Aspirational lifestyle journalism

To aspire is to desire, imagine, and seek out improved ways of living and being. Ideals for what makes life good or characterizes the model person are taken-for-granted beliefs commonly defined by those in power and mediated in popular culture, including lifestyle journalism. By exposing its audiences to products and services that provide orientation for everyday life––fashion and beauty, health and fitness, home and gardening, food, travel, and parenting, among others––lifestyle journalism potentially acts as a tool for audiences to envision alternative futures and form aspirations. However, not all ideals are worth aspiring to, and not all people have equal ability to aspire, a capacity that is nurtured by their experiences with the good life and the resources necessary to realize such aspirations. While society tells us certain ways of existing are more preferable than others, structural inequalities across class, gender, race, and our unique intersectional lived experiences may misalign with these normative ideals or render them unreachable. Drawing on social psychology and sociology scholarship, this chapter offers a conceptual outline for future research on aspirational lifestyle journalism to examine these tensions in journalism and digital media content and from the perspective of diverse journalistic actors and audiences.