Utilising Mood Boards as an Image Elicitation Tool in Qualitative Research

Introduction

This article explores how mood boards, a collection of images arranged and juxtaposed on a sheet, were utilised in a pilot study for a research project exploring masculinity and reflexivity. I show that mood boards can be utilised as part creative visual method and part image elicitation tool. During this study, the participants created a mood board on the topic of masculinity using images sourced from a range of men’s lifestyle magazines, to construct a particular ‘image’ of themselves and their sense of gender through the imagery in unique and intuitive ways. There has been debate surrounding the use of visual methods with some championing their use instead of talk-based methods (Gauntlett, 2007) and others arguing that they are best used in combination with other methods (Buckingham, 2009; Pimlott-Wilson, 2012). By using mood boards as both a visual method and subsequently as a catalyst for verbal data generation, I will show how visual and talk-based methods can be combined effectively.

Mood boards are best known as a technique utilised in industrial design, fashion design and interior design. They are used as a design tool in exploring and generating ideas related to the design brief among the design team and stakeholders (Cassidy, 2011; McDonagh and Storer, 2004). The images used in mood boards are frequently sourced from media such as magazines, newspapers and catalogues or from digital sources. Garner and McDonagh-Philip (2001) argue that designers benefit from the use of mood boards as a means of understanding the complex, ambiguous or abstract aspects of a project through the selection and juxtaposition of visual material (2001: 58). They argue that mood boards can ‘transcend linguistic restrictions’ in their ability to articulate concepts and suggest that the simplicity of the technique enables the designer to approach the task in a natural and intuitive manner.

Despite their simplicity, I argue that mood boards are a creative technique not only as they are used by designers, but because they involve the construction of a unique artefact using cut-and-paste collage. Chan defines creativity as the capacity to generate ‘meaningful new ideas, forms, performances, and interpretations’ (2015: 243 my emphasis). This is useful to note when considering the technique as a qualitative method in social research. In the next section, I will show how my use of mood boards builds upon existing work utilising creative visual methods and argue that when combined with talk-based approaches they can act as a form of image elicitation.

Mood boards as a research tool

Mood boards can be considered a creative visual method. These are methods that ask the participants to make something using visual media, such as video editing, collage, drawing, and even Lego to express their ideas about the research theme (Buckingham, 2009; Gauntlett and Holzwarth, 2007). This approach is different to methods that utilise visual tools where the media, frequently photographs and videos, are generated by the researcher as a form of data gathering (Buckingham, 2009). Mood boards can be considered a creative visual method since participants are invited to create their own mood boards which then become the research data presented in visual form.

Gauntlett (2007; Gauntlett and Holzwarth, 2007), for example, has championed the use of creative visual methods in media audience research. He argues that these methods empower participants to be able to express themselves and ‘communicate, in a meaningful way, about their identities and experiences’ (2006: 82). This is because they allow the participant to consider the research theme in their own time and because the tasks engage their hands, body, mind together. Gauntlett suggests his participants feel more in control of the research situation and are able to arrive at more considered responses. He contrasts creative visual methods with talk-based approaches where participants are expected to respond verbally to questions with no time to reflect on the issues first. He demonstrates that these methods allow participants to communicate different kinds of information in a holistic way. That is, making pictures ‘enable us to present information, ideas or feelings simultaneously, without the material being forced into an order or hierarchy’ (2007: 183).

Buckingham (2009) argues that creative visual methods can be useful but require greater levels of researcher reflexivity than has been applied in previous studies, including Gauntlett’s. He argues that Gauntlett’s tendency to treat these methods as ‘neutral – as simply a means of enabling participants to express themselves more directly’ (p. 645) inherently undermines considerations of power dynamics in the research situation. Buckingham (2009) also notes that even though Gauntlett criticises the limitations of talk-based approaches, he frequently relies on talk in asking participants to explain and contextualise their creative outputs. Gauntlett’s investment in the expressive capabilities of creative methods ‘precludes the possibility of analysis’ (Buckingham, 2009: 645) and as such his analysis of the creative objects are often descriptive and ‘more significantly – has to rely on what participants say’ (p. 645 his emphasis).

