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15 April 2019
Body Image
A permanent impact has been left on the minds of the audiences of social media and mass media forums. Media now serves as a platform to integrate communication propensities which target all gender, age groups and ethnicities. Different popular websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give the audience’s a day to day update with unique images of heroes, action figures, models and actresses all over the world all the while, adhering to their regular attention; leading to a profound influence on their thinking patterns and behavior approaches. As a result the young minds now rely more and more on the widely shown models on TV shows to define their own characters and body images instead of constructing their own social images. In particular, they are widely influenced by the role models exhibited in the TV shows and movies often a representative of perfect body images with an hour glass figure for women and a strong and muscular figure for men. Almost all of the content shown on mass media encompasses unrealistic characteristics regarding body images only to attain audience’s courtesy and responsiveness, resulting in detrimental effects on the spectator’s thoughts. As a results, the spectators indulge into impulse buying to feel closer to the models and the body images they present in some way.
A Body image is how someone thinks about the way they look. Someone with a healthy body image is comfortable with their own body and accepts themselves for who they are while someone with an unhealthy body image does not and usually has negative thoughts that associate with their physical appearance. Media has a role in formulating standards in an individual’s mind regarding body image and can shape or break an individual’s life. Over time media is a major contributing factor in people developing a negative body image, especially in teens and young adults. A lot of the messages we receive in the media become almost subliminal, and when there is a consistent theme in them (for example, beauty equaling youth and a certain body type) then, just due to sheer overwhelming volume, they will add to a person’s world view. Especially if there is a tendency to compare oneself to those images, and to find oneself not looking like them, then the effects on body image can be quite negative. However, the brands are able to generate a huge pool of buyers through this technique as each individual strives to buy the endorsed make up item or product to feel as beautiful and as complete as the ideal model image represented in the ads.
Hight (2001) talks about the issue by saying that:
"Most assumptions about the psychology of social networking viewership are derived from textual analyses of reality-based programs, rather than research involving audiences. Thus, it calls for investigations of reality-based programming based on the assumption that such online campaign may implicate a network of social, economic, and political changes in modern society."
Most of the TV adverts and programs imply that the lives of the actors and models are built around the issues and events they are seen dealing with and that all of the reality appearances (showing of their skins and hour glass figures) and selfies are either candid or impromptu. This often leads the viewers to go astray from the Intellect to separate the social media from the Actual Reality. Thus, influencing the audiences to indulge into actions that they typically would not agree to be a part of. A survey in 2011 showed high ratios of young girls' acquaintance with inappropriate social problems owing to social networking sites where they took numerous medications to shape their bodies like the models shown on various TV series.
Works Cited
Hargreaves, Duane A., and Marika Tiggemann. "Idealized media images and adolescent body image:“Comparing” boys and girls." Body image 1.4 (2004): 351-361.
Perloff, Richard M. "Social media effects on young women’s body image concerns: Theoretical perspectives and an agenda for research." Sex Roles 71.11-12 (2014): 363-377.
Yamamiya, Yuko, et al. "Women's exposure to thin-and-beautiful media images: Body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact-reduction interventions." Body image 2.1 (2005): 74-80.
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