Media and Unrealistic Body Image Essay - 1053 Words

Rationale Today’s culture has placed women across the globe in a position where they are constantly flooded with idealistic images that depict what the media perceives as the â€Å"perfect body.† Quite often, young university-attending females, those who are involved in social identity formation, are exposed to numerous forms of media that fabricate various experiences relative to body image. In the past, researchers have surveyed women who are exposed to body-related standards using multiple forms of mass media as a unified entity, which has caused for limitations since each means -such as magazine advertisements- differs in relation to how a thin idealistic image is portrayed. In light of prior research, Harper and Tiggman established that†¦show more content†¦It will focus on two correlates of body dissatisfaction: social comparison and objectification theory. Literature Review Accompanying unrealistic images of women, the media spends billions of dollars yearly to advertise the various techniques that eliminate body discontents such as dieting pills and exercising machines, and exploits female magazine reader’s insecurities. Whether magazine advertisements aid in the gradual depletion of body image or fail to impact it at all will be the purpose of this investigation, supplemented by a literature review and organized by a theoretical framework, to support a firm analysis. Today’s culture has accredited women to focusing on their bodies as a strategy that sanctions them to determine how well others will treat them (Knoblock-Westerwick Crane, 2012). A meta-analysis conducted by Festinger and Botta, discussed social comparison theory which revolved around the paradigm that individuals made mental judgments in relation to their own qualities and compared them to others (image one below discusses the process of social comparison based on various factors). It was found that college-going females who were more appearance driven were more likely to suffer from body image dissatisfaction since they often compared themselves to those who were better off. Further studies indicated that students frequently conformed to such appearance related expectations to gain approval of peers (Ferreday, 2011)(Knoblock-Westerwick Show MoreRelatedNegative Influence on Women in the Media Melanic R. Salomes Article853 Words   |  3 PagesR. Salome , is about the womenà ¢â‚¬â„¢s misrepresentation of in media . Salome considers media as an important tool that affects American women in a negative way. 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