RATIONALE AND OVERVIEW
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The following chapter provides a brief background and insight discussing and describing the influence of the somatology and related industries’ media regarding the way women perceive their body image. This, from here on will be referred to as “the media”. The aims, objectives, and purpose of the study and research design will also be outlined. The study investigates whether the media influences the way South African (SA) women perceive their own body image.
1.2 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
In a world of advertising, companies use images they believe will market their products successfully. The globalisation of the media has also paved the way for print and television advertisements to be viewed all over the world. Along with these images come images that may strengthen the probability of stereotypes including those about women. Today there are only a limited content of advertisements that do not include an image of a young slender female advertising a certain product. Through the media, all women the world over are exposed to the Western ideal of beautiful women with slender, ageless bodies (Poorani, 2012:1).
According to Cohan (2001:324) advertising often develops its own values, artificial or false, of whatever is good for the consumer. He states that advertising
…show more content…
For the purpose of this study body image will be defined as: a person's thoughts and beliefs (cognitive), perception (perceptual), attitude (behavioural) and feelings about their own physical appearance (affective), usually in relation to the media, other women or in relation to their sociocultural beauty "ideal". It is an individual's concept of his or her own body (Viviani, F., Dionisio, E., Biague, F. Bagnol, F., Zecchinato, C. & Scarcella, F.,
Everyday females are exposed to how media views the female body, whether in a work place, television ads, and magazines. Women tend to judge themselves on how they look just to make sure there keeping up with what society see as an idyllic women, when women are exposed to this idea that they have to keep a perfect image just to keep up with media, it teaches women that they do not have the right look because they feel as if they don’t add up to societies expectations of what women should look like, it makes them thing there not acceptable to society. This can cause huge impacts on a women self-appearance and self-respect dramatically. Women who become obsessed about their body image can be at high risk of developing anorexia or already have
As guest editor of Star Telegram newspaper, I did what was asked of me and reviewed the article written by Susan Bordo “Never Just Pictures”. Bordo focuses on body image and our perception of beauty and how we are “supposed” to look according to the media. “Never Just Pictures” should be published because Susan Bordo has factual evidence to back up her reasoning to her claim about body disorders, the role that different types of media have on society, and how it is creating a false image of what true beauty really is. In this article, Bordos central claim is for the readers to get an understanding of today’s obsession with body image, and how we are no longer accepted for just our personality and our good traits but for the physique of the human body.
In today’s modern culture, almost all forms of popular media play a significant role in bombarding young people, particularly young females, with what happens to be society’s idea of the “ideal body”. This ideal is displayed all throughout different media platforms such as magazine adds, television and social media – the idea of feminine beauty being strictly a flawless thin model. The images the media displays send a distinct message that in order to be beautiful you must look a certain way. This ideal creates and puts pressure on the young female population viewing these images to attempt and be obsessed with obtaining this “ideal body”. In the process of doing so this unrealistic image causes body dissatisfaction, lack of self-confidence
It is no mystery that women struggle with body image on a daily basis. It is also no mystery that young girls look up to their mothers and follow in their footsteps. In an advertisement by Body Image Movement, they exploit a little girl who is concerned about her weight to show that beauty standards effect women of all ages and sizes and that young girls like the one in the ad follow in their mother’s footsteps. This ad is heavy in ethos, pathos and logos and appeals to its viewers in a way in which they want to make a change on beauty standards and make sure that no girls at any age feels the need to fit into society’s beauty standards.
This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an
Twentieth Century Body Image At many points of a woman’s life, they feel doubtful of their body and of their beauty because the standards that are set by the media of today, and the media of the past. One cannot look through a magazine without reading an article title that has anything to do with weight loss or beauty treatments. Even in magazines from decades ago, beauty advertisements and articles on how to be the perfect size or shape, filled the pages. The media’s influence on women’s body image has been very severe on women for decades.
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.
Countless advertisements feature thin, beautiful women as either over-sexualized objects, or as subordinates to their male counterparts. The mold created by society and advertisers for women to fit into is not entirely attainable. More often than not, models are Photoshopped and altered to the point that they don’t even resemble themselves. W. Charisse Goodman suggests, “The mass media do not
Sexually objectifying media is broadcast and leads to body surveillance, self-objectification, and the internalization of body ideals designed by fashion media. When people internalize ideas of how an individual’s body should look like according to the media, it becomes ingrained in them to the point that they might never be satisfied with their own body image. This leads to body dissatisfaction and further emphasis on developing unsafe habits of becoming a replica of the thinner, and photoshopped, models in the fashion and beauty magazines (Vandenbosch, 873).
The media culture have not been helpful with impacting positive body image, rather, has influenced people’s perception of their bodies negatively. The essay “Enhancing Your Body Image” by Rebecca J. Donatella, made known that there are many factors which influence body image and also, suggested ways on how people can build up positive body image. The media and popular culture is one of the factors that influence body image. The media influence body image negatively because it shows and represents unrealistic and perfect bodies of celebrities, not considering what the average American looks like. Another factor that affect body image is family, community and cultural groups; if the society accept people the way they are, it makes people have positive body image.
This research paper presents a content analysis on the portrayal of women in advertisements. This paper is written to better understand the stereotypes of women in advertising. The paper will also include the harsh realities female receivers have to face due to the portrayal of unrealistically thin and technologically perfected super models. Many women are portrayed as sexual objects and are constantly being degraded. Few examples of using sex appeal will also be discussed in this paper.
Although body image is a complex and multifaceted construct, encompassing at least perceptual, affective, cognitive and possibly behavioral aspects of body experience (Cash & Pruzinsky, 1990), in contemporary Western society the major focus has been on the body’s appearance, in particular on body shape and weight. What was stated above is not something that cause surprise as long as nowadays, society, states women’s beauty in a specific way and give with a lot of emphasis the desire of thinness which is something ideal for every woman but is not so easy to achieve (Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1992). The term body image is mostly used to refer to the feelings and attitudes that people have about the way their bodies look. Although
It has been proven that media has a strong influence through advertising as it creates an alternate reality with a frame of “norms” that people think means beauty. In response to the media’s portrayal of the ideal body, people have developed physical and emotional reactions that may be detrimental to themselves. Females are also shown to be more easily influenced by the mass media in terms of perception of their own body image as compared to males, and some ethnic groups are less easily influenced by the media than others. It is important for the reader to note that this review was not done in the local
Media advertisement is our new tool to get into the young mind, to obtain something from them “buy this brand and look like the model we have, you will be loved ’’ or “ looking like thin model will give you popularity”. Women have been the more affected by this media shaming phenomenon “Studies indicate many people, especially women, measure their self-worth based on appearance” (Finley, 2012).To understand more about how media show a negative effect on our body image, we firstly need to understand what body image and media are. According to Psychology today “Body image is the mental representation one creates, but it may or may not bear close relation to how others actually see you” the perception of our own mental representation and it can be affected by several other factors such as mood,
2.1 INTRODUCTION This purpose of this Chapter is to provide literature in support of the aim and purpose of the study. Aspects included in the study focus on the concept of body image, which is an individual’s feelings, perceptions, and behaviours towards their own bodies (Jung, 2006:335). It attempts to examine the influence of edited media images on the way women perceive their own bodies. 2.1.1 Definitions and History of Body Image Perception Body image is generally understood as a mental image of a person’s own body and the way it appears to others (Featherstone, 2010:193).