety as an analytical and methodological concept in the investigation of post‐authoritarian societies, drawing on three well‐being‐focused anxieties that marked Greece in the 1980s: first, the degradation of the urban environment, especially in Athens; second, the technologisation of everyday life, most notably the popularisation of information technology; and third, the impact of novel, consumption‐focused media, particularly lifestyle magazines. The analysis distinguishes anxiety from fear and argues that fear is commoner in authoritarian regimes than in new democracies, which often experience optimism and cultural pluralism. These conditions foster anxieties related to well‐being. By exploring a juncture at which moderate economic progress coincided with democratisation and closer contact with Western Europe, the article argues that anxiety is a productive tool for examining the emotional impact of mild perceived threats to well‐being in societies characterised by relatively calm life conditions.

日本における若年男性の 「理想のライフスタイル」の摸索と実践 - 2010年代に発行されたライフスタイル誌􋺷POPEYE􋺸を分析対象として -

日本における若年男性の 「理想のライフスタイル」の摸索と実践 - 2010年代に発行されたライフスタイル誌􋺷POPEYE􋺸を分析対象として -

Reasons for the Hiatus of the Chinese Life Magazine City Pictorial

City Pictorial is a lifestyle magazine in China. It was published in 1999 and officially announced its closure in January 2023. Its sudden closure caused the attention and discussion of the industry. Although it was once glorious, it is difficult to face the reality of the heavy. The author searches the comments of users on City Pictorial in different periods on social network pages and summarizes them. The author finds that City Pictorial is lacking in the establishment of links with readers, the novelty of the magazine and the operation mode of publicity. In other words, although City Pictorial is changing, its mode of thinking has not fundamentally abandoned the methods of the paper media period. The reform of City Pictorial was only based on the form, which did not fundamentally satisfy readers' reading psychology, nor did it continuously guarantee the quality of the paper magazine. Finally, the loss of readers led to the closure of the magazine.

Book review: Anne-Mette Hermans, Discourses of Perfection: Representing Cosmetic Procedures and Beauty Products in UK Lifestyle Magazines

Book review: Anne-Mette Hermans, <i>Discourses of Perfection: Representing Cosmetic Procedures and Beauty Products in UK Lifestyle Magazines</i>

The Portrayal of Premium Cigar Selling Propositions in Lifestyle Magazines: A Content Analysis.

Although lifestyle magazines are an important marketing tool for premium cigars, little is known about their recent portrayal of the products. We expand on research conducted for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Committee on Patterns of Use and Health Effects of "Premium Cigars" and Priority Research. A content analysis of magazine covers, articles, and advertisements published in 2021 from Cigar Aficionado and Cigar Snob (five issues each) and Cigar Journal (three issues) assessed magazine themes and mentions of lower harm. Magazine covers (n = 14), advertisements (n = 105), and every fifth article (n = 45) were coded. In total, 92% of the magazine covers, 72.4% of advertisements, and 62.2% of articles had premium cigar content. Celebrities (e.g. musicians and actors) appeared on 92.9% of covers. The most common themes in the advertisements and articles were "high quality." Regarding article content, 80% portrayed the premium cigars' quality (e.g. superior materials), and the taste of featured products (e.g. "tones," "aromas," and "notes") was portrayed in 42.4%. While no articles described their health risks, 6.7% described the positive health effects of premium cigar use (e.g. stress relief and clear cognition). Additionally, a digital search of Cigar Snob and Cigar Aficionado for terms related to lower harm (e.g. "organic," "healthy," "clean," "pure," and "natural") found 7.7 mentions of lower-harm words per issue. Our findings indicate that lifestyle magazines are an important marketing strategy that promotes and normalizes premium cigar use as a high-quality product that can have positive health effects for users. Our manuscript characterized the premium cigar companies' use of selling propositions, including promoting the products' features, safety, taste, and flavors, as a part of their advertising promotion practices. Premium cigar companies used digital and print lifestyle magazines as marketing tools to promote and normalize the use of their products by emphasizing their high quality and positive health benefits (e.g. reducing stress). Premium cigars were promoted as a symbol of power and success, featured in advertisements of upscale social events (e.g. exclusive trade shows, social clubs, and lounges), and often juxtaposed with expensive alcohol, food, and other luxurious goods. Future research should assess if exposure to premium cigar content increases consumer appeal and detracts from the products' potential adverse health outcomes.

