The Globalization of Beauty: How is Ideal Beauty Influenced by Globally Published Fashion and Beauty Magazines?

Abstract

The current research examined the portrayal of female beauty worldwide through a content analysis of 5577 female models in four top beauty and fashion magazines from 12 countries/regions. Different magazines used different standards to frame stories and select models, suggesting that the image of beauty was more a result of the editorial rooms than derived from objective standards. North American and European magazines dominated the beauty standards. Asian countries were relatively independent particularly in terms of sexual frames and sexual model selections. Magazines distributed in Latin America and South Africa were in danger of being assimilated into the Western norms of beauty.

Keywords:

• Cross-cultural Communication
• Beauty
• Body Image

Funding

This work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2013M540595].

Notes

1. Vogue Latinoamérica was analyzed rather than Vogue in different Latin American countries.

2. North America is the region representing the mainstream of western culture, with a majority readership of Anglo-Saxon persons. Europe represents another mainstream of Western culture and also mainly targets Anglo-Saxon readership. Asia is the region with primarily yellow race readership. The “other countries” category included Latin America and South Africa, representing Latin Americans and Africans, respectively. Issues from the two regions were so few that the investigator combined them together into an “other region” category, with a readership that was distinguished from Anglo-Saxons and Asians.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yan Yan

Yan Yan is a lecturer in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, China. Dr Yan’s research interests are media psychology, international communication, and crisis communication.

Kim Bissell

Kim Bissell is a professor in the Department of Journalism, University of Alabama, PO Box 870172, 476 Phifer Hall, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0172, USA. Dr Bissell’s research interests include media effects on children, media psychology, and visual communication.