Media In Social Media

Throughout today’s society, media contributes to almost everyone’s daily life. From informative news channels to comical television shows, media proves to be effective in advertisement, releasing messages and informing the audience. Although media proves to be wildly effective in advertising, releasing messages and informing the audience, periodically destructive and misleading messages are provided to the audience and directly influencing women. Cultural critics widely agree that media tends to negatively influence women and all the critics point to research which supports the belief that women are portrayed as subordinate to men, having no

Media enforces the social-cultural standards, which women are required to follow in order to look and behave in a manner that society considers acceptable. Newspapers, commercials, posters, magazines, fliers, reality shows, and cartoons only name a few of our everyday interaction with the media (Scholar, C.2011). However, these standards presented by media send a false perception of women, thus portraying women in a negative and disrespectful manner. Society views woman as mentally, morally, and physically inferior to men, and media is only highlighting this idea (Scholar, C.2011). In fact, media represents women in a stereotypical form of beauty, they display women as sexual objects, and create the illusion that women are ignorant.

When one thinks of media, one tends to relate media to television, news, magazines, newspaper articles, and so on. Many people do not think of media is something that portrays negative effects on young women. However, young women are more susceptible to lower self-esteem resulting in eating disorders or depression more today than ever before. The media projects negative and undermining images of women and one does not have to look very hard to realize this. The media projects images of unrealistic women who only look the way they do because of plastic surgery or airbrushing techniques. The media has much greater effects on young girls than anything else in our culture today. Our society has created an environment so obsessed with

“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.

Miss Representation conveys that media is derogative to the most powerful women in the United States. People learn more from the media than any other source because it is the message and messenger. Americans devote about 10 hours and 39 minutes daily to consuming media (Howard). The media’s misrepresentation of women in movies, television shows, and advertisements negatively shapes politics, our national discourse, children’s inquisitive minds, and ultimately society. The danger behind these stereotyped images of women is that their effect is subconscious, meaning we slowly become accustomed to a sexist portrayal of women without even immediately realizing it. To cease our unrealistic, prejudiced expectations of women, a culture change is necessary.

A major modern problem with the media is the sublimation of, and reaffirmation of, stereotypical female gender roles. “The media treats women like shit” (Cho). Which is a serious issue because of Marshall McLuhan’s famous words, “The Medium is the Message” (Warwick). The medium up for discussion is the media, which can be fundamentally defined as the most significant “single source of information that people have today (Katz). Therefore, in order to understand “what’s going on in our society” (Katz) it is “absolutely imperative to “understand media” (Katz). Media and technology are “shaping our politics, our national discourse and most of all, they’re shaping our children’s brains, lives and emotions” (Steyer). Caroline Heldman, PhD, and

In today’s world us humans are surrounded by the media which shapes our beliefs, behavior, and perspective. Within the media, there is a vast amount of gender roles, stereotypes, and sexualization that clout our views on what we think of eachother. Gender roles consist of what people are drawn to believe what is the correct way to speak, act, and dress. Gender roles within the media sway the way that people think, which should not happen because there is no true definition of what intelligence, beauty, or what normal behavior is. Gender roles create stereotypes, body images, suggest that women aren’t equal to men, and imply that people should act a certain way. Gender roles within the media have an immense impact of what information impacts and influences people and their thoughts.

Women should be submissive and be ruled by Men, according to some people. It is a known fact that women have been oppressed greatly by the generally patriarchal structure of the society. However, it is also evident that women have fought for equality. However, the female portrayal in the media has halted this advancement and even reversed it in some ways. Additionally, the media has deteriorating effects on females. The media of today makes women seem less desirable while also objectifying, over sexualizing and stereotyping them on a great level. This, in turn, has a very negative influence on females of all ages and forces younger girls to conform to the media’s marketed female ideal. Ultimately, the female portrayal in the media has too

Before taking feminist perspectives I had awareness towards the influences of media. I did not however implement a lot of concentrated or critical thinking towards the impacts media provides to all people of society. Personally I fell into the trap of wanting the “white picket fence”. I also fell into and still currently do strive for the media portrayals of normal for success of women. This includes the desire to thin, and attractive. I criticize myself and lack self confidence as I perceive myself as not fitting the normal. I don’t fit the normal that media perceives, and I act as they direct me to of needing to change to fit this normal. Media shapes our perception, but does so by providing

Media has long been a way to send specific messages to a selective audience. Magazines, television, movies, ads, and even video games have become a way tell people how they should appear or behave. While not all media influences are negative, most are not positive. Some television shows or movies have programmed gender roles into society’s minds. Also, magazines especially, advertising has distorted impressionable men and women’s body image. These are only two of the many influences the media has on human behavior.

According to a Dove Research, “ Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful.” The media has affected women through standards. Three changes that should be done to stop the effects of women portrayed in the media are stopping the sexism, photoshopping and stereotyping.

In contemporary society, the mass media could reach massive numbers of people. Although there are different forms of mass media: the internet, radios, magazines, newspapers, televisions, commercials, etc., the variety of media’s portrayal of women is very limited. There are very few categories that women are represented: a caregiver, a beauty, an innocent, and a femme fatale. According to the research article, “Women Are Seen More than Heard in Online Newspapers,” Sen Jia (2016) reports, women are routinely underrepresented in the world’s media. Significantly, the appearances of women would be in the form images more than text or interview. It seems the value of women lies in the superficial attractiveness and feminine manners. This is not

The roles that women portray in public advertising, television, magazines, the internet, and any other form of media, have a huge impact on the way society views them. We all have our own interpretation of how a woman is supposed to act and look like. Our vision of the “ideal woman” and “ideal image” has greatly changed over time, especially nowadays with our new ways of thinking. At a very young age, we are unknowingly taught what society expects from us and what we must accomplish to be successful, regardless of being a male or female. One of the ways we learn those expectations is from the different networks of media.

Nowadays the media plays an important role in society. Media outlets have been used through the years as a way to communicate and maintain the world together. They were often seen as something positive because they were able to provide information from all around the world to a person’s home. As cited by Parsons, Reichl, and Pedersen (2017), while the media is often used as personal enjoyment and diversion it had grown to be a way in which individuals explore and expand their curiosity on subjects such as personal enrichment, self-awareness, and sexuality. However, negativity has also come with this popular trend. Since a young age, individuals are exposed to different messages through the media. The media has become a way to promote and incite stereotypes that might influence people into believing they must behave or look a certain way in order to be accepted into society. By promoting certain stereotypes, the media has found a way to reinforce and reproduce certain gender norms. For instance, the role-learning theory supports this idea by mentioning that the images that the media portrays become the ideas as to how people develop their beliefs and self-concepts (Andersen, 2015). In other words, the media has developed the power to influence how people believe they should behave and look. In brief, some of the media outlets that have influenced the perception of gender in society are television, magazines, and Internet.

Today’s society is centered on media rather it be broadcasting media, print media, mass media, or social media. Media is the center of it all. The media is our way of staying up to date on the latest news, passing and receiving information, basically keeping our lives in motion. The media has the ability to create social norms. One social norm that rubbed writer/director of the documentary “Miss Representation” Jennifer Seibel Newsom the wrong way was the misrepresentation of women in the media. The main claim or argument behind “Miss Representation” is that woman now days are being judged only on their appearance rather then their knowledge, achievement, and or power.