Essay 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

in the way women are portrayed in modern culture and society. The documentary forces us to

“Miss Representation” is a documentary film that is made by Jennifer Seibel Newsom. This film talks about many issues from the roles of females in politics, and the ways in which media negatively impacts women. The film examines how the media have contributed to the underrepresentation of women. Therefore, eventually, the film is persuading people to be open-minded, and study how media affects our perception, judgment, and behaviors. The targeted audience of this film is all people who live in America. People should be convinced to change their mind about stereotypes on women. Jennier effectively convinces the audience that the mainstream media has mainly contributed to the under-representation of women through the use of statements claimed

The Miss Representation documentary film by Jennifer Newsom explores how media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions. This message is portrayed by delivering content through media and technology as well as advertising partial and/or often degrading interpretations of women. The consequences are becoming more and more dreadful. In today’s world, composed of a million stations, people will tend to do more and more shocking things to break through the crowds. They resort to violent, sexually offensive, or demeaning images. Jean Kilbourne, EdD, filmmaker, Killing Us Softly Author and Senior Scholar Wellesley Center’s for Women states, that “it creates a climate in which

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

Last Tuesday, I attempted to unplug myself from the world of media and see how it affected my everyday life. After trying to disconnect myself from everything that involves media, I realized how much I rely on it to get me through each day. I was never this aware of its presence in today’s society until disconnecting myself. Without media to rely on, I found myself having to readjust my whole normal routine just to get through the day.

The media plays a major role in the way our society sets certain standards and forms opinions. No matter where we go, the media is everywhere. The message that the media illustrates today is that “thin is in”. When was the last time you flipped through a magazine or through the television channels without seeing some type of advertisement promoting a new diet or new product being promoted by a super thin model or actress? Young girls are the main targets for new products. It is common for young girls to be obsessed with what is “in”. The message that young girls are getting from the media is that having bones sticking out is the way to look. They then become preoccupied with their bodies and self image. “ The exposure to ideal images coincides with a period in their lives where self regard and self efficacy is in decline, where body image is at its most fragile due to physical changes of puberty and where tendency for social comparison is at its peak” (www.eating-disorders.org.uk/docs/media.doc). The media illustrates to young girls an “idealized” shape which leads to being beautiful, popular, successful, and loved but which is not realistic to have unless you have the “idealized” shape. Therefore, they believe that their lives will be perfect as long as they are thin and have the “idealized” shape. The two main sources of media that reach young girls are television and magazines.

In Miss Representation, many female actresses, news anchors, politicians, directors and producers talk about how females suffer a lot of social, political and economic inequalities in today’s society. There are double standards against women in magazines, on TV, in movies, the news, politics, and the workplace. The media is an influential part of modern culture. When women are portrayed as objects for men to use -- never as the protagonist or president -- and when female news anchors are objectified, this will cause girls of all ages to begin viewing themselves as objects. Girls grow up in a world where their voice does not count; where our culture does not embrace them in all of their diversities, where

Media is a huge part of everyone’s day-to-day life. I know that is the first thing I and many others look at when I wake up, so it is bound to influence and shape our opinions in some way. Judgement, especially towards women, is a major part of what media talks about. In class we talked about how media paints a picture of this judgment is okay and to the point where it is normal to patronize women for how they talk, walk and dress. It has gotten to the point where it is common to treat women as objects say and do whatever they want because media does it every day.

The film Miss Representation (2011) directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom explores an alarming and downplayed problem that is reoccurring in media that overlaps into the life of many girls and women. The media drills sexualized images along with “ideal” characteristics of how women should be; youthful, skinny, and beautiful with a strong sex appeal. Women are under constant scrutiny whether they are in powerful positions such as Hillary Clinton or playing a sexualized character in a movie like Jessica Simpson. Clinton and Simpson receive different types of sexist comments but nonetheless offensive and degrading.

“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.

(Heubeck 2006) For many young people, especially girls, the ideal continues to chase them as they grow into young women. Young girls begin to internalize the stereotypes and judge themselves by media’s impossible standards. The power that the media holds in impacting the lives of young girls is detrimental and eventually affects their body image, their satisfaction of their own body, and portrayal of their body as an object.

The importance of the body image and what is considered to be the ‘ideal’ body are two of the primary factors that contribute to the negative affect of the media on the teenage society of today.

The message that was presented in the video “Miss Representation” was that the media is a powerful tool to shape the world. However, the media has been utilized not for the benefit of human being instead in the most negative way that anyone can possibly think of. It has indeed shape the representation of women globally in this generation. It degenerated the name of woman and what they are capable in this world whether they are use for political, and/or economical. The trailer for Miss Representation presented this powerful message through the usage of a video of selected people being interviewed about feminism and the cruelty that they endure during the twentieth century. This highly sensitive message in the video of Miss representation is

The depiction of women in all forms of media, including print, broadcasted and internet media, is constantly showing that they are the weaker of the two sexes.