Media 's Impact On The Media

The culture of media has now taken a large affect on young girls and their body images. Young girls are feeling dissatisfied with their bodies because of the way society views women. The media tells us what to look like, what clothes to wear, make-up, what cars to drive, and sometimes what to eat. Media is changing people constantly through advertising and by showing us the looks and fashions of celebrities. Advertising has negative effects on the formation of oneself as seen through the nature of the promotion of its’ products. This effect is particularly prevalent among young adolescent girls. Young girls feel the need to join dietary plans or result to eating disorders Advertising in society results in negative effects on girls through self-image that leads to harmful consequences. The media is the biggest factor contributing to girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies, causing eating disorders.

Once upon a time, you probably liked your body and appreciated the many things it could do, but the route to adulthood, doubts and insecurities may have crept in. The images the media exposures the society to are of thin and beautiful women and extremely muscular men. There are negative affects to what the media is showing the body image and mood states of young women and men. The mass media is designed to reach large audiences through the use of technology. From the moment nations wakes up until they fall asleep they are confronted with media. Every home in America has at least one or more of these things a TV, the internet, and cell phones. When driving down the highway it is almost impossible not to see some type of advertisement. What the media portrays of body image affects teens negatively through using stereotypes, and promoting unnecessary products. The media uses stereotypes to portray what a "normal" body should look like. Women are often shown unrealistically thin and men with abnormally great muscle tone. These advertisements are damaging the youths mental health but also the physical state. When the youth gets too damaged it could lead to eating disorders and other not so healthy things. Never fear though if they develop a eating disorder there are many places to seek help. Thesis: Although accepting more normal body types has become a recent trend, the mass media should not have such a big effect on the society’s body image.

Media in Society: A Brief Introduction’s chapters one, two, three, and four delve into detail about how we are able to understand and analyze the media, how we view the media as metaphors, all different ways images capture meanings, and all the various narratives that are presented by the media. Beginning with chapter one, this particular chapter discusses how we understand media in our society in various ways. It introduces the critical process to comprehend media content. This chapter also describes the diverse forms of media criticism named reflectionist, contructivist, and narrativist and how they tell stories about the media.

As technology advances media becomes more prominent in our society and culture. In the world today, pictures of thin models and photoshopped advertisements are hanging everywhere and impossible to escape. Media constantly pushes these unrealistic images and advertisements on both women and girls pressuring them to live up to an unattainable beauty standard. [Although the world knows that the media has many negative effects, society still clings to it for entertainment, but the time has come to take a stand and start making the necessary changes to resolve these issues such as, the negative correlation on self-esteem levels, the development of eating disorders, and the negative influences on children.] Fix Thesis

The goal of the research is two levels: 1.) To explore the girls’ actual media consumption and how they relate with thin media models in various categories of media. This first level of questioning was done by a survey. 2.) To experimentally examine if exposure to ultimate image models in different media forms has an impact on adolescent girls’ body and their unhappiness with their bodies. This was done by linking pictures of a band girl with music video or magazine article real life format of the same band girl. Two studies were conducted for each

Mass media affects women’s body image in many ways. “Media images of ridiculously thin women are everywhere- television shows, movies, popular magazines” (Farrar). Starting at a very young age, girls are exposed to media suggestions about what the “ideal” female body image should be. “Concern over weight and appearance related issues often surface early in females’ development, and continues throughout the lifespan” (Serdar).

To begin with, media is increasingly affecting body image; men and women are steadily becoming more and more dissatisfied with their bodies and there is evidence to support that this effect may very well be because of media. Evidence to support that media is the culprit behind this negative change is the emphasis that media puts on thin bodies for women and muscular bodies for men. In fact, research states the media has consistently throughout history and today highly emphasized the importance of being below average in weight for women and hypermuscular for men; these images are unrealistic and often times lead to body dissatisfaction especially in adolescents (Benowitz-Fredericks, Garcia, Massey, Vasagar, & Borzekowski, 2012).

Mass media is overwhelmingly present in today’s society. Although mass media is a convenient and important form of communication, does this constant flow of interaction have unintended consequences for the public? In an increasingly connected culture, the influence of mass media on one’s perceived body image is important to consider. The media influences how individuals act and interact in their daily lives. The complex effects of exposure to unrealistic images of beauty are especially concerning to sociologists. For example, a feminist analyzing mass media and body image would argue that social pressure to be thin leads women to compete with each other, wasting resources that one could otherwise use for self-development (Park, 2005, p. 609-610).

