Gauntlett analyzes men's lifestyle magazines, particularly Men's Health, to understand modern constructions of masculinity. He finds that Men's Health provides advice on physical fitness, relationships, sex, diet, and career success, similar to women's magazines. It portrays an ideal man as supremely fit, sexually skilled, and successful. However, it also recognizes that identities are fluid and allows readers to "pick and mix" elements to construct their own identities. Overall, Gauntlett argues that these magazines offer both reassurance and anxiety to men seeking to find their place in the world, while representing identities as negotiable rather than fixed.

1. SECTION B: MEDIA & COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
DAVID GAUNTLETT
Men‟s Magazines and Modern Male
Identities
2002

2. Hegemonic Male – Tyler Durden
How does Nietzsche and Tyler link together?
Misogny, emasculation, voyeurism, narcissistic
identification, Bly - Finish Hegemonic Male
Complete the next phase – the „New Man‟

3. Key Questions
1. What does Gauntlett identify in Men‟s Health
magazines?
2. According to Men‟s Health magazine how
should men behave, act, live?
3. How is identity mediated by the media?

4. Today’s menu
• The „New Man‟
• Gauntlett & Men‟s Health magazine
• Paired task, identify Gauntlett‟s findings
• Present to class and display!
• Grandma‟s trunk/Richard and Judy

5. Uses: How to be a man today

6. What is Men’s Health?
“Men‟s Health is the magazine for active,
successful, intelligent men who want to
make the most of their physical,
professional and emotional lives.
We give men the tools they need to
make their lives better.”
MORGAN REES, EDITOR

7. Argues against the
notion of men‟s
lifestyle
magazines
representing a
reassertion of
old
fashioned
masculine
values, or a backlash
against feminism

8. Overview
Supports the idea that identities are fluid and found
magazines offer readers an opportunity to „pick
and mix‟ from magazine advice
Media messages in the form of role models,
directing men in constructing identities and
lifestyles
Identities are fluid and personal change is both
possible and necessary

9. Men’s Magazines & Modern Male
Identities (Gauntlett, 2002)
Considered the idea of manhood conveyed by
men‟s lifestyle magazines, and whether these
magazines are:
• simply mainstream vehicles for old fashioned
attitudes
• soft porn pleasures
• offering new models of male identity to modern
men.

10. • Across all the men‟s lifestyle magazines he
studied, it is the only one to regularly feature
semi-naked men, instead of women, on the
cover.
• The one which most closely parallels women‟s
lifestyle magazines

11. Similarities include
• Emphasis on body and appearance; including
fitness, healthy eating and weight loss
• Psychological strand including advice on
positive thinking, improving self esteem & using
mental techniques for success
• How to keep passion alive in a relationship and
sex advice

12. Gauntlett’s summative overview
of Men’s Health
• Largely thought of as an informative health and
fitness magazine for men, but actually provides a
clever „masculine‟ packaging of everything women‟s
magazines are expected to be about – looks, sex,
relationships, diet, lifestyle, career success
• As we know, the MH ideal he found to be supremely
fit, good in bed, knowledgeable but above all, and
most problematic, is the notion that the ideal MH
man is everybody‟s ideal

13. Context of study
Acknowledges the growth of men‟s magazines as
a cultural phenomenon worthy of serious
consideration with regards to telling us something
about men and masculinity today (remember
importance of acknowledging past, present and
future)

14. Focus group interviews confirm men like to feel
they are flicking through the magazines and not
taking them to seriously, citing themselves as
different to women who, they believe, read
magazine advice religiously. Men preferred to
suggest they treat magazines lightly and with little
commitment (though the MH website may suggest
a different stance)

15. As an exception, MH was found to occupy the role
of a health advisor that can be trusted and utilises
a more „expert‟ tone

16. Uses and Identity
With this in mind, Men‟s Health and others
emphasise the need to choose a lifestyle and
construct the „self‟
Another theme present, Gauntlett suggests, is that
nothing is fixed, and MH and others recognise that
readers may use the texts to help them answer the
question “what can I do/be next?”

17. Mode of address and uses
Gauntlett suggests that the use of humour, irony,
laddishness is perhaps a requirement – men‟s
magazines could leave out coverage of sex &
relationships but don‟t, so it could be
concluded/argued that users do want articles on
those things but do not want others to think that
they do, or even don‟t want to think that they
themselves want them.

18. Summative findings
Men insecurely trying to find their place in the
world and seeking help on how to behave in
relationships
Can reassure, yet, at the same time can cause
anxiety (particularly regarding ideals)
Most importantly representing that identities are
not given but are constructed and
negotiated...(inviting) a fluidity of identities

19. Explore
• Use of irony, humour, laddishness as a protective
layer (in sell lines and/or articles)
• Supporting men in finding their place in the world
• Reassurance
• Instruction on behaviour
• How role models are used to direct & aid
construction of identity
• How MH can allow readers to construct identity &
what they may perhaps „pick and mix‟
• Extension - see booklet
• Present your findings and display

20. Key Questions

21. Richard and Judy
Connell

22. Bly

23. Nietzsche

24. Gauntlett