Methodology
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This is a semiotic analysis of 25 Glossier Instagram posts featuring womxn in 2018. I use the term "womxn" because in most cases, I am assuming gender based on presentation, but cannot say for certain that the subject is female or prefers a female pronoun. In an effort to be fair and eliminate potential for my own suspicions and bias, I analyze the first 25 images containing womxn’s bodies in full or part on Glossier’s Instagram starting at January 4, 2018. I did this so as to eliminate any potential for me to cherry pick a set of imagery that support any preconceived notions I may have about the company’s advertising in one way or another. For ease and clarity in examination, I also excluded video from my analysis. All of the images I analyze function as advertisements.
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When analyzing the images, I coded for signs such as nudity, eye contact, lips parted/over-emphasized, whether the face obscured, and expression. I also analyze color.
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I code for these signs because they allow me to categorize each image into one of three categories: Is the womxn in the image sexualized? Is she stereotyped? Is she empowered?
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I consider her sexualized if her lip are parted/overemphasized and if she is nude or appears nude. I consider her stereotyped if she making eye contact with a smile, surrounded by florals or blush tones or she appears only in the form of a body part in the image. Lastly, I consider her empowered if she appears whole in the frame, is making eye contact with no smile, is smiling but not making eye contact, and is clearly clothed.
Theoretical Perspective
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I analyze the images through the lens of feminist theory defined by Sumi Kim (2008) as "Feminist scholarship treats gender, sexuality, and the experience of women as a primary category of societal organization and focuses on the construction of gender roles in society and how it holds certain power establishments in place. One feminist concern is the media portrayal of women. It is argued that women’s position as oppressed in patriarchal capitalism has been reproduced and maintained by the aid of ideological practice via media." I also employ Daniel Chandler's model of denotation and connotation which builds on Stuart Hall's 1974 theory of encoding and decoding, and in which Chandler theorizes that an image contains both a literal meaning and an implied meaning (2014).