Media can bee seen as a channel of communication in whereupon millions of people frequently use in their daily lives. So, with all of this technology around, how is the media portrayal of beauty affecting women? According to Cheryl J. Haas, Laura A. Pawlow. Jon Pettibone, and Dan J. Segrist, “Research has shown media exposure to unattainable physical perfection is detrimental to people, especially women and that inimical effects are currently more the rule than the exception” (1). When a person feels as if they do not compeer with the standard of beauty media has set, that individual develops negative emotions towards themselves which can lead to ailing eating habits including binge-eating, purging, or starving. Several studies further reveal a show in decrease of self-esteem, including other psychological distress, following exposure to idealized media portrayal.

The media have been criticized for portraying the thin women as “ideal” .This research plans to look at the effects of media on the body image of women. This cumulates the findings of empirical studies that observe the effects of media on body image. This study will also look at the different social comparison theories that relate media and body image. It will also investigate the different sources of media that have an impact on the body image of women. It also scopes to find out which sources have a greater consequence than the others. Furthermore it also researches about how the women could be prevented from comparing their body image from that of the models and actresses portrayed in the media.

Different types of media shape perceptions of ideal bodies greatly. The picture of an ideal body is everywhere, on magazine covers, commercials, tv shows, celebrities, and many other forms of media. Society, by being surrounded by these images, has developed an ideal body and pressures people to fit into that mold. This is especially evident when looking at young females. The effect or media on body image can best be observed when looking at the media itself, how people view their own bodies, and how the youth has been affected. The media’s ideal body has created an unhealthy and unreachable standard of beauty.

Another study looked at the effects of media images on television and the effects it has on female’s perception of their body image. In this study, the participants were asked how many hours of television they watched a day, then how many of these programmes were ones with characters in that have ‘perfect’ physiques, such as 90210 etc. then the bmi of each participant was taken and was compared with how much television they watched and how much of this television contained media of body images. The results in this study suggested that the media did have an impact on body dissatisfaction. Adolescent girls based their ideal body images on characters on the television that have the ‘perfect skinny’ body image. When the participants questioned their body image after the exposure, it made them feel worse about themselves and strive to have the ‘perfect’ body image. [4]

Mass media give narrow definition about the standard of beauty. Delis noticed this massage everywhere, especially in the media, “I am so affected by Glamour magazine and Vogue and all that; I’m looking at all these beautiful women. They’re thin. I want to be just as beautiful. I want to be just as thin. Because that is what guys like” (Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy 12). The media representation of the thin ideal has been connected to the predominance of body image dissatisfaction and dieting disorders. This is also one of the important reason about the connection between the media and body image. This connection is serious because low body image sometimes leads to disordered eating (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating), which in turn can lead to death in the United States. Mass media does not measured healthy habit. It is only measured women waist, hip, and thigh. The pressure to be unhealthy thin is a reality of the today’s society. Reading of the fashion magazines that women use these magazines for information about how to be thin and beautiful that should be influencing Females’ dieting behaviors. Everyday teenage girls and women are victim with a narrow definition of beauty, which is only limited in physical appearance. In addition, it is influenced by mass media.

This source is an academic (scholarly) journal. This article explains clearly how the power that mass media communication has in reaching a great audience, and how this feature of it used by the fashion media to propagandize extreme thinness among women. Knowing the considerable influence that TV, Internet, newspapers, and magazines have in one’s daily life fashion media managed to use wisely the content of their magazines and advertisements. In order to more easily convey the readers that slenderness is the real meaning of the ideal body image they would refer to fatness as something to be ashamed of. The research that is the main focus of the article, states that mass media gives a misconception of the factors that lead to extreme thinness

In today’s digital-based world of smartphones, wifi, and screens in every room, it is hard to deny that people are impacted by the media around them. People are constantly exposed to digital media that affects the way they view the world, their society and themselves. While the constant exposure to media can sometimes lead to positive effects on people, this is not typically the case. Today’s TV programs, video games and other media have caused rigid gender stereotypes in society. Masculinity and femininity are defined by the entertainers and athletes people are constantly seeing on their TVs, computers and phones. The impact of this is most prominent for children. For young people who are constantly learning from their surroundings, their exposure to media affects their understanding of each gender. This leads to skewed perceptions of themselves and others, causing self-esteem issues from a young age.