Female and Males Bodies in Health and Fitness Discourses: Example of Women's Health and Men's Health Magazines In postmodern society, women who become enabled to transform their bodies 'freely' are also subjected to certain dietary and exercise practices with the expectation of health, weight loss, beauty and rejuvenation; concepts who become more and more embedded with each other as their boundaries become abstract. Knowledge-power mechanisms are constantly accumulating and broadcasting definitions of "normal", "ideal", "truth" and "health" via media. By doing so, they create the basis for some bodies to be objectified, criticized, labeled or cast out. In this study, the models' body language in cover images of Women's Health and Men's Health magazines (2014-2018) which broadcast new definitions of womanhood and manhood, were subjected to semiotic analysis on certain categories taking Erwing Goffmann(1979), Margaret Carlisle Duncan(1990) and Iris Young's (1980) similar studies as a theoretical base. The way male and female bodies which are constructed in regard to health and fitness prescriptions was also analyzed by using a content and textual analysis used by Dworkin and Wachs (2009) on the main headings of the journals. The Women's Health and Men's Health magazines and their knowledge-power and normalization mechanisms; broadcast certain gender roles and appeareances hidden inside idealized health and fitness discourses, com
Universal usability is an essential constituent of HCI, but new technologies are not usable by all populations. This deficit highlights the importance of improving the conversational agents' abilities for disadvantaged populations like older adults. Conversational agents hold a great potential to support older adults, which were affected mainly by the Covid-19 pandemic and were the most psychologically damaged population caused by fear and isolation during the outbreak. In this research, we present the results of a mixed study investigating the potential of voice assistants (VA) for older adults. This study aims to identify older adults’ (ranging in age from 65 to 75) perceptions, needs and challenges when interacting with a smart speaker based voice assistant (Google Home) during the first-time user interaction. We aim to explore the effects of VA’s voice characteristics (mature vs young) and the presence of empathic expression (high empathic expression vs low empathic expression) on the social (perceived support and trust) and functional (perceived self-efficacy toward voice assistants) outcomes of 60 (30 male- 30 female) older adults. This study used a voice-based CA prototype through the Wizard of Oz technique and adopted a multi-method approach. Using CASA (Computers are Social Actors) Paradigm and Similarity Attraction Theory as a foundation, our research revealed that expression of high empathy is a powerful motivator for older adults to perceive a VA as a discreet social companion due to their cultural beliefs and biases. However, we found no evidence that the similarity attraction effect works on older adults when the similarity is mediated since a mature voice has no significant impact on perceived support or trust both qualitatively and quantitatively.
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