What Is Beautiful?: Analysis of Japanese beauty ideals in cosmetics advertising
Yamamoto, Mitsumi (2020)
Yamamoto, Mitsumi
2020
Master's Degree Programme in Cultural Studies
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2020-03-26
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202003162697
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202003162697
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this study was to analyse beauty standards constructed and represented through Japanese cosmetics advertisements. The chapter of literature review firstly explored the past researches on Japanese beauty norms in the scope of race and gender studies. In addition, different types of beauty concepts including those which are peculiar to Japanese beauty cultures, were also introduced before this study moved to the research of the present beauty ideals. This research was done by studying in total eight still advertising images published in 2017, selected from four different Japanese cosmetics brands, for which the methodological approaches of semiotics and encoding/decoding were applied. Based on the data analysis and interpretation of signs representing beauty ideals in these advertisements, this study has discovered certain distinguishing characteristics of each branding tactic to offer definitions of beauty. The findings indicated that the process of representing Japanese beauty ideals through the act of cosmetics advertising are consequently intertwined with race and gender discourses.