The Reception of Fashion Magazines and Construction of Identity by the Youth

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the reception process of fashion magazines and construction process of identity by the youth. This issue is very important in terms of solving the functions of mass media in forming of the young culture and the identity construction of the young in information society. But the former researches inclined the content analysis of media, and didn\u27t consider the complexity of identity in relation to mass media. So I selected fashion magazines as case, and aimed to clarify the subjective process how the young receive them and construct their identities. In view of this purpose, I took the method of semi-structured interview. As a result of the research, I clarified the following three respects. Firstly, the young decode the representation of fashion magazines both in dominant code and in negotiate code. The concepts of dominant code and negotiate code are referred to the \u22encoding/decoding\u22 model that was suggested by Stuart Hall in 1980. Secondly, through those decoding they constructed both the social identity and the personal identity. The social identity corresponds to social categories as gender, status, nationality and so on. On the other hand, the personal identity corresponds to the originality of self. Thirdly, the social identity and the personal identity take three relations. First, the social identity is dominant. Secondly, social identity and the personal identity are harmonious. Thirdly, they are conflicting. And in third case, these relations are connected with the instability of identity