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How social media has created a body image
How social media has created a body image
Women In Advertisements And Body Image
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The main objectives in chapter 9 include the ways media attempt to influence people’s attitudes, beliefs, and/or behavior, ways media technology can be disruptive and have adverse effects on behavior, the positive and negative influences of certain kinds of media, such as advertisements or reality television programs, on self-image. Even though media is a great outlet, media has changed our generation causing effects on self-image and human interactions. Because of its pervasiveness in American culture, the media affects people in both obvious and subtle ways. Modern media comes in many different formats, including newspapers, magazines, television, social media, etc.
It is specifically teenage girls which become aware of their body and begin to say,” I hate my thighs, I hate my nose, and my boobs are too small” and they also become aware of how others view them. Social media celebrities on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, have all been creating an unrealistic image of the ideal body. “Dysmorphia, a condition in which there is dissatisfaction with body appearance, is on the rise as teen[s] struggle to reach perfection. In fact, in a study by the Keep It Real Campaign, 80 percent of all 10-year-old, American girls have been on a diet” (Gross). Many teenagers that seek cosmetic surgery do it for aesthetic and superficial reasons, and are only really concerned about their appearance.
Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.
It has been proved many times with researches that mass media has an effect on women’s body image concerns. That is, in the magazines and TV people expose to lots of beautiful thin women images and that causes women to internalize unrealistic images of female beauty. Moreover, Tiggemann’s research with Australian adolescent and young women (2009) showed that exposure to thin-ideal media images lead women to feel bad about their body as well as increases their dissatisfaction with their bodies. However, mass media impact begins to decrease among new generation and social media claim its place.
These images used to be limited to traditional mass media such as magazines, movies, and advertisements, which was consumed on a weekly or monthly basis. As history progressed, the presence of media in the daily lives of not only women, but also men, increased with the development of new technology. Now with the rise of social media, the average person engages with these types of images multiple times within one calendar day. The constant engagement with these images and the analysis of adolescents who absorb them suggest that there is a higher rate of body dissatisfaction (“Social Media Helps Fuel…”). Social media amplifies the obsession of having the ideal body; Psychological factors of disorders, like anorexia and bulimia, are common in women and are associated with unrealistic body images displayed on social media.
Researches have been done to understand these issues and “it has been the media contribute to body image dissatisfaction
What is sociological imagination? C. Wright Mills defined the sociological imagination as the capacity for individuals to understand the relationship between their individual lives and the broad social forces that influence them. In other words, the sociological imagination helps people link their own individual biographies to the broader forces of social life: "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both" (Mills 1959). In this assignment. I will use the sociological imagination to analyze a situation which had a huge impact on me, which will be body image and how media and family affect it.
Most of the time, idealized bodies in the media are an unrealistic perception of the average body. Yet the audience is unable to recognize the difference between tangible and fabricated. As a consequence, body dysmorphia can become self-destructive for those with focusing on the ideal body. These individuals obsessively focus on their imperfections in an attempt to conform to an idealistic identity. Teens and young adults have a higher tendency to become more affected by the consequences of body dysmorphia due to selfies, because of increased emphasis that media has placed on the body and appearance.
The risk factors of negative body image can be applied universally while there are specific aspects that should be taken into consideration in China. Chinese beauty ideals were distinct from Western ones; in China, traditional beauty is related with plump figure for it represents wealth and wellbeing. However, the “modernization”, “industrialization”, “rapid economic transition”, along with the accelerating “westernization” evoke the dramatic shifts in “cultural beliefs and beauty ideals” ( Xie, et al. 2006; Jung and Forbes 2007). According to Luo, Parish and Laumann (2004), females from urban area, coastal south areas and with higher education background have a relatively high body image concern, particularly in terms of body weight and body shape; the findings are associated with
Studies show that at Stanford seventy percent of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines. (BI,Cruz). Children who spend more time on the internet worry a lot more about how they look. Body image does not just happen, it is something that is influenced by many factors including parents,peers and social
Also an individual’s body image concerns could affect the adolescent girls’ rates of joining in other sports. Field (2005) results suggest that girls engage in using products that are not healthy just to get a low body weight, also in achieving other physiques girls and boys may also turn to no healthy means. Mundell (2002) found that the fifth graders were dissatisfied with their own bodies, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers after watching a video clip from the TV show. Karges (2015) found that the advanced technology or the media go through the minds of young adults and could influence in their decreased body satisfaction. Lodge (2014) results show that adolescents who spent more time on Facebook or social media were more likely to compare themselves to their friends, which shows that they have negative body
Social media is a powerful source in today’s society, 81% of the population in the United States alone has set up a social media profile. Many use the media for useful things, like educational opportunities and business inquiries. Although there are people who may look at it more in a concerning aspect. Many people today view the social media as a stage where they are judged and told what the real way to look and act is, more specifically, body image. Social Media has a negative impact on body image, through creating a perfect view physically which affects someone mentally, targeting both male and female, and turning away from the real goal of social media.
For years people have played the “blame game” with media and its effects on society. It has been questioned whether the media helps or hurts more in its overall impacts. The media consists of magazines, advertisements, TV shows, and social pages such as Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, and Facebook, all in which society seems to be addicted to. The real question is, is having all of these sources of media positively or negatively affecting society? Some people blame the media for harming society by causing eating disorders and a low self esteem.
Body shaming is one of the biggest problems in today’s generation. It is the practice of making critical, potentially humiliating comments about a person’s body, size or weight. It is obvious that all of us come in different shapes and sizes but society and the media puts a lot of pressure on us with beauty stereotypes and standards to deem some as healthy and some not. Recently, there has been a lot of controversy recently about body image and body shaming, especially among teenagers. Body shaming is an extremely personal concept and can take a negative toll on a person.
Media are platforms of mass communication that can be categorized as either new of traditional media, with new media being forms of communication that make use of technologies such as the Internet, and traditional media being more conventional forms of media such as newspapers. Media, primarily new media, is getting more popular and influential, especially in today’s day and age since we are exposed to it a lot more than in the past and also since media is more easily accessible now. The media can shape our behaviours, perceptions and opinions, and it is important to know how people are influenced and impacted by it. The media can influence someone’s perception of social reality, or perceptions of beauty or even influence people’s behaviours and habits and therefore, the media does shape who we are. One way that the media can shape who we are is by influencing our perception of social reality.