Syntactic Stylistic Devices of Speech Manipulation in the English-Language Lifestyle Media Discourse

The article is devoted to the study of manipulative syntactic stylistic devices in the English language based on the articles about style, fashion, trends and their place in the sweepingly emerging lifestyle discourse. The relevance of this research is due to the dynamics of the pragmatic design of speech in connection with current changes in the fashion world and society’s attitude to modern trends. The purpose is to systematize manipulative syntactic devices in the English-language media discourse in connection with the actualization of self-expression, individuality, and originality. The study of how these principles are promoted in media discourse could make a significant contribution to discursive research. Articles about style, fashion and trends from the quality press and lifestyle magazines were selected as the empirical material. As a result, the identified devices were subjected to functional and stylistic analysis, which made it possible to classify the main communicative purposes for which various syntactic stylistic devices are used. The authors come to the conclusion that the use of syntactic stylistic devices is conditioned by the manipulative potential of the lifestyle discourse and is concentrated around the following functions: insisting on a certain opinion or attitude, exaggerating the value, endearing the reader.

Wild Design in China’s Lifestyle Magazines (1978–1992)

Abstract “Wild design” refers to do-it-yourself (DIY) and makeshift solutions between 1978 and 1992 during the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) early reform period. For self-design and making activities, the lifestyle magazine was a channel to access and circulate self-help manuals and DIY prescriptions. Investigating two lifestyle magazines – Culture and Life (wenhua yu shenghuo) and Beyond Eight Hours (baxiaoshi yiwai), this study examines advice and self-help manuals, and analyses the scope and value of wild design in creating a new perception of modern life. Unveiling the conditions within which people were making, and the processes and ideals of making that were prevalent in the PRC’s early reform period, wild design broke down the binary tensions between the real and ideal, native and foreign, old and new, and the vernacular and the modern. The vernacular modernism demonstrated a desire to extract the maximum value out of objects, a love of the “new,” and suggested a set of pragmatic approaches to obtain that “new.”

State-socialist heteromasculinity on the eve of neoliberalism: sexual problems in the first Polish lifestyle magazine for men

ABSTRACT After the 1989–1992 collapse of the Soviet bloc, Eastern European countries underwent rapid socioeconomic changes from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism. Yet, research from these countries has been only scarcely used to study the neoliberalization of sexuality. To fill this gap, this article examines heterosexual masculinity in Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Using Foucauldian approaches to discourse, I analyze how sexual problems were discussed in Pan, the first Polish lifestyle magazine for men (1987–1993). I demonstrate that, in contrast to the neoliberal models of heterosexuality, the state-socialist masculinity of Pan did not advocate discipline, control, and sexual mastery, but it repudiated egalitarianism and reciprocity of pleasure. Heterosexual dynamics in Pan prioritized men’s interests at the expense of women, whom various sexual experts silenced, admonished, and blamed for sexual difficulties. As a result, Pan constructed a deeply patriarchal masculinity of unaccountability and entitlement to women’s submissiveness. These findings add novel insights that help understand the ideologies of sexuality under state socialism.

“If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?”: Climate and Preference for Redemptive Narratives

In three studies, we explore the question: Is the climate one lives in associated with a preference for redemptive narratives? Study 1 explores articles (N = 200) from lifestyle magazines from 10 American cities. We find that articles from cities with more difficult climates with larger temperature swings include more redemptive themes. In Study 2, we code a bank of oral histories (N = 154) from individuals living in 106 American cities. Likewise, we find evidence that people living in more difficult climates with wide temperature swings give more redemptive accounts of life events. Finally, in Study 3, we find evidence among a sample of individuals (N = 157) living in a single American city with a difficult climate that people include more redemptive themes in their oral histories when interviewed in winter as compared with the other three seasons. These studies suggest that narratives that shape our lives may be influenced by the natural world.

