Promoting extreme fitness regimes through the communicative affordances of reality makeover television: a multimodal critical discourse analysis

Eriksson, Göran

doi:10.1080/15295036.2022.2091153

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Although not explicitly mentioned, the presentation of this chart and numbers is used to highlight the risks and fears associated with visible signs of ageing, urging consumers to do something about it and, for example, increase their score from just 'okay' to 'great' (cf. Eriksson, 2022). Such quantification can facilitate consumers to position themselves as actively making the 'right' decisions and choices for the management of their facial appearances (cf.…”

Section: How To Prevent Deep Wrinkles?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Good moral citizenship is indicated by the individual’s ability to take care of their bodily (and facial) appearances (cf. Eriksson, 2022). In this sense, these apps foster a self-tracking and self-monitoring culture understood in terms of the notion of the ‘quantified self’ – that is, as Gill (2019: 149) puts it: ‘a reflexively monitoring self who uses the affordances of digital technologies to collect, monitor, record and potentially share a range of information about themselves ’ (cf.…”

Section: The Quantified Self and The Surveillant Gazementioning

confidence: 99%

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How cosmetic apps fragmentise and metricise the female face: A multimodal critical discourse analysis

Eriksson

Kenalemang

2023

Discourse & Communication

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In the present time, we see a rapid development of so-called cosmetic apps promoted by prominent cosmetic companies. Although there is an emerging market for male consumers, these apps are marketed as technological innovations designed to analyse, rate and evaluate mainly women’s facial appearances through the submission of a selfie. Based on the results generated from the selfie, personalised solutions are offered in the form of recommended products to supposedly help women improve their appearances. Drawing on a critical feminist approach and using multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), the aim of this article is to study how these evaluations are semiotically reproduced and presented to the users. The paper examines in detail how apps convey the evaluation process and transform a selfie into measures, presented through diagrams and charts, that is, how the female face is fragmented and metricised. Coming with affordances of being systematic, exact and scientific, these infographics assign the facial evaluations with meaning. A key argument is that these cosmetic apps are changing the way women are implied to consider and control their (facial) appearance. Following neoliberal notions, the apps put strong pressure on women to take the responsibility to engage in intensive forms of aesthetic labour and to consume the ‘right’ products to appear as the best versions of themselves.

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Section: How To Prevent Deep Wrinkles?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Quantified Self and The Surveillant Gazementioning

confidence: 99%