Revista, gênero e saúde: construções de estilos de vida saudável nas revistas Men´s Health e Women´s Health

Abstract

The present research deals with the representation of masculinities and femininities in the press; namely in the journals Men's Health and Women's Health (April publisher), from the parallel established between the ways of constructing gender identities and healthy lifestyles for men and women. The research problem, from then on, is: what are the representations of "healthy" men and women in the press? Among our hypotheses, we have: men and women are represented in the press according to established notions of masculinity and femininity; there is a process in which it is mandatory from a gender identity that is considered if a lifestyle is healthy; there is a mutual dependence between the production of the press and the reception of its representations. We recognize in our general objective the identification of how the healthy lifestyles are represented in the press, for men and women. The justification is developed from the understanding that, at present, some important processes are happening in the ways of constructing the gender identities; that is, how the "being" of man or woman, which are represented in the media and thus strengthened or weakened by it according to its public. Seeking a media product for such considerations, we recognize our corpus of research in Men's Health and Women's Health magazines; being that, in our methodology, we start from the understanding that the two versions are complementary (at least, for the present research). Thus, we propose a comprehensive understanding of the proposals of the journals, assuming that their journalism and advertising are related; that is, they are always mutually determinant - both contain representations of healthy men and women's lifestyles, as well as the so-called "necessary" tips, products, and services for them to do so. For the journalistic contents, we made a parallel between the thematic axes (given by Abril itself) and the headlines of the covers; thus, we were able to quantify the proportion between the themes, looking for those that are more addressed by the journals and, therefore, more significant - because more recurrent - in MH and WH. We recognize that they are (in both versions): 1st fitness, 2nd nutrition and 3rd health. For advertising content, we list each of the advertisers (brands), the format of the ad and the product or services advertised. According to the ad format, we were able to establish the proportionality of the amount paid between advertisers; That is, the importance of the investment of each one, the main advertising segment being nutrition. The research is at the confluence, among others, of the area of communication, cultural studies and gender; To do so, we start from the debate about what a healthy lifestyle is; We use Foucault's notions of "self-culture" (2010, 2014a) and, at the same time, Giddens's "self-reflexivity" (1991, 1993, 2002).