While there is limited use of mood boards in social research Pimlott-Wilson’s (2012) use of mood board research involving children concludes that visual methods are best used in combination with talk-based approaches. Nonetheless, she says that the visual methods used generated rich insights into the participants’ lives and helped them to express emotions that would have been difficult with talking methods alone. She argues mood boards to be particularly advantageous owing to their simplicity and accessibility in the sense that participants are not limited by their creative or technical capacity. Pimlott-Wilson argues that this technique allows participants to ‘better articulate their thoughts, feelings and abstract concepts, [ . . . ] spending less time concentrating on the actual picture, but on its often multiple meanings in their eyes’ (p. 143). She also suggests that mood boards have the benefit of versatility which is demonstrated in how her participants used the task to either represent a past experience or to express their feelings about an upcoming event. Both Pimlott-Wilson (2012) and Buckingham (2009) therefore, endorse the use of creative methods in conjunction with talk-based approaches. Used in this way, where participants create something and then talk about its meaning, the participant’ creations become a form of elicitation device whereby the output as well as the process itself provoke opinions, feelings, and discussions about the research themes.

The use of elicitation in qualitative research most frequently uses photographs (Harper, 2002). Photo elicitation has been praised for its ability to easily trigger responses to research themes that may be difficult to obtain using only interviewing. (Van Auken et al., 2010). Van Auken et al. (2010), focussing in particular on participant-chosen photos methods, argues participants selections can weaken the ‘barriers between researchers and subjects’ because it ‘de-centres the authority of the researcher’ (p. 375). I want to suggest that mood boards may also be utilised as an elicitation tool insofar as the mood board itself is derived through the curation of imagery selected by the participants and then acts as a catalyst for discussion.

What I have suggested here is that although the use of mood boards in qualitative research is rare, its usage can be positioned both as a creative visual method and as a form of image elicitation when utilised in conjunction with talk-based methods. These two aspects of this method require different kinds of engagement on behalf of the participants and will produce different kinds of data. As a creative method, mood boards have the advantage of requiring very little skill or expertise allowing participants to engage with the research through the physical process of cutting and pasting without feeling inhibited. In addition, the mood board allows participants to consider abstract or intangible concepts in an intuitive way. Treating the mood board then as an elicitation tool allows the participants to offer more considered explanations or interpretations of their visual material.

Research design

The use of mood boards detailed here is part of a PhD research project concerning masculinity and the specific ways that men do reflexivity in relation to their sense of gender. This work draws on Waling who argues that the categorical analyses that have come to define masculinities studies continue to ‘paint masculinity as a static and fixed entity’ (2018: 89). For example, she highlights that the significant influence that hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995; Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005) has had within the field has resulted in numerous types of masculinity to emerge (e.g. Berggren, 2014; Bridges and Pascoe, 2014; Coles, 2008). Through this approach identities, practices, and attitudes become products of masculinity as an external force and subjectivity, agency, and reflexivity are ignored. My research answers Waling’s call to adopt approaches to agency and emotional reflexivity in order to redirect focus to the individual. Giddens (1991) defines reflexivity as the process by which people continually monitor and make changes in their lives in response to knowledge about social life. Adams (2007) and Burkitt (2012) argue that Giddens’ approach is too individualistic because it disregards how the self is constructed in relation to others. The relationality of the self, and therefore the relationality of reflexivity, then underpins a more nuanced version of reflexivity. For Adams (2007), reflexivity is always partial arguing that Giddens’ individualistic model ignores the many barriers and constraints that influence a person’s agency. Relatedly, Burkitt (2012) argues that Giddens’ approach is too rational and as such ignores how emotions ‘infuse’ with reflexivity. For this research, I focus on how men’s reflexivities are inherently bound within their relations with others (and therefore partial) and are also infused by emotions. Having established this basis, the challenge, then, was to construct a method that enabled the participants to engage with these reflexive processes in the research situation.

My aim was to facilitate the expression of reflexivity in their reflections, reactions, and relations with others. A visual method, specifically mood boards, seemed to offer enough opportunity and time-frame to allow the men to intuitively construct a particular version of themselves. In response to arguments (Buckingham, 2009; Pimlott-Wilson, 2012) that creative methods are best used with talk-based methods I had decided to execute this method as part of a group discussion. Bringing a group of men together for the activity and discussion would offer the opportunity to capture how statements are constructed relationally in social interaction (Morgan, 2012)

Ethical approval was awarded from the University ethics committee. Five participants were originally recruited for the pilot study using a snowball approach through social media networks. Two of the men knew each other and were known to the researcher as friends-of-friends. One withdrew leaving four participants who were invited to a mood board workshop. At the time of the study Wayne was 28 years old, a straight, white British male and employed as a support worker. Ronny is white British, straight, works in sales, and at the time of the study was 29 years old. Dan is also white British, straight, in a sales role and was 30 years old at the time of the study. Andy was 27 years old at the time of the study working as an administrator. He is Asian British and identified as bisexual. All names are anonymised using pseudonyms.

