The Media 's Influence On Society

Everyday we see many images in the media and they suggest what we should be like. While the media says how we should act or look, these suggestions invade people’s thoughts. The images the media portrays make it hard to break out of socially constructed stereotypes in our lives. The media reflects dominate and social values of people’s lives. The media also portrays gender by creating stereotypes and gender roles showing how men, women, and transgenders are seen as deviant. In the media, men are portrayed to be “masculine” while females are shown to be “feminine”. Transgenders are viewed in many negative ways and they are stereotyped. Gender stereotypes are expressed more in mass media because it reaches large audiences. The media can influence people to think that what they see is reality. Most of the time the media shows men to be more dominant than woman. This is a way the media influences people to be someone they aren’t.

Media plays an important and influential role in society. The media effects so many different institutions throughout a society that researchers have began to wonder how the media is really effecting these processes. Over the years many models have been developed to explain this process. The models that I will look at, include the hypodermic model, the mass society theory, the minimal effects model, and the agenda setting and priming model. Before looking at these models, we must first look at some of the challenges researchers ran into while trying to understand the media effect. Many researchers believed that media had influence on the public, but did not change or have an effect on what the public believed in. However this was false statement, “This idea contrasted sharply with the public’s general perception that media play a very influential role in society. There are three major reasons for this gap in perceptions” (Graber 2009a). The first reason for this misperception was because of how narrow researchers looked at the effects on media issues. An example of this is when researchers looked at voters and whether certain media exposure would alter their vote. They concluded that there was no media influence, but the catch was that these studies were conducted during a time when party loyalty was very strong. This would be an important factor in the reasons why media did not influence the publics vote. To gain a better understanding researchers should have,

Throughout the years the use of technology has increased, and expanded. Mass media plays a vital role in society. Mass media can be defined as any means of communication, to an extremely large group of people. Technological advancements have been extremely beneficial for prior generations, the generation we now live in, and will be for the future generations to come. Such as, providing news for the world to hear, entertainment, and much more. Some examples of media would be television, films, newspapers, and the Internet. Unfortunately along with benefits, there are disadvantages concerning gender discrimination, and sexism. Such as, women feelings forced and obligated to stay at home with their children instead of working, and the representation of beauty involving both men and women. Examples of how the media can accomplish this would be through the use of advertisements, movies, magazines, and the radio. The media has an enormous effect on people within society today.

Women around the world face overwhelming oppressions in their daily lives. That is not news to anyone and these oppressions have occurred for so much of history, that it is often times overlooked by the mass majority; even the younger generations of women do not know the types of oppressions that they will soon have to face. To combat this, FCKH8.com, a well known organization that sells t-shirts and other merchandise with witty anti-racism, anti-homophobic, and pro-feminist catchphrases on them, created the video, “Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism”. As the title implies, the video contains little girls, ages six through eleven, aggressively yelling “FUCK,” towards the camera while rattling off facts and statistics about some of the oppressions women face because of their gender. The comment section of this video is erratic; the viewers often have conflicting views about the meaning of the video as well as whether or not it was successful in its purpose. One thing is for sure, the video makes an impact by using several rhetorical devices including word choice, pathos and logos; all which separate it from other pro-feminism videos that exist.

Body image is “emotions regarding the aesthetic value and relative beauty of the person’s body (Airbrushing).”There has always been a standard flaunted by celebrities of the size zero Hollywood Thin. The average model is 5’11 and 110 pounds, while the average woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds (Unhealthy Picture). The perfect body has been shown to been an extremely thin woman with large breasts and small waist. A runway model is made to be like a hanger, with a straight, thin figure and plain face for the designer to put clothes on and make up to their liking. In magazines, the girls should be thin and beautiful. In fact, 80% of women say that women in magazines or on TV make them doubt themselves and make them feel insecure (Just Say Yes). But these

When people think of the new body image, we automatically think models. Well, yes, models are a major factor in the body image persona, but it’s not just models. The media broadcasts the “thin ideal” in every possible way that we can think of. Researchers have found that the ongoing exposure to the “thin ideal” can shape and distort adolescent female’s perceptions of beauty, particularly in television media. Take the movie Cinderella for example. Cinderella is portrayed as a beautiful, thin, feminine female while her “ugly” stepsisters are shown as short, overweight and masculine. However, it is not just

“When all you see is a body type that only two percent of the population has, it’s difficult to remember what’s real and what’s reasonable to expect of yourself and everyone else.” This was stated by Arielle Cutler, who studied the recent effects social media has on the female body image. Not only has media made women feel insecure about their bodies but it pinpoints exactly what bothers them. It could be weight, skin problems, height, and even a clothing style. The media sends subliminal messages into a female’s brain that makes them think they need to reach the expectations of what they read on the internet and in magazines or what they see on television (TV). The pressure a female is put under to become the “ideal woman” is detrimental to their health, not only physically but also mentally. The images of beauty are unrealistic and are constantly changing, making it hard to keep up with the latest body trend.

