METROSEXUALS IN CHINA’S ENGLISH-LANGUAGE STATE MEDIA: A (DE)LEGITIMATION ANALYSIS OF MASCULINITY RECONSTRUCTION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJHPL.935002Keywords:
Legitimation and Thematic Frameworks, Metrosexuals, Neoliberalism and Consumerism, Reconstruction of Masculinity, State MediaAbstract
While previous studies on metrosexuality have mainly focused on participants lived experiences and identity construction, relatively few studies have examined how metrosexuality is represented and negotiated within public media discourse. Metrosexuality refers to a form of masculinity characterized by men’s attention to grooming, appearance, fashion, and aesthetic consumption. Addressing this gap, the present study adopts a media discourse approach to examine representations of metrosexuality in China’s English-language state media. Drawing on a corpus of newspaper articles, the study combines Van Leeuwen’s (2007) and Mackay’s (2015) legitimation frameworks with Clarke and Braun’s (2018) thematic analysis to investigate how metrosexual men are constructed in state media narratives, what dominant themes emerge from these representations, and what broader sociocultural meanings and implications they convey. Through this integrated methodological approach, the study explores how state media participate in the transformation and reconstruction of masculinity in contemporary China. The findings suggest that state media generally legitimize male grooming, self-management, and appearance consciousness by associating them with professionalism, modernity, competitiveness, and social refinement. However, while these representations appear to diversify and expand acceptable masculine expressions, they simultaneously construct a new configuration of hegemonic masculinity grounded in neoliberal ideals of bodily discipline, self-surveillance, consumerism, and socioeconomic privilege.
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