In the workshop the men sat around a table with A3 card, glue, and scissors and a range of men’s lifestyle magazines, specifically, issues of GQ, Esquire, Attitude, and Men’s Health, as sources of imagery for their mood boards. These magazines were chosen because they contained many images of men and masculine identities, and practices such as body image, grooming, and sexuality. That said, each of the titles are subtly different in their content and focus. For instance, Men’s Health focuses specifically on health and fitness (predominantly body sculpting) while Attitude is made for a gay male readership. The distinctions in style and content of the magazines was important as they improved the chances that the men would find some content of interest to them individually and also improve the chance the content would provoke conversation and debate among the group. To help demonstrate what I was asking the participants to do, I presented two examples of mood boards made for design projects. The men were then asked to create their own mood board about their understanding of masculinity using imagery sourced from the magazines. I had kept the instructions for the task intentionally brief so to allow the participants to be able to approach the task in their own way.

During the making of the mood boards, I steered the discussions to issues concerning masculinity. The discussion required little moderation as the magazines themselves helped to keep focus on the issue of masculinity. Some of the topics derived directly from the content of the magazines whereas other topics emerged naturally through conversations. Once completed, participants were invited to present their mood boards to the group, commenting on their choice ad use of imagery. The session was audio recorded and then transcribed for analysis. Analysis of the transcripts used a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) which identified several themes related to the men’s reflexivities.

I will now deliberate over each of the participants’ mood boards and the discussions that emerged in relation to the imagery in the order they were presented in the session.

Wayne’s mood board

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Wayne showed little reservation in discussing intimate experiences from his past with the other participants. One such discussion arose in relation to the contents of Wayne’s mood board. Here, imagery from Men’s Health magazine initiated a discussion among the men about body envy. Wayne and Ronny discussed their own experiences of body envy particularly related to their desire to achieve a certain kind of physique:

In discussing their own senses of inadequacy, the notion of body envy, at least for Ronny and Wayne, is presented as an accepted fact of life. In this extract Dan and Ronny acknowledged that body envy is often based on unrealistic comparisons. As Ronny states, he could not achieve a particular body shape unless he dedicated his entire life to it. Ronny also establishes clear body aspirations via his engagement with UFC ¹ stating ‘oh my god imagine if I could look like that’. This demonstrated that media images play a role in how the men articulate their emotions related to body envy and how they establish aspirations for their own bodies (Saz and Rubio, 2019). That is, men are exposed to hegemonic archetypes of male bodies that are used to evaluate their own bodies. Yet the body itself and the opportunities that the men have to engage in body work establish clear limits to being able to achieve their goals.

Wayne’s use of an image of Anthony Bourdain ² and Iggy Pop ³ elicited a conversation among the group regarding aging and looks. Ronny, Wayne, and Dan all found it inspiring to see Bourdain in such ‘good shape for his age’ and Ronny found the notion of being a ‘silver fox’ ⁴ something to aspire to later in life. Ronny contributes his perspective that masculinity is something that is frequently associated with youth:

Interestingly here, the men spend little time deliberating over the circumstances of Bourdain’s suicide and focus instead on his looks and his figure. While Ronny and Dan are keen to inform Wayne of Bourdain’s suicide, collectively the men move quickly past this issue to discuss his physique. Ronny’s interjection, ‘ . . . and he looks fantastic. He looked unbelievable’, brings forth this change of focus and suggests that perhaps it is difficult to reconcile being (or looking) physically healthy and simultaneously being mentally unwell. The men’s collective skirting of this issue could be suggestive of an often discussed tendency for men to avoid conversations about mental health (Cambule, 2017; Stein, 2018; Webber, 2019). It seems that aging has the potential to conflict with the men’s ideas surrounding masculinity. Aging bodies that are nonetheless toned and muscular give the men hope that looking good and being masculine may continue further into their lives. Despite, as in Bourdian’s case, that one’s mental health may not fare so well. In this excerpt, the men’s emotions towards this issue are very much intertwined with their relations to one another. The men implicitly spur each other on which generates their positive emotional reactions to the topic of discussion.

