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Theoretical Preface and Methodology

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Young Men and Masculinities in Japanese Media

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Abstract

This chapter introduces the two theoretical frameworks of “Encoding and Decoding” and the “Circuit of Culture,” which were chosen because they allow us to best understand how meaning is produced and how this process is embedded in a cultural framework. The second part introduces the case studies of the two magazines CHOKi CHOKi and Men’s Egg—along with the quantitative and qualitative frameworks for their analysis. The quantitative analysis applied a schematic developed for women’s magazines by Inoue Teruko and her research group. The qualitative content analysis consists of a discourse analysis similar to the one proposed by Siegfried Jaeger. The focus is on three aspects: love/relationships/partnerships, everyday life, and sex, since those are the most prominent topics with respect to how gender is negotiated.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Chapter 4.

  2. 2.

    For more information on Connell and her gender concept, see Chapter 2.

  3. 3.

    Advertising articles, see also the section on “Article, advertisement, and kōkoku kiji” presented later in this chapter.

  4. 4.

    Other magazine contents as they are discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 equally play a role in the concept of identity, of course.

  5. 5.

    See also Chapter 1.

  6. 6.

    See also Chapter 4.

  7. 7.

    See Media Risāchi Sentā (1978–).

  8. 8.

    However, the assessment of print numbers is a difficult task. See also Chapter 4.

  9. 9.

    See also the section on Exclusion of outward appearance below.

  10. 10.

    Even though “hairdresser” in Japanese means biyōshi, it is important to make a distinction between hairstyle and beauty care.

  11. 11.

    Sex here means sexual intercourse.

  12. 12.

    Since the first issues of both CC and ME appeared in June, the next two issues were August and December.

  13. 13.

    For the following six points, see Jäger (2012, 79–85; 2000).

  14. 14.

    See also Chapter 6.

  15. 15.

    In particular, the gyaru and gyaru-o subculture that the magazine ME caters to is organized in so-called circles which organize events that are hosted and joined by the circle members and others. See also Arai (2009).

  16. 16.

    See Chapter 7.

  17. 17.

    See, e.g., ME 2006/04.

  18. 18.

    See, e.g., CC 2009/09.

  19. 19.

    See Chapter 6.

  20. 20.

    See Chapter 5.

  21. 21.

    See Chapter 7.

  22. 22.

    See Bock (1992).

  23. 23.

    This expression refers to people who do not like to go shopping and thus for whom shopping is not a means for creating an identity.

  24. 24.

    Street style refers to lifestyle that is linked to street culture, which is defined by music or hobbies that emerge on the streets, such as Hip Hop, skateboarding and the like.

  25. 25.

    Miura(2000–).

  26. 26.

    Yasuda (1999–).

  27. 27.

    See “Gyaru-o—the target audience of Men’s Egg” in Chapter 3.

  28. 28.

    For more information on sōshokukei danshi, see “The sōshoku(kei) danshi discourse,” in Chapter 3.

  29. 29.

    Suitable here are those kōkoku kiji that are not part of features on outward appearance, with the exception of beauty.

  30. 30.

    See “CHOKi CHOKi weblog”.

  31. 31.

    Interestingly, CHOKi CHOKi girls followed CC, and thus in this case, the women’s magazine followed the one for men. As is discussed in Chapter 4, it is usually the other way around.

  32. 32.

    In the following graphs, love is the abbreviation for the content category love, relationships, and partnerships.

  33. 33.

    That is due to the fact that in the beginning, CC featured many more pages on hair than on fashion. In April 2008, features on hair still took up more space than those on fashion. In August 2008, there were a larger number of fashion pages. Even though nowadays there are more fashion pages in the magazine as compared to those on hair, within the sample of this research, the average number of pages on hair is still higher.

  34. 34.

    Even though there are also some parts dealing with psychology, these are mostly features like horoscopes or personality tests.

  35. 35.

    See “Gyaru-o—the target audience of Men’s Egg” in Chapter 3.

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  1. University of Trier, Trier, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Ronald Saladin

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Saladin, R. (2019). Theoretical Preface and Methodology. In: Young Men and Masculinities in Japanese Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9821-6_2

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