Moderiktig kommunikation - En semiotisk analys av amerikanska Vogue runt sekelskiftet

Sammanfattning: This thesis – Fashionable communication: a semiotic analysis of end of the century Vogue – investigates how American Vogue creates the myth of fashion in its early years through text and pictorial elements. The aim is to understand with what words and tone the text talks about fashion and how it is visualized in illustration and photography with poses and lighting to create certain associations. That is to say; how symbolic value is created and how the myth of fashion is communicated. There is said to have occurred a major change in Vogues communication with Condé Nast buying the magazine in 1909, when a new audience of upper class women were established. As is shown, through use of Roland Barthes semiotic methodology, the shift in audience correlates with allusions to the fine arts and abstract phenomena like fashions ability to transform the wearer. But rather than 1909 being a harsh turning point for Vogues communication, the changes can be spotted in articles as early as in the 1890’s. The six articles presented in this thesis show how the changes happened over time, from Vogues launch in 1892 to 1922, and that the myth of transformative fashion existed, even if faint, in the early educating descriptions of fashion. What changed was rather how the myth was communicated, not what kind of myth it was.