Ronny’s mood board

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Ronny chose to represent masculinity by highlighting a paradox of caring and not caring. This sort of ambivalence echoes Robertson’s (2003) study that found a common dilemma in attitudes towards health whereby men feel that they should present themselves as not caring while being aware that they should care. However, for Ronny, the idea of caring about one’s appearance while also ‘not giving a fuck’ was quintessential to his concept of masculinity. He enjoyed the imagery of men smoking and gesturing with two middle fingers in contrast to others, such as David Beckham ⁵ and ‘Mont Blanc man’ [image top-left] who apparently take considerable care and effort over their appearance:

Ronny:

I love that guy there. He just looks like he’s been smoking all his life and he doesn’t care [image right-of-centre at the bottom edge]. I like that idea about masculinity, you know, just this guy who is like the total paradox of this guy. This guy who looks after himself lots and I can identify with him from a masculine point of view and this guy doesn’t give a fuck but he’s smoking and he looks cool

[ . . . ]

So, I like this idea that you really care and then you don’t care at all.

Wayne:

Yeah.

Ronny:

I just love that idea that it could be on both sides: oh my God I really want to have rock hard abs but also I don’t give a fuck.

Looking good and being attractive were prominent in Ronny’s explanation of his mood board. At times, during the making of his mood board, he reacted to images of men he found pleasing and suggesting that he would like to look like them. When asked to comment on how he positions himself in relation to people that he sees in media he admitted that he saw himself as quite superficial:

Ronny:

I’m like the typical knobhead. So, I like David Beckham. Oh god I just gravitate towards him because he’s got a really good sense of style [ . . . ] I love that kind of adulation where everyone kind of walks in and goes ‘oh my god its him’, like that, I love that. [ . . . ]

Ronny:

Yeah mines very superficial. I’ve always known about it, it’s just really superficial. It’s just because when I was growing up the attention was always surrounding the guys that looked good in football kit. And I was like ‘oh my god’. Because I was short and fat and looked like a lesbian [ . . . ] I always used to look up to footballers on the school team and think they were unbelievable. And the girls were just like ‘oh my god’ so I always wanted that.

Ronny elaborates on his perspective on media imagery and personalities like David Beckham and contextualises this admiration through his experiences from school. He also utilises self-deprecating humour which softens what is quite a critical admission of his own self-interests. For Ronny, masculinity was about being able to invest time and energy in appearance and self-care. He used the term metrosexual to describe a sort of masculinity that he aspires to. David Beckham was positioned by Ronny as being an archetypical example of metrosexuality. This followed a previous comment by Ronny which expressed an appreciation for the metrosexual label and the practices of male self-care. In the following extract the image of a Mont Blanc ⁶ model elicits responses from Wayne and Ronny who express their admiration for the attractiveness of the man in the image:

Ronny:

I think I’ve mentioned metrosexuality previously because I feel like I define more towards that wanting to make yourself look good, essentially. And that’s where like David Beckham and Mont Blanc man [image top-left on his board] come into it because he’s got great hair. Look at his hair.

Wayne:

That hair is beautiful.

Ronny:

That hair is gorgeous.

Ronny is the most reflexively open of the men. He continually generates meanings for the imagery he uses in relation to his own identity and life-history. The other men are perhaps a little more hesitant about engaging the same degree of reflexive self-monitoring.

Dan’s mood board

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Dan’s mood board focused on the appropriation of celebrity imagery. He did not articulate how these images reflected his own sense of masculinity instead, he used aspects of their personalities in framing a sort of idealised masculinity. Dan established a criteria for the kinds of men that he chose to present on his board. He explained that a lot of the key people presented on his mood board have a self-deprecating personality:

Dan:

The only time I’d ever stop and look at it was when there was somebody who I recognized so there’s Tom Hardy was on one of them, I think Chris Hemsworth was on one of them. But the reasons why they ended up going in [on to the mood board] wasn’t because they were on those adverts but it’s because they’ve all got a level of that apparent male bravado, that appearance, the way that they should look, but they also have the ability to be self-deprecating. So, like Tom Hardy, I’ve previously mentioned, Chris Hemsworth, especially like with the way that Thor Ragnarok has really positioned what Thor should be and could be. And the whole archetype of Thor in general, like the way that he’s paid off as just being one of the most powerful things in creation and then the further and further you get into it he’s just this completely and utterly destroyed little individual who doesn’t really know what his purpose is. [ . . . ]

