Methods...

So I kind of know the topic for my thesis...transnational images of beauty.

Now I'm working on the methods, the how. For my thesis, it's looking like I will be doing a content analysis of beauty magazines read by American and Ugandan women. It's gonna be tedious...but should lay a good foundation for my dissertation (which will hopefully involve interviews).

So far I'm thinking I'm going to analyze Cosmopolitan (highest circulating beauty mag in the USA), Essence (second highest circulating African American magazine), African Woman (leading beauty mag in Uganda, and the first)...and possibly a magazine called Bride & Groom circulated by a newspaper in Uganda. I have a meeting with an LSU librarian this coming Monday to brainstorm ideas about how to get access to these magazines. Wish me luck! Getting my hands on African beauty magazines is going to be tricky/expensive/possibly impossible (now that's an oxymoron for you...)

Here's some notes I took earlier today during a google search:

-Things to consider:
-the history of fashion/beauty magazines in each country (help me defend my choices)
-the history of the beauty industry in general—look back to that one article that talked about history of beauty magazines—in my lit review
-why fashion has become equated with beauty—fashion and accessories—if it is about body, then it tends to be “health”…so health and beauty (like Shape) vs. Fashion/Beauty (Vogue)—differences in audience? In message? In models? Does Uganda have equivalent?
-history of magazines in Uganda in general
-http://www.ms.dk/sw59326.asp article about Sylvia Owori, the founder of Ugandan beauty industry as far as high fashion, modeling, and beauty magazines go, founder of African Woman magazine
-either choose Ebony or Essence (top two circulation African American magazines) and then defend my choice http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/african-american/#magazines (a website with graph of top African American magazines)
*Ebony listed as men’s and women’s mag while Essence targets more women?
-choose a top fashion magazine—in the US is cosmopolitan the top?
-http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-08-24/entertainment/29943098_1_mario-testino-polka-dots-seduction *this article gives a list of top ten fashion magazines with their September covers: “2011 September issues: Breakdown of the top 10 women’s fashion magazines” by Cristina Everett 8/24/11
-http://www.magazine.org/asme/magazine_awards/nma_winners/ (magazine awards—women health beat out other beauty mags)
-http://accessabc.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/the-top-25-consumer-magazines-from-june-2011-fas-fax/ (list of top circulating so far in 2011) 1) Cosmopolitan 2) Glamour 3) Redbook—Cosmopolitan wins overall highest consumer single-copy sales (i.e. from grocery stores) so far
“Audit Bureau of Circulations” Website