ANALYSIS OF RECEPTION AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE OF THE EYECANDY RUBRIC ON ADULT MEN MAGAZINE

Abstract

Eyecandy is a rubrik in the adult men's magazine “Popular”, featuring sensual content from many of its models, and what happens when the rubric is interpreted critically by female readers. When the workers and editors at the magazine are dominated by men who have full power in determining the value of women in a society's social life through the discourse that appears in it. Meanwhile, women are positioned as objects that do not have the power to determine these values. The purpose of this study is how audience reception interprets the perspective of critical discourse on the text wrapped in the pose of a woman's body shape in the eyecandy rubric in the December 2017 issue of "Popular" magazine. This research uses a qualitative approach with the study method of critical discourse reception by Norman Fairclough's model. The results of the research show that the text in the eyecandy rubric gives a sensual meaning, where that meaning still binds women as the main sexual commodity that is traded in the form of visual objects. The text is only a complementary narrative of the many sensual poses of female models. The production in the process of making this text is dominated by men, where men seem to understand very well how a text and images are used as representations of attractiveness that is able to attract their people, thus proving that women are objects of sexuality where the media constructs according to the wishes of their male readers.