Dan:

All of the guys who have wound up in here, so like Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Muhammad Ali, Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz, are all very self-deprecating. They have all got the ability to present themselves in a certain way. You look at them [and] see a level of success but at the same time they don’t make that seem like that’s what they’re defining purpose is. It always feels like they’re doing other things [at] the same time. It’s the same thing with Charlie Brooker [who] made his way up in there as well. I think Charlie Brooker is fucking ace and as far as aspirations as a human being that’s kind of where I lie [ . . . ] and just got David Lynch there because he’s an absolute badass.

Dan’s explanation of his mood board offers a mix of aspiration and admiration. At first, he suggests that he admires a type of masculinity that he describes as having ‘bravado’ yet self-deprecation, illustrated particularly through images of Tom Hardy ⁷ and Chris Hemsworth. ⁸ Yet, the para-social connection (Klimmt et al., 2013) that he feels extends beyond the lives of the celebrities themselves and into the fictional realm of their character portrayals. Earlier in the session Dan explained his inclusion of Tom Hardy on his mood board which further highlights his para-social relationships:

Dan:

[ . . . ] Tom Hardy’s made his way on to my thing [mood board] twice purely because if you asked me [about] the idea of masculinity Tom Hardy’s the first person that I would go to for that for that. Mainly because of what he does. So, you look at his acting roles and he jumps from one side of the spectrum all the way to the other He plays this insanely camp clone of Jean-Luc Picard in a really early Star Trek film, all the way to playing Bronson. And then the way that he [presents] himself in the public eye where he’s like volunteering for dog’s homes call lines and stuff like that. I just see this guy who just seems to really care and that to me is the epitome of masculinity. Not only to be the typical archetype of what a guy should look like and should act like but also be self-deprecating he’s able to acknowledge that that is what it’s supposed to look like but also go ‘nah, fuck that’ at the same time.

Moderator:

Is that aspirational for you too?

Dan:

Well it’s never really been something that I do. I don’t look at him and sort of go ‘man, I wish I was like that guy’ I look at him you sort of go ‘I’m really glad he’s doing that’.

[ . . . ]

It’s very rare that I look at other people and see something, as far as like a physical appearance, and go ‘that’s what I want to look like’.

[ . . . ]

I’ve just never really had that. I think it’s happened to me maybe twice in my life. I remember sort of looking at Chris Hemsworth not long after I shaved my beard and going ‘man, I wish I got my beard back’. And then I think it was a picture of Alexisonfire and I saw one of them wearing a plaid shirt and went ‘I’d like a plaid shirt’.

Dan’s explanation is somewhat ambivalent in that he suggests Tom Hardy represents what he sees as an archetype of masculinity in both his image and his behaviour yet when asked if his ideas of Tom Hardy are aspirational he distances himself from the possibility that he may be personally influenced by media or celebrity. Of course, the caveat to this is that he confesses two circumstances that he was influenced to change his appearance. Here, there are clearly interweaving moments of admiration and aspiration in his explanations. And yet, Dan’s reluctance to fully embrace this para-social bond. admiration for the celebrities suggests that, although he is happy to frame his conceptualisation of masculinity through these celebrity images, his reflexivity guards the uniqueness of his own identity.

Andy’s mood board

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Andy was not resistant to the study in general and was attentive to the other men and their personal opinions; however, he was very critical about using label such as masculinity. For Andy, labels were cultural or commercial obsessions that detracted people from what was truly important. Throughout the session, he was critical of the contents of the magazines and he argued that gender and identity politics are just ways that people try to make connections. Andy struggled to find meaning in the magazine content in relation to his own sense of self and his ideals. I do not see this as a negative effect of using these magazines as a stimulus. Because, despite Andy’s personal resistance, the magazines were a catalyst for his emotional reflections. He explained that from a young age he struggled to adhere to gender expectations in the same way that he perceived others were able to. Unlike the other men, Andy used only images of objects on his mood board. Because he did not find personal meaning in the images he chose to represent masculinity as problematic. For Andy, the imagery presented represent some of the ways that men are forced to adopt restrictive identity traits and practices.

