Hero shots: involved fathers conquering new discursive territory in consumer culture

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how visual expressions of culture offer new discursive territory within which consumer cultural ideals can be negotiated on a global scale. Through a critical visual analysis of the revelatory case Swedish Dads, we find hero shots depicting involved fathers where children's needs and the hermetic confines of the home take center stage, as opposed to the traditional fatherhood ideals portrayed in western contemporary advertising, media, and popular culture. We demonstrate how the Swedish state's gender ideology was encoded into a communicative event in the form of hero shots and subsequently dispersed by visual consumers as well as political and commercial stakeholders pushing this particular agenda and/or capitalizing on its tendencies. This in such a way that the event conquered new discursive territory fostering new types of consumer cultural negotiations on fatherhood ideals also in other cultural settings.

Selfie stick accounts: extending and engaging visual methods in contemporary family practice

“…Individually or collectively, photographs provide different data and systematic analysis can be used in qualitative research to identify themes or provide insights (Wallendorf and Arnould, 1991) revealing aspects of the environment that are not immediately apparent or recalled (Basil, 2007; Heisley et al , 1991). While it is possible to look at the images as data in their own right (Molander et al , 2018; Presi et al , 2016) the interpretation remains that of the participant rather than the researcher (Pink, 2001). Incorporating the photographs into the interviews was a deliberate strategy to elicit participants’ views, rather than making any independent judgement about the pictures presented (Kondo and Sjoberg, 2012).…”

“…Equally, the perspective was often of the meal from above, as the selfie stick offers the opportunity for an elevated birds-eye view on the family meal (Farace et al, 2017). Despite this, the photographs were not posed in the way that professional shots are, for example in Bielefeld's work (Barnes, 2017) or Blavman's images (Molander et. al., 2018); although in several cases, diners were not eating but looking at the camera.…”

Introduction to the special issue on gender impacts: consumption, markets, marketing, and marketing organisations

“…Yet there are wins happening in pockets around the globe. Finland, for example, just followed the example of Sweden in having a comprehensive parental leave policy as this has proven to be an effective means towards gender equality (Magra, 2020;Molander et al, 2019). The #MeToo movement is leading to convictions at the highest level of media, political, and cultural institutions, including shaking up the Swedish Academy responsible for giving out the Nobel Prize in literature (Donadio, 2018).…”

Unpacking Nordic branding: the value regimes of Nordicness

“…In the spirit of “value as meaningful difference,” we can easily draw parallels between successful place branding initiatives and the value that is created as meaningful difference. A societal value such as gender equality is, for example, many times evoked in the official place branding initiatives of the Swedish state (Molander et al , 2019). In such instances, the gist of the campaign is that Sweden does things differently than most other countries when it comes to state policies regarding gender equality.…”

“…Thus, we do not focus on place branding as such. If we take Sweden as an example, we can see how place branding activities on behalf of the government have systematically disseminated stories, images and associations portraying Sweden as a modern, progressive, rational and open-minded country (Molander et al , 2019). Various Swedish companies – IKEA and Volvo being noteworthy examples – have consequently used these notions of Sweden in their brand-building endeavors.…”