“The media 's the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. Because they control the minds of the [people]” (Malcolm X). The message of this Malcolm X quote is that society can control the mind of the individual. This is true. For many years, society has influenced everyone worldwide both negatively and positively. That is because society has the ability to control the individual’s decisions. They can control the individual in making their decisions that could affect people’s lives worldwide; it also has the ability to control their decisions that could affect the individual’s life. You might be thinking “But why should we care about this topic? This doesn’t seem really important to us” well it’s important because we all can relate to this as everyone has been influenced by society at least once in their lifetime. Just ask yourself this. Have you ever simulated a role model that you had by just copying the actions that they do just because you wanted to be just like them? Have you picked up habits from society that is around you like family or peers that has affected you in your life? Have you ever maybe tried something you found from your family members or from the Internet to get your personal needs? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are involved in this conversation. But there’s a problem. There’s an argument going on about this topic. The controversy of this topic

As we all go about in our everyday lives, we are all bombarded with messages concerning what we should look like. However, females are more concerned with body image in fact, 91% percent of women are unhappy with their bodies. So what should we look like, according to media surrounding us in magazines, billboards, tv, even books? The answer is thin. The models depicted are often 13 to 19% below healthy weight! As females across the United States are exposed to this media they are belittling themselves in more ways, only 5% of females naturally poses the body type we see in today’s media. When we can’t reach these unrealistic

Women tend to be more dissatisfied with their bodies than males (Kasey L. Serdar, 2015) and this dissatisfaction stems from a warped view of themselves in addition to the warped view of what they should look like to fit the media’s standard. Women view themselves as larger and less attractive than they actually are. This is most likely due to the fact that when a woman views herself as attractive society tells her she vain and cocky. It is an emotional standard that women are not supposed to realize their own beauty. “[I]t is not the Photoshopped female who is our enemy; we do a good enough job destroying ourselves on our own”(Dan Reimold, 2014), this quote puts into words that women are their own worst enemy. This causes women to be more sensitive to how the are viewed and if they fit the mold which escalates the problem of the media set image

Most girls and women have looked into the mirror and said to themselves, “I wish I could be thinner,” or something along that line. The saying may be clique, but it is true that females of all ages have said to be disapproved of their body. The majority of women living in the United States have negative feelings about the way they look (Gallivan, 2014). The media is usually blamed for having negative effects on females’ identity and body image (Spurr, Berry, Walker 2013, p. 31). After all, the media is always in people’s faces in some way. It seems like the perfect body type is here to stay. The ideal body image is displayed on television, in magazines, social media, altered images, making females disapprove their own bodies.

In today’s society, high standards have been imposed on the men and women in America. While men have the standard of being muscled and fit, women have created the idea of being thin and petite. Even though, there is a new movement of larger sized models being publicly distributed, there is still a large stigma on the ideal body size and shape. People in today’s society have become obsessed with their physical image to the point that it is unhealthy Public companies supplying goods for mass production, media, and modern trends have forced men and women to become ashamed of their bodies.

I often wonder about our humanity given the current state of affairs in our nation and abroad. America has been a powerful and abundant nation through a lifetime of wars and financial crisis but today is a different time for many of us. What is the media producer’s role in our very own implosion? What is our, the “media user” role in it?

The media industry is the state of our actuality. Society expects for the news to keep them informed on what is going on around the world. There are several different kinds of media; there is the newspaper, radio, and television. Each category has its own different stage that has modeled the media to be as influential as it is in society today. Along with all other forms of media, newspapering has played a huge role in the way society view the media industry. Through time many changes have occurred, are occurring, and will continue to develop in the future. The media have an immense impact on society.

Every generation has a set of values that they believe make a person beautiful. In the 1940’s and 50’s it was considered beautiful to be a voluptuous woman. A woman with a large chest and full hips was the ideal woman, such as Marylyn Monroe. The difference between then and now is, young women could escape this image if need be. Today it is impossible to ignore the stick thin super models on bill boards, TV, and in magazines. The influence of society on teenagers is so much that men actually expect a woman to be that stick thin model or they are considered “fat”, “tubby”, etc. The average fashion model is 5'9" to 6' tall. The average American woman is 5' 4" tall. The average fashion model weighs 110-118 pounds. The average American woman