When asked to explain his mood board Andy quickly shifted his commentary to broader issues of gender and identity politics. Andy expressed a sustained criticism of gender labels throughout the session but was self-assured about his own sense of identity despite his perception that he was different. As such, Andy frequently constructed statements that effectively distanced himself from what he saw as normal opinions and behaviour. This distancing was also used in relation to his own family and cultural background:

Andy:

I’ve never really felt the gender thing because masculinity is really oddly defined culturally from how I’ve grown up. Boys are just thought of to be great just because they are lads and most of the support structures that exist within my family [are] run by women.[ . . . ] It is fronted by men who believe that they have got the thing sussed but most of the men in my family are either jobless alcoholics, fat, overweight and unhealthy. And actually not really good partners. But they have a certain sense of entitlement that comes with it. They are like ‘I’m just gonna get married and I’ll fucking get my chapatis made for me’ and all that kind of stuff. When really the [women] have kept a lot of it together. And I’ve been raised by women. I have a very feminine conversation style and I’ve never really fit in with the blokes in my family because a lot of them can’t express themselves unless they are absolutely hammered.

Andy constructs a self-identity and narrative defined by resistance to commonly held masculine characteristics and practices. Andy’s statements were frequently delivered with force, volume and emotional drive that was not matched by the other men. The other men often agreed with Andy, in principal, but at other times, Andy’s perspective towards gender politics does generate debate. For example, Ronny and Andy debated if masculinity and femininity are inherent human traits or socialised. This debate stemmed from an earlier discussion of masculinity and femininity that took place in relation to the contents of Wayne’s mood board.

Ronny:

Physicality is easily definable for me. I would say ‘wow she looks very masculine’. And i know that’s probably not right.

Andy:

It’s more of a descriptor but the problem is people then get hung up on what they believe masculinity means and then they project their own feelings of masculinity on themselves. Because for you to say that someone looks masculine . . . well what does that mean? Because if you look it up in the dictionary what masculine means everyone would dispute that definition like ‘that’s not right’. Do you know what I mean?

Ronny:

I politely disagree in a sense that if you looked at a woman’s rugby team would you not define that as potentially masculine? So think if you’ve seen for the very first time women with huge thighs.

Andy:

I would characterize large thighs as a feminine trait.

Wayne:

Not when their purpose is to fucking drive through a load of other human beings.

Ronny:

Yeah. A load of other women.

Andy:

But like I don’t have that so does that make me less masculine?

Ronny:

No, because you’re bringing it back to yourself and I’m not trying to bring it back to you I’m trying to ask . . . .[Andy interrupts]

Andy:

But then how can I not bring it back to myself if we don’t have some sort of definition? [ . . . ] You can only use the word masculinity now in this conversation here. It just doesn’t work because what I define it as is completely different to what you define it as. So for you to be just like ‘no, I’m talking about masculinity in terms of the physical sense’. I’m like, well now the word is just becoming hollower and hollower as time goes on. Because you’re like well without any sort of general definition of a word it’s just nonsense. It’s just a noise. When you sit in that conversation I’m like we’re not speaking the same language with that word because of the connotations. The contexts of it are so blurred.

[ . . . ]

Ronny:

So would you look at erm a YouTuber right now who does a lot of makeup tutorials as a guy and say that’s quite feminine? Or would you not? [ . . . ]

A:

I would say actually, like personally, this is where it gets blurry. I would say that something like makeup this is quite, I want to say, man-made. I mean human-made. A superficial sort of extra that’s kind of a result of our society. I don’t know whether testosterone hormonally creates more of that competitive rough-and-tumble behaviour within men. Whereas something like doing makeup, I don’t know if makeup is something that is biologically inherent to women. [Ronny interrupts]

Ronny:

It definitely is. It definitely is. I mean, take that right back to the Egyptians it was definitely inherent.

Andy:

But men did it as well.

Ronny:

Men did it as well yeah but then it stopped. It stopped for quite a long period of time after that it wasn’t always necessary.

Andy and Ronny disagree on the source of commonly understood characteristics of gender. At other points, in the session Dan showed support for Andy’s perspective on gender as being socialised and Wayne showed similar support for Ronny’s position that gender traits are innate. This excerpt demonstrates how passionately the men guard their own knowledge of gender. For these men, their lay knowledge, be it innate or socialised, is tightly bound with their identities and self, a connection that they both defend in their own way.

