The cultural evolution of masculine body image: An interdisciplinary analysis of male body image regulation within men's lifestyle magazines.

This thesis examines the production and promotion of certain male body images, demonstrating a means by which gender image regulations may be identified in print media. Drawing on the intersection of cultural studies, gender theory, sociology, and biology, this work inquires into mimetic series and their exchanges in such men's magazine as Gentlemen's Quarterly UK and North America editions, Men's Health UK and North America editions, Attitude, and Out for 2002-2011 period. The choice of magazines allows for inclusion of both heterosexual and queer perspectives and respective audiences, and thus for a more comprehensive and balanced collection of quantitative mimetic data from which to derive constructed gender regulations. Multicultural sampling of both magazine and advertisement content is instrumental in observing some of the globalizing influences on the masculine media, which affect and reflect the greater masculine body image culture, and modify both individual and collective masculine gender performance. --Leaf ii.