Ads And Other Media Woman example essay topic

Media Manipulation There is a very subtle, yet powerful force at work on our world today. It is trying to control what woman and young girls do say and believe, especially about their own appearances. The media portrays unrealistic images that affect the way people, particularly woman, feel about themselves. And there is no way to avoid it. The media acts as a transmitter of potentially dangerous, socially desirable values and norms.

Anyone can become a victim without even realizing it. Woman are told to believe distortions, inaccuracies, and bias on a daily basis. Somehow in that all the madness thinness has become synonymous with attractiveness. It is the media's job to surround us with slogans and pictures that are able to etch themselves into brains. (Stevens 44) Television, movies, magazine ads, commercials and billboards all attribute to the growing influence the media has on women. (web). Young girls are the most influenced by the media and its manipulation. (web).

However, society as well as the media, has put forth dangerous and concentrated images, that have a strong impact on the lives of woman of all ages. Society has always placed a great emphasis upon the importance of a woman's appearance, and through that emphasis woman have been taught to measure their self worth in terms of the image they present, even more so than their own intelligence. They have been given rigid and challenging standards to live up to, standards that are usually unrealistic, unattainable, and disheartening. Many woman spend the majority of their lives suffering just trying to reach these standards. The ideal body image in this country today seems to be the long haired 5' 7', 110 lb. female found in every fashion magazine and television show. However, many woman at Johns II 5' 7' could starve themselves their entire life and never reach the so called 'ideal'.

(Rushkoff 27). The persuasive and intrusive nature of current advertisements conveys a certain value system that is unacceptable yet unavoidable. Commercials, billboards, and magazines now have become sly and seductive sellers tolls. The clever, catchy tunes that tell woman their bodies aren't good enough get placed in the back of a woman's mind never to escape.

It's proof of the power of influence. According to Ba kari Chav anu, author of an article in rethinking schools. org, 'Students today are more influenced by the popular media outside the classroom that by the textbooks and novels they are forced to read. By the time a person graduates high school they watch 22,000 hours of television, and they " ve seen 350,000 commercials by the age of seventeen. ' (web). They watch it all voluntarily, unable to recognize the damage being done. The images in and on TV shape the values of young people as well as adults. Sadly, these same images are part of a culture in which one out of every woman has an eating disorder, (Levinson 46) girls and younger woman increasingly have problems with low self esteem that eventually leads to dangerous behavior, (web ERIC... ) and where illusions are almost always shattered.

Through ads and other media woman are told to believe that the average woman in the real world is white, under 40, not disabled, always heterosexual, and her body (even though absolutely beautiful) is in constant need of improvement. Johns In setting unrealistic expectations the media has shown to be directly related to contributing to severe eating disorders among women. (Pritchard 16). There is a never ending pressure on women to have their appearances to fit an 'ideal' created by society. Today the difference is that the mass media has spread the current body and self image myths to a global female audience. The preliminary purpose of commercial mass media is to sell something and doing so by correlating products to achieving goals such as becoming rich, sexy, or thin.

All over the place woman are depicted as being thin, attractive, and 'practically perfect in every way'. According to a recent study by Radar, it notes that, ' between 26% and 46% of woman in the media's eye are portrayed thin or very thin. ' (web). Furthermore researchers have determined that, '69% of all female television characters are slim, while only 5% are overweight. ' (web). Women identify with these constant visual images of these thin women being presented as their ideals in the media. 7 out of 10 girls have said that wanted to look like, dress like, and be like an actress or model. 16% of those girls say that they have dieted in order to become more like them. (web).

A dramatic example of the effect on women after introduction of mass media is found in the South Pacific, where 'following the introduction of Western television in Fiji, there was a surge in the rate of (female) eating disorders' Thus, exposure to media can change self-perception and directly lead to unfavorable, wholesale changes in female behavior. The previously unexposed population in Fiji were thus introduced via mass media to an already common phenomenon in the United States, where '80% of women who answered a 'People' Johns IV magazine survey responded that images of women on television and in the movies made them feel insecure. ' (web). The problems from media's influence start early. When preschoolers were given dolls with varying weight, 9 out of 10 girls choose the thin doll. (Pritchard 17) Children are highly vulnerable to suggestion and implanting ideas the media. Even some teens have not fully developed abstract reasoning skills and are especially vulnerable to media influence because its hard to separate reality from fantasy.

From a young age kids see fat as bad. Their ideas come from the images equating slenderness with health and beauty. According to David Levinson, '... one half of all forth grade girls are on a diet, and 81% of all ten year olds are afraid of being fat. ' Further evidence that this is a growing problem is that, ' in 1970 the average age a girl started dieting was 14, by 1990 that age had dropped drastically to a very young 8 years old. ' (Levinson 27). The increasing social pressures are reflected in voluminous media messages where 37% of the articles in teen magazines included a focus on appearance. (web).

It is understood that self esteem of girls plummets in adolescents. Studies show that girls between the ages of 11 and 26 are more fearful of gaining weight than getting cancer, a nuclear war, or losing their parents. (web). It is during the teenage years that the influence of the media combines with dating and interests in romance and sex to heighten female concerns about their personal attractiveness and thus the shape and weight of their developing bodies. (Stevens 38).

'The Journal of Social Issues' reported in their recent findings that the 'media is believed to encourage girls to form unrealistically thin body ideals, Johns V which are unattainable for most females and 'to inspire girls to look like unrealistic and unhealthy models and actresses. ' It should be noted that only 5% of the population is genetically born with the body type of a classic model. (web) Among these rare body types, 'it is important to realize that the average model weighs 23% less than the average woman. By medical standards, most models are anorexic. Yet, these underweight actresses and models in the media represent a high 69% of what women see on TV and in print, even though these models represent only 5% of the overall population by body type. (web).

This obviously creates a disparity between who we see in the media and what is attainable and normal for the average woman, causing these females to deny (and even despise) their own physiology as to what is normal weight and what is not. 1 out of every 5 women is dissatisfied with her appearance, and 2 out of every 5 would trade 3 to 5 years of their lives in order to achieve weight goals. (web) According to Jean Kilbourne author of, KILLING US SOFTLY, advertisements seen throughout a lifetime, 'show all beautiful women. ' So naturally, '... woman feel that they can achieve that look, but that they are not trying hard enough to get it. ' Berating oneself to try harder in seeking to achieve an unattainable goal is grounds for depression, self loathing, anxiety and cause for spiraling into severe dieting or even into anorexia or bulimia. (Epstein 2) Everyday, the media thus serves to, '... repeatedly remind woman of how far they are away from the 'ideal. ' ' (Kilbourne 27).

Johns VI There is nothing wrong with dieting, or exercising, or striving for self-improvement. However, the problem arises when women are forced into an unrealistic or dangerous role model, that may even defy their biology, and when this societal and media pressure leads to severe eating disorders among women who believe that they cannot otherwise attain this perceived 'ideal's tate. The media plays a major role in setting the standard as to what 'beauty' is, as the About. com site notes, in finding that, 'the average person sees between 400 and 600 ads per day -that is 40 million to 50 million by the time she is 60 years old. One of every 11 commercials has a direct message about beauty. ' There is abundant evidence that by communicating unhealthy or infeasible goals for appearance, the media can directly cause an increase in eating disorders among women. A Hofstra University research group reported that: 'A study examined over 4,000 TV ads.

On the average, 1 out of every 3.8 ads had an 'attractive-based' message. (web). These results were used to estimate that women are exposed to over 5,000 of these ads a year, (web) and each one adds to women's body dissatisfaction and the desire to be thin and 'beautiful. '.