Discussion

Citing Chan (2015) I noted that an aspect of creativity, and therefore mood boards, is in generating new interpretations. The participants of this study were asked to create a mood board based on their understanding of what masculinity means to them. So, by producing a mood board they are engaging in an interpretative activity constructing a particular image of themselves through the magazine sources on offer. Reflecting this, Bagnoli also found that creative methods helped to ‘open up participants’ interpretations of questions’ (2009: 547). She also argues that ‘a creative task may encourage thinking in non-standard ways, avoiding the clichés and “ready-made” answers’ (p. 566). I would support this however, based on the findings from this study, I would suggest that even though the creative task allowed the men to interpret the issue of masculinity in a non-standard way, it was still necessary for them to relay their thoughts verbally. I do not believe, however, that the participants verbal contributions were simply echoing the intended meanings of the mood boards rather, being asked to verbalise their mood boards forced the men to re-interpret what they had made and in doing so produced a new viewpoint. Although the mood boards themselves could be analysed and may offer an insight into the participants identities, without the verbal contribution there is little reliability in such an analysis and little to go on in terms of their reflexive thinking.

Combining a creative method with this form of image elicitation allowed the men to engage with the research theme in two quite different ways. I noted earlier that mood boards are produced quickly and intuitively but on the other hand, relaying the contents of their mood boards and constructing meaning verbally requires different cognitive processes. In making their mood boards, the men were invited to peruse the magazines and select images that resonated with their sense of masculinity. It was apparent, perhaps with the exception of Andy, that the men did not deliberate much over their image selections and their mood board arrangements. Contrastingly, when asked to present the boards the men endeavoured to rationalise their choices in a holistic way and make the imagery meaningful in relation to their lives and their sense of coherence as a masculine subject. It is this secondary viewpoint, elicited through being asked to re-present their mood boards, where the value in this method lies for researching men’s reflexivity.

There remains a question however, of whether the men’s accounts discussed here are evidence of reflexivity or simply self-reflection. For Giddens, reflexivity is distinguished from self-reflection insofar as it is a continuous revision of biographical narrative based on the knowledgeability of human agents drawn from abstract systems (1991). However, Burkitt (2012) disagrees that self-reflection is distinct from reflexivity. Burkitt argues that self-reflection precedes reflexivity (which is only understood to be particular to late modern life) and as such reflexivity is built upon a foundation of a person’s ability to self-reflect. If self-reflection is understood to be an inherent aspect of reflexivity, what then remains essential to this definition of reflexivity is the notion that people monitor their lives in light of knowledge made available through abstract systems. What has been demonstrated in the accounts discussed here is the intertwining of self-reflection and reflexivity. Aligning, positioning, aspiring, resisting, adopting are all aspects of the men’s reflexive processing embedded within their self-reflections.

Conclusion

I suggest here that the use of men’s lifestyle magazines in this study was well placed to enable the men to engage in reflexivity. The magazines were useful practically as they were known by all the men in some capacity and as such their preconceived ideas about the magazines aided in discussions between the participants. However, they were also beneficial in drawing the men into a reflexive mode of thinking. In this way, the magazines acted as a kind of common knowledge through which the participants negotiate, order, and communicate aspects of their gendered identities. Due to the contents of the magazines being thematically quite broad they offered the men many opportunities to situate themselves in relation to the imagery on offer. Themes such as food/cooking, bodies, aging, and fitness were popular among the group and provided opportunities to frame certain aspects of themselves and their histories. Of course, the magazines and the imagery on offer certainly influenced the issues and themes discussed by the men. However, what was important for this study was not so much the thematic content of the men’s accounts, but the processes through which they organise and present a coherent, if not partial, image of themselves.

The use of mood boards and men’s lifestyle magazines in this pilot study have been shown to elicit rich responses among the men showing their reflexive engagements. The mood board task was received positively by each of the men but for Andy the contents of the magazines were very much incongruous with his sense of self and morals. The reader should note that two of the men, Ronny and Wayne, were familiar with each other and indirectly familiar with the researcher. This may well have had some baring on establishing an atmosphere where experiences, opinions and feelings could be openly exchanged. The collective familiarity with the magazines provided a useful vehicle for discussion yet they elicited some antagonism among the men. I do not see these as negative, however, as this helped to draw out differences of opinion and the personality types of the men revealing their reflexivities. Mood boards have been used here as part of a group research activity which I have argued was appropriate in order to allow the relational aspects of reflexivity to emerge. Other researchers may consider how mood boards might also be effective when used with participants individually.