Lifestyle Media In American Culture

This book explores the emergence of "lifestyle" in the US, first as a term that has become an organizing principle for the self and for the structure of everyday life, and later as a pervasive form of media that encompasses a variety of domestic and self-improvement genres, from newspaper columns to design blogs. Drawing on the methodologies of cultural studies and feminist media studies, and built upon a series of case studies from newspapers, books, television programs, and blogs, it tracks the emergence of lifestyle’s discursive formation and shows its relevance in contemporary media culture. It is, in the broadest sense, about the role played by the explosion of lifestyle media texts in changing conceptualizations of selfhood and domestic life.

Across Asia, consumer culture is increasingly shaping everyday life, with neoliberal economic and social policies increasingly adopted by governments who see their citizens as individualised, sovereign consumers with choices about their lifestyles and identities. One aspect of this development has been the emergence of new wealthy middle classes with lifestyle aspirations shaped by national, regional and global media – especially by a range of new popular lifestyle media, which includes magazines, television and mobile and social media. This book explores how far everyday conceptions and experiences of identity are being transformed by media cultures across the region. It considers a range of different media in different Asian contexts, contrasting how the shaping of lifestyles in Asia differs from similar processes in Western countries, and assessing how the new lifestyle media represents not just a new emergent media culture, but also illustrates wider cultural and social changes in the Asian region.

A survey of contemporary Latin American popular culture, covering topics that range from music and film to popular festivals and fashion. Like no other volume of its kind, Pop Culture Latin America! captures the breadth and vitality of pop culture in Central and South America and the Caribbean, exploring both familiar and lesser-known aspects of its unique melange of art, entertainment, spirituality, and celebrations. Written by contributors who are scholars and specialists in the cultures and languages of Latin America, the book focuses on the historical, social, and political forces that have shaped Latino culture since 1945, particularly in the last two decades. Separate chapters cover music, popular cinema, mass media, theater and performance, literature, cultural heroes, religions and festivals, social movements and politics, the visual arts and architecture, sports and leisure, travel and tourism, and language.

Emerging roles of lifestyle journalism. Unpacking lifestyle journalism via service journalism and constructive journalism / Unni From and Nete Nørgaard Kristensen -- Idealised authenticity: analysing Jean Baudrillard's theory of simulation and its applicability to food coverage in city magazines / Joy Jenkins and Amanda Hinnant -- Journalism without news: the beauty journalist private/professional self in The guardian's "Below the line" comments / Lucía Vodanovic -- Experience, consumption and identity. Reconciling religion and consumerism: Islamic lifestyle media in Turkey / Feyda Sayan-Cengiz -- Travel journalists as cultural mediators: a qualitative discourse analysis on the "othering" of Anthony Bourdain's Parts unknown / Aaron McKinnon -- The impact of social media in lifestyle journalism in Mexico: serving citizens versus creating consumers / Sergio Rodríguez-Blanco and Dalia Cárdenas-Hernández -- New players and lifestyle actors. Communicative value chains: fashion bloggers and branding agencies as cultural intermediaries / Arturo Arriagada and Francisco Ibañez -- Are food bloggers a new kind of influencer? / Sidonie Naulin -- Agents of change: the parallel roles of trend forecaster and lifestyle journalists as mediators and tastemakers in consumer culture / Sabrina Faramarzi -- Lifestyle, consumerism and branding. Food and journalism: storytelling about gastronomy in newspapers from the U.S. and Spain / Francesc Fusté-Forné and Pere Masip -- Travel journalism and the sharing economy: AirBnbmag and sourcing / Bryan Pirolli -- Lifestyle journalism as brand practice: the cases of Uniqlo and Abercrombie & Fitch / Myles Ethan Lascity

This book explores how digital media can extend care practices among friends and peers, researching young people’s negotiations of sexual health, mental health, gender/sexuality, and dating apps, and highlighting the need for a multifocal approach that centres young people’s expertise. Taking an "everyday practice" approach to digital and social media, Digital Media, Friendship and Cultures of Care emphasises that digital media are not novel but integrated into daily life. The book introduces the concept of "digital cultures of care" as a new framework through which to consider digital practices of friendship and peer support, and how these play out across a range of platforms and networks. Challenging common public and academic concerns about peer and friendship influences on young people, these terms are unpacked and reconsidered through attention to digital media, drawing on qualitative research findings to argue that digital and social media have created important new opportunities for emotional support, particularly for young people and LGBTQ+ people who are often excluded from formal healthcare and social support. This book and its comprehensive focus on friendship will be of interest to a range of readers, including academics, students, health promoters, educators, policymakers, and advocacy groups for either young people, LGBTQ+ communities, or digital citizenship. Academics most interested in this book will be working in digital media studies, health sociology, critical public health, health communication, sexualities, cultural studies, sex education, and gender studies.

Print magazines were the original niche medium, creating communities long before the internet allowed audiences to find specialized content and interact with like-minded readers. Consumer magazines provided information, inspiration, empathy and advocacy for readers with specific goals and concerns. The targeted advertising business model of magazines was an early precursor of contemporary algorithms and metrics behind social media marketing. The cultural niches 20th century consumer magazines created and covered were powerful social influences on a wide variety of readers, from farmers to feminists, and covered everything from big ideas to political ideologies. With missions to serve specific readers and editors who were champions of their interests, even the most practical magazines were cultural influences well beyond their pages. This book is a curated collection of case studies that collectively shed light on the cultural niches that American consumer magazines of the 20th century covered and created. The chapters examine how cultural niches were cultivated, how they changed over time, and how they influenced broader cultural conversations. This sweeping view of 20th-century American magazines illuminates how this particular media form created, cultivated, and served specific communities, laying the groundwork for contemporary media forms to continue that role today.

In this critical primer, Michael Z. Newman introduces newcomers to the key concepts, issues, and vocabulary of media studies. Across ten chapters, Newman examines topics from text and audience to citizenship and consumerism, drawing on a myriad of examples of media old and new. Film and TV rub shoulders with mobile games and social media, and popular music and video sharing platforms with journalism and search engines. While the book takes a critical, cultural approach, it covers topics that apply across many kinds of media scholarship, bridging the humanities and the social sciences and looking at media as a global phenomenon. It considers media in relation to society and its unequal structures of power, and relates media representations to their conditions of production in media industries and consumption in the everyday lives of audiences and users. Spanning the historical periods of mass media and online participatory culture, it also probes assumptions about media that were formulated in a previous era and looks at how to update our thinking to address an ever-changing digital mediascape. With its clear and accessible style, this book is tailor-made for undergraduate students of media, communication, and cultural studies, as well as anyone who would like to better understand media.

Two decades punctuated by the financial crisis of the Great Recession and the public health crisis of COVID-19 have powerfully reshaped housing in America. By integrating social, economic, intellectual, and cultural histories, this illuminating work shows how powerful forces have both reflected and catalyzed shifts in the way Americans conceptualize what a house is for, in an era that has laid bare the larger structures and inequities of the economy. Daniel Horowitz casts an expansive net over a wide range of materials and sources. He shows how journalists and anthropologists have explored the impact of global economic forces on housing while filmmakers have depicted the home as a theater where danger lurks as elites gamble with the fates of the less fortunate. Real estate workshops and popular TV networks like HGTV teach home buyers how to flip—or flop—while online platforms like Airbnb make it possible to play house in someone else's home. And as the COVID pandemic took hold, many who had never imagined living out every moment at home found themselves cocooned there thanks to corporations like Amazon, Zoom, and Netflix.