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Promoting extreme fitness regimes through the communicative affordances of reality makeover television: a multimodal critical discourse analysis
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. Media and Communication Studies.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1089-5819
2022 (English)In: Critical Studies in Media Communication, ISSN 1529-5036, E-ISSN 1479-5809, Vol. 39, no 5, p. 408-426Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Taking off from the theory of social semiotics and using the methods of multimodal critical discourse analysis, this paper demonstrates how the communicative affordances of a Swedish reality makeover show, The Great Health Journey, are used to promote discourses normalizing extreme fitness ideals. It is a show that reduces health to body fitness and supports a particular health consciousness gaining prominence today, an ideology here depicted as fitnessism. Progressing the ideas put forward by Crawford (1980, Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services, 10(3), 365-388; Crawford, 2006. Health as a meaningful social practice. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 10(4), 401-420) with the notion of healthism, fitnessism accentuates the careful submission to strict fitness-related regimes as crucial for a healthy lifestyle. It turns the very fit body into a sign of good morals, indicating the values of self-discipline, self-control, and willpower, personal characteristics seen as crucial in the neoliberal era. But the healthiness of this fitness ideal can be questioned. Rather than serving the interest of public health, fitnessism seems to mainly encourage "aesthetic labour" (Elias et al., 2017. Aesthetic labour: Rethinking beauty politics in neoliberalism. Palgrave Macmillan) and support commercial interests to exploit body dissatisfaction.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2022. Vol. 39, no 5, p. 408-426
Keywords [en]
Communicative affordances, fitnessism, healthism, makeover television, reality television, social semiotics
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-100161DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2022.2091153ISI: 000819770700001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85133249691OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-100161DiVA, id: diva2:1684837
Available from: 2022-07-28 Created: 2022-07-28 Last updated: 2023-08-23Bibliographically approved

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Eriksson, Göran

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CiteExportLink to record
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