VOGUE And Changes In American Culture

VOGUE and changes in American Culture “VOGUE” is one of the top female fashion magazines both in the United States and around the world. It includes different sections from designer clothes, fashion news, to entertainment articles, and reviews, etc. Used this specific magazine as an example, it will helps us have a better understanding of the relationship between the media and American culture changes, specifically in the area of gender, journalism and urbanization. Gender is always a hot topic in our society. There was a time period in American history that women and men were not even comparable. In the article “The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud”, Betty Friedan talked about Freud’s famous theory “penis

(200)” She was talking about the time period of 1790-1840 (199). At that time, women are more likely working at manufacture factory and less likely to be educated. However, if we take a look at our country today, there are actually more women than men that have bachelor degrees, and more women are decided to attending to Master or Doctoral programs. The latest issue of “VOGUE” has an article about Maggie Gyllenhaal, she was a successful actress and graduated from Columbia University in New York City. According to Madina Toure, as the oldest college at Columbia University, Columbia College’s first female students arrive on campus in August 1983. About thirty two years ago, in January 1982, Columbia College had announced it would admit women. There are more female students than male students in Columbia College today, but it’s hard to believe our culture changed that much in only 3 decades, and it’s hard to imaging, just thirty years ago, women are not even have a chance to get admitted to the Columbia College. It’s almost like a chain in case of change the America culture, the magazine gives the females idols in their life, and some of the information they are getting from the magazine will become their own identities, then as the

It is one of the bestseller fashion magazines in the United States. The most important feature of mass communication is that it helps people live in different areas stay “at the same page”. They are getting the same information from the magazine, things like the color of the session, hottest designers, or even health advices. This can be a good thing if we are thinking about nationalism. However, the change of the Journalism in our country has a large effect on the American culture. In Michael Schudson’s article “The Politics of Narrative Form: The Emergence of News Conventions in Print and Televison”, Schudson argued about the change of journalism. He said that the journalists today are not simply layout the sources for us, but also add their own point of views into the article. They are analyzed the sources first, and then interpreted it in their own way (157). The change of the journalists from objective to subjective is more likely to lead readers into biases. Instead of just provide the information and leave the readers make the judgments themselves, today’s journalists are more likely telling the readers what to think (in the case of “VOGUE”, what to wear), providing to the readers their own ideas about the sources. This is also happened in “VOGUE”. Sometimes if you read “VOGUE” and other similar fashion magazines, you will find out that some of the information that are provided in those