Abstract
This research examines how masculinity is represented in South African personal care product advertising, focusing on the print and digital platforms of Men’s Health and GQ magazines. Advertising has historically reinforced narrow ideals of masculinity centred on dominance, discipline, and physical perfection. However, the growth of digital media and changing gender norms have prompted more diverse portrayals of male identity. The study aims to contribute to gender and media discourse by addressing the limited research on how different media formats shape these portrayals in a South African context. This research is situated in post-apartheid South Africa, where masculine ideals remain fractured by the unresolved legacies of colonial and apartheid racial orders. Global grooming brands must sell across these fractures, producing a semiotic overload that makes it increasingly difficult for audiences to distinguish whether advertisements are merely representing existing masculinities or actively constructing new, commodified ones—an epistemic violence with particular intensity in a society still negotiating the meaning of manhood after 1994. Guided by the question, How do print and digital advertising platforms differently enable the negotiation and commodification of contradictory post-apartheid South African masculinities, and what forms of epistemic violence arise from these representations? the study employed Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), supported by Comparative Analysis (CA), to examine textual, visual, and semiotic elements in selected advertisements.
Findings reveal that print advertisements largely reproduce hegemonic masculinity, emphasising strength, confidence, and refinement through static, aspirational imagery. In contrast, digital advertisements construct masculinity as dynamic and process-oriented, highlighting emotional expression, grooming routines, and cultural localisation. The study concludes that while traditional masculine ideals persist, digital media enable more inclusive and culturally grounded representations. These insights advance the understanding of how media influences gender construction and could provide practical applications for advertisers.