Sexig vs. Sund : En receptionsstudie om träning och hälsa i tjejtidningar

The purpose of this study was to examine what messages about health and fitness the print media, in this case SOLO Magazine and Women's Health produces. This study did also explore how readers interpreted these messages, how they relate to print and social media and how they perceive how women are portrayed in the media. This study is based on Stuart Hall's communication model encoding / decoding and includes a rhetorical text analysis and a reception study. Readers are represented in this study of two focus groups where all participants fell within the selected media's target audience, women ages 18 to 35. The study shows that SOLO Magazine and Women's Health contribute to reproduce unrealistic and stereotypical norms of femininity. Moreover, we have been able to establish that these articles whose main purpose is exercise and health, focus primarily on appearance and not the pure benefits exercise has on the overall health. Participants in the study took all possible interpretations in terms of media texts, but had overall a negotiating position toward the texts. Regarding how women are portrayed in the media, in theory they agreed that the image of women in the media was too one-dimensional but they showed great difficulties to maintain the same position in practice. The study also showed that participants had left the print media for social media, but they admitted that they nonetheless felt more trust towards the printed mainstream media than the new social media.Validerat; 20140715 (global_studentproject_submitter