‘New ethics’ in Russian fashion magazines: Discussing ‘western-ness’, Russian-ness and values

This article analyses the discourse around ‘new ethics’ in Russia’s two lifestyle and fashion publications – Vogue Russia and The Blueprint. The ‘new ethics’ is a vague term which, by the late 2010s in Russia, had come to refer to a whole spate of disparate initiatives, attitudes and ethical norms, including sustainability, diversity and inclusion, the #MeToo movement and anti-racist practices. Remarkably, the discourse around the ‘new ethics’ has gained currency at a time when the Russian state urges Russians to embrace ‘traditional values’ that are rooted in Orthodox Christianity. Employing qualitative analysis of texts and images this article demonstrates that, in Russian fashion and lifestyle magazines, the ‘new ethics’ discourse has emerged as a site for negotiating women’s and queer rights, ‘traditional’ and ‘western’ values, as well as Russian state politics, while simultaneously providing a way for the publications to disassociate themselves from the state-promoted values.

When images hurt hyper-reality and symbolic violence in Indonesian men’s lifestyle magazines

In Western culture, the practice of looking has traditionally been perceived as an act of dominance. Enacted by the male gaze, looking implies an active position, whilst to be looked at implies a passive position. However, in the case of Indonesian men’s lifestyle magazines, these practices of looking fuel the internalisation of inferiority on the part of Indonesian subjects. Emerging from its colonial past, contemporary Indonesia continues to be confronted with a persistent colonial order of things—an imaginary structure that is highly hierarchical and rooted in the colonial legacy. Notably, this colonial discourse also impacts men and masculinity. By analysing seven different men’s lifestyle magazines spanning the period from the earliest magazines published in the mid-1970s until 2015 and providing analyses of other sociocultural practices in Indonesian society, in this article I interrogate the internalisation of this colonial discourse and the symbolic violence that Indonesians enact upon themselves in the process. In order to untangle the deep-rooted and complex inlander mentality marked by colonialism, I demonstrate how doxa, in the form of hyper-reality, produce symbolic violence between spectators and spectacles.

Saving the Modern Woman

AbstractThis article looks at how specific gendered practices and ideas about female bodies were instrumentalized in the struggle for political authority during Egypt’s transitional period between 2011 and 2013. It argues that in the aftermath of the uprising, when Islamists won the parliamentary and presidential elections in Egypt, the figure of the “modern” woman gained renewed political significance. By exploring Egyptian English-language women’s lifestyle magazines, the article illustrates how socioeconomically privileged, Cairo-based women crafted “modern” female bodies and engaged in what Lila Abu-Lughod calls the “politics of modernity.” By delving into the world of Cairo’s wealthy and fashionable producers of lifestyle magazines, the article shows how specific bodily techniques and vocabularies of neoliberal feminism helped construct the idea of a “modern” woman. The “modern” female body then provided a location from which other bodies, considered traditional or not yet modern, could be judged. During Egypt’s transitional period, it was not the victimized Muslim woman who needed to be saved but the modern woman who felt that her lifestyle was under attack from Islamists. Based on an analysis of visual images and discourses, the article provides a contemporary example of the use of “modern” gendered subjecthood in creating hierarchies between women.

