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Ulrich Beck’s ‘risk society’ thesis and representations of food and eating in the British general interest women’s magazine sector 1979-2003 Katherine Elizabeth Wilkinson, BA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2005 Abstract Beck asserts that since the 1950s, broad social transformations have radically altered collective relations. According to Beck, these changes have rendered conventional materialist analyses no longer appropriate to describe the new times we are living in. Beck links radical restructuring of organisational forms with the reorientation of cultural experience and modern selfhood as we move from ‘class’ to ‘risk’ positions (Beck, 1992: Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2003). This thesis employs a creative operationalisation of the key dimensions of Beck’s predictions, allowing them to be tested as hypotheses using data from the women’s magazine sector. Beck’s idea that cultural organisational practice is coming under increasing pressure to reorganise and encompass new principles of social orientation is critically evaluated. The magazine titles selected for analysis represent the different socio- economic, age and family responsibility status of this sector’s target audience. A longitudinal sample of the representation of food and eating is subject to a textual analysis to catalogue the historical development of these processes. In addition, interviews with editorial staff examine the underlying production principles of mediated selection and framing practice. Empirical evidence is generated to assess whether changing institutional practice is involved in society’s move from one set of social arrangements to another. This thesis essentially evaluates Beck’s assertion that the forces transforming organisational practice are rooted 2 in an innovative institutional drive to democratise. The findings suggest that Beck’s explanation is insufficient and that classical materialist and market-driven accounts of institutional policy and practice remain appropriate. 3 Acknowledgements I wish to thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding this project and my supervisors, Professor Robert Dingwall, and Dr Meryl Aldridge for their support and input during the whole PhD process. I would also like to thank Tim Savage from Banner Cross News and all the library staff at all the sites I visited. My appreciation also goes out to the editorial staff that took time out of their busy schedule to talk to me. I must express my sincere gratitude to John for his support with the Excel spread sheets. I also salute Dewi and Gwesyn for the superb stew and lasagne that have seen us through the final stages. Hopefully I will now have more time to widen your recipe repertoire. Many thanks must go to Rhiannon who has been an inspiration in many ways, no more so than for insisting I face the fear and do it anyway. I would like to thank Sheila, Kwang and Chet for forcing me out to keep- fit each week, even if it was the post-exercise hot chocolate that focussed my thoughts. Harriet, Peter, Duncan, Helen, Anne and Bryan have provided me with endless support over the years, some from over the garden fence and some from the other side of the country. Special thanks have to be reserved for my mother Valerie and good friend Hazel without whom I would never have reached this stage with my good sense intact. In loving memory of Lianne and baby Reece 4
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