Portrayal of Gender Roles and Beauty in Vogure China and Vogue US:

The extent to which media and culture are related has been extensively debated. Theories, cultural models and previous researches have attempted to provide a clarification to the relationship and sketch the landscape of how the elements react with one another. As media continues to be exported and imported at an immense rate on a global scale, local cultures are subjected to external influences. International fashion magazines such as Vogue, are produced and sold in many countries; but they are not only produced for the local audience but are also sold outside their national boundaries. This brings up the debate between media and culture, between which media globalization or localization can occur. Through an extensive quantitative content analysis of 707 images, Vogue China and Vogue US were studied for its portrayal of gender roles and beauty. Portrayal of gender roles concerns the way the society is presented with gender norms and stereotypes, while beauty portrayal relates to the features that depict an attractive woman. These aspects have received considerable analysis prior to this research and thus provided a sensitizing foundation to analyze a media and cultural combination that was not researched before. This study found that portrayal of gender roles to be similar between Vogue China and Vogue US, while beauty portrayal to be different. Westernization of China and media globalization/localization were credited as probable causes for this finding. This further indicates that certain cultural elements can be influenced while others remain deeply embedded in the society, unyielding against external influences.