How cosmetic apps fragmentise and metricise the female face: A multimodal critical discourse analysis

IF 2.1 2区 文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION
Göran Eriksson, Lame Maatla Kenalemang
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

In the present time, we see a rapid development of so-called cosmetic apps promoted by prominent cosmetic companies. Although there is an emerging market for male consumers, these apps are marketed as technological innovations designed to analyse, rate and evaluate mainly women’s facial appearances through the submission of a selfie. Based on the results generated from the selfie, personalised solutions are offered in the form of recommended products to supposedly help women improve their appearances. Drawing on a critical feminist approach and using multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), the aim of this article is to study how these evaluations are semiotically reproduced and presented to the users. The paper examines in detail how apps convey the evaluation process and transform a selfie into measures, presented through diagrams and charts, that is, how the female face is fragmented and metricised. Coming with affordances of being systematic, exact and scientific, these infographics assign the facial evaluations with meaning. A key argument is that these cosmetic apps are changing the way women are implied to consider and control their (facial) appearance. Following neoliberal notions, the apps put strong pressure on women to take the responsibility to engage in intensive forms of aesthetic labour and to consume the ‘right’ products to appear as the best versions of themselves.
化妆品应用程序如何分割和度量女性面部:多模态批评话语分析
目前,我们看到由知名化妆品公司推动的所谓化妆品应用程序迅速发展。尽管有一个针对男性消费者的新兴市场,但这些应用程序被标榜为技术创新,主要是通过提交自拍照来分析、评分和评估女性的面部形象。根据自拍产生的结果,个性化的解决方案以推荐产品的形式提供,据称可以帮助女性改善外表。本文借鉴批判女性主义方法,运用多模态批评话语分析(MCDA),旨在研究这些评价是如何在符号学上再现并呈现给用户的。本文详细研究了应用程序如何传达评估过程,并通过图表和图表将自拍照转化为衡量标准,也就是说,女性面部是如何碎片化和度量化的。这些信息图表具有系统、准确和科学的特点,赋予面部评估以意义。一个关键的论点是,这些美容应用程序正在改变女性考虑和控制自己(面部)外表的方式。遵循新自由主义的观念,这些应用程序给女性施加了巨大的压力,要求她们承担起责任,从事密集的审美劳动,并消费“正确”的产品,以展现自己最好的一面。
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来源期刊
Discourse & Communication
Discourse & Communication COMMUNICATION-
CiteScore
3.30
自引率
5.30%
发文量
41
期刊介绍: Discourse & Communication is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that pay specific attention to the qualitative, discourse analytical approach to issues in communication research. Besides the classical social scientific methods in communication research, such as content analysis and frame analysis, a more explicit study of the structures of discourse (text, talk, images or multimedia messages) allows unprecedented empirical insights into the many phenomena of communication. Since contemporary discourse study is not limited to the account of "texts" or "conversation" alone, but has extended its field to the study of the cognitive, interactional, social, cultural.
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