Are you man enough? A qualitative analysis of masculine representations in US fitness supplement brands’ social media advertising

This thesis addresses the ways that masculinity is represented in US fitness supplement brands’ social media advertising. Previous research has shown that advertising is a field in which social norms are both dictated and reflected and that masculine representations in advertising are often stereotypical. The purpose of this research is twofold: a content analysis attempts to capture the masculine representations of two fitness supplement brands in their social media advertising and two focus groups were conducted in order to discuss men’s perceptions with regards to the constructions of masculinity. A qualitative thematic analysis of 150 posts from brands Dymatize and Muscle Pharm’s Instagram pages was conducted in order to answer the research question ‘How do US fitness supplement brands Dymatize and MusclePharm use and simultaneously shape the concept of masculinity in their social media advertising? In order to capture men’s experiences on the subject, a perception study was included in this research which consisted in conducting two homogeneous focus groups with four men in each group aged 19-26 years old who expressed their views on masculinities generally, and more specifically on fitness supplement brands’ representation of masculinity in advertising. A thematic analysis of the focus group data aimed to answer the subquestion ‘How do young international males perceive the marketing of fitness supplement brands on Instagram?’ . The results of this research indicate that brands Dymatize and Muscle Pharm generally contribute to the widely accepted stereotypical representation of masculinity in a hypermasculine manner. Moreover, the results revealed that men often feel pressured to look and act a certain way in Western society, however the participants observed a shift in the definition of what it means to ‘be a man’ towards an increasingly multidimensional model.