'Are You a Good Female Citizen?': Media Discourses on Self-Governing Represented in Popular Korean Weight-Loss Reality TV Shows
- Authors
- Choi, Yoonso
- Issue Date
- Jun-2019
- Publisher
- SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
- Keywords
- governmentality; media discourse; neo-liberalism; self-body care; weight-loss reality TV
- Citation
- SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE, v.24, no.2, pp 154 - 166
- Pages
- 13
- Journal Title
- SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE
- Volume
- 24
- Number
- 2
- Start Page
- 154
- End Page
- 166
- URI
- https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/cau/handle/2019.sw.cau/45118
- DOI
- 10.1177/1360780418807949
- ISSN
- 1360-7804
- Abstract
- Based on Foucault's work on governmentality, the purpose of this study is to examine the socio-cultural influences of media discourses that have been reproduced and spread in Korea's neo-liberal society through weight-loss reality TV shows. After neo-liberalism was established as a political ideology in Korea, weight-loss reality programs, which contain significant neo-liberal characteristics, have risen in popularity among ordinary Korean women. The popularity of female-oriented pop media culture has generated the idea of self-body care that now plays a powerful role in efficiently reproducing good female citizens who are able to be governed at a distance. This study particularly focuses on analyzing significant media discourse that tends to prompt ordinary girls and women into donning the role of a neo-liberal subject by taking care of their bodies. The major points include (1) producing a feminized, skinny body, rather than a healthy body; (2) defining clear boundaries between the normal and abnormal body by clothing size; (3) re-generating dominant female body discourse by a group of lifestyle designers; and (4) labeling female bodies that have failed in body-care. In conclusion, the study emphasizes significant cultural influences of the diet reality shows that operate as a cultural medium to efficiently produce a neo-liberal body.
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