Visualizing Power: Michelle Obama, Political Communication, and Lifestyle Magazines

ABSTRACT Michelle Obama’s tenure as the First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) comported with many of the gendered expectations of the position, yet it also marked a significant symbolic transformation in the role. As FLOTUS, Obama’s work to address childhood obesity and promote access to nutritious foods through Let’s Move! and MyPlate defined her political identity. On its face, this work echoed the gendered policy issues embraced by previous first ladies; however, we argue that First Lady Obama strategically chose to center a coordinated set of symbolically laden, food-related, and domestic-imagery tropes in mass media publications in order to leverage political influence from within the confines of the feminized role of the FLOTUS. To test this claim, we perform visual content analysis on images embedded in women’s lifestyle magazines. We find that central to her calculated approach was the keen awareness of the symbolic power of domesticized imagery as a vehicle for legible, quickly comprehensible, and, above all else, universally appealing messaging. Thus, to promote her food policy platform and target the public health issue of childhood obesity, the FLOTUS intentionally deployed motifs of food as domestic imagery, which thereby acted as a “velvet glove” tactic to politicking.

Fit for Motherhood: The Glocalization of Maternal Physical Activity in Mother and Baby Magazine

Fit for Motherhood: The Glocalization of Maternal Physical Activity in <i>Mother and Baby</i> Magazine

Crossing language boundaries. The use of English in advertisements in Polish lifestyle magazines

Advertising is an area open to various types of innovation and a creative use of language. Advertisers use a variety of strategies to attract as many customers as possible, employing enticing visuals, clever puns, detailed descriptions, direct appeals, etc. Yet, if the product is to sell, it appears self-evident that the language of the advertisement should not constitute a barrier. Contrary to this assumption, however, there has been an ever growing trend visible in Polish magazines for the last two decades to formulate parts of or even complete advertisements, not infrequently of Polish brands, in English, despite the fact that English remains a foreign language in Poland, although, admittedly, a very popular one. The present study is conducted within the framework of sociolinguistically informed linguistic landscape analysis. It investigates the visibility of English in the advertising landscape of lifestyle magazines published in Poland, represented by a selection of high quality and mid-range general interest and specialised women’s and men’s magazines. Its objective is to identify tendencies in the manifestations of this newly developing multilingualism in respect of the frequency of using English, the category of advertised products which particularly often appear in such multilingual advertisements as well as the type of magazines which admit such advertisements rather readily. Regarding the linguistic strategies used in the analysed texts, attempts are made to establish whether English tends to be used in complete texts and sentences or only parts of those, and if the latter, which elements of the genre of advertising are especially marked by such language choices and why.

Construction of the Woman’s Image in the Lifestyle Magazine “Lilit” (2019–2021)

The aim of the research “Construction of the woman’s image in the lifestyle magazine “Lilit” (2019–2021)” is to reveal the methods used to construct the image of a modern Latvian woman in the interviews of the lifestyle magazine “Lilit” in the period from 2019 to 2021. The magazine is published in Latvia, intended for a female audience and written in Latvian. The article examines the influence of feminism in the portrayal of women in the media, the history of the development of the Latvian woman’s image and women’s image in terms of beauty. The narrative of the interviews, the ideas of feminism and photos of the interviews are analysed, as well as the visual image of a woman is compared in the narratives and photos of the interviews. The research methods used in the article are narrative analysis and the analysis of photography proposed by Roland Barthes.

Polish Attitudes to the Use of English and Other Languages in the Polish Public Space

In the post-war era, Poland has been viewed as a homogeneous country both culturally and linguistically. It has not, however, remained immune to the developments of globalization, which has also been reflected in the linguistic developments of the present century. In recent years, the Polish public space has been inundated with numerous foreign language names, signs, slogans, elements in advertisements and on billboards, with the English language largely in the foreground, and not infrequently competing against Polish in such spheres as services and the advertising even of Polish brands. The present discussion focuses on the results of a survey distributed among Polish respondents which, with the help of indirect and direct methods, asked them to evaluate products/services advertised in visual forms by means of English and other languages, and react to the visibility of these languages both on the Polish street and in the Polish lifestyle magazines. The objective of the study was to identify the attitudes with which English and other languages are viewed by Polish respondents when used in the Polish public space, and to also assess their position in comparison with Polish. The survey results demonstrate that despite a significant number of positive judgements which the respondents offered on the topic, negative views outnumbered the positive to a considerable degree.