{"id":244,"date":"2001-02-22T01:36:19","date_gmt":"2001-02-22T06:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/?p=244"},"modified":"2008-08-18T01:40:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-18T06:40:00","slug":"media-images-in-advertising-and-self-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/2001\/media-images-in-advertising-and-self-image\/","title":{"rendered":"Media images in advertising and self-image"},"content":{"rendered":"

A response to Taking Sides – Clashing Views in Mass Media and Society<\/strong> – Issue 3<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In this chapter, Martin and Gentry argue that young women’s self images and self esteem are effected by ideals presented in advertising while young boys tend to think in different terms.\u00a0 Cottle, on the other hand, says men are quickly catching up with women in terms of trying to adhere to media images of attractiveness.<\/p>\n

Martin and Gentry bring up the current debate over how advertising may create and reinforce a preoccupation with beauty and physical attractiveness for women.\u00a0 Young women are exposed to images in ads of supermodels who are an unattainable standard of beauty and get stuck in a cycle of hating them and wanting to be like them.\u00a0 The authors review several studies which seem to show a difference in young males.\u00a0 While self esteem tends to go down for female adolescents, it goes up for males; while young women tend to think of their bodies as exterior objects, boys tend to think in terms to utility.\u00a0 The authors created a study in which girls in grades four, six and eight were asked to view ads and compare them in terms of self-evaluation, self-improvement, and self-enhancement.\u00a0 The results supported the hypothesis that self-perception and self esteem can be adversely effected, though self-perception goals may change over time (in fourth grade, the goal is to be bigger; later, the goal is to be thinner).<\/p>\n

Cottle, on the other hand, sees media-imposed vanity growing in men.\u00a0 More men are having plastic surgery done, surprising numbers of men purchase treatments like facials and manicures, and magazines with helpful articles about being fit and attractive, like Men’s Health, are raising their circulation.\u00a0 Not only are muscles becoming a requirement, but the right hair and clothes as well.\u00a0 This has little to do with health and fitness.\u00a0 Overall, Cottle sees gender equality coming not in terms of women empowering themselves, but with men joining in their purchase-inducing insecurities.<\/p>\n

I think the question in the chapter’s title (is emphasis on body image in the media harmful to women only) hasn’t really been debated.\u00a0 The first piece is a sociological study that I’m not sure I understand, and though it mentions some literature saying boys have different body image concerns than girls, the study doesn’t address that difference.\u00a0 They could have done a much clearer study if they had gone with that subject.\u00a0 If fourth grade girls compared themselves differently to models than fourth grade guys, for example, you could investigate those differences and look for causes. \u00a0But this study doesn’t seem to come to much, and I’m not even sure when and how they measured self-esteem drops, unless they assumed an unfavorable comparison was equivalent.\u00a0 And the second essay, though it makes good point about men being convinced to meet a media mold of attractiveness (and buy their products), doesn’t really get into the harm of it.\u00a0 More guys getting manicures is not necessarily indicative of lower self-images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A response to Taking Sides – Clashing Views in Mass Media and Society – Issue 3 In this chapter, Martin and Gentry argue that young women’s self images and self esteem are effected by ideals presented in advertising while young boys tend to think in different terms.\u00a0 Cottle, on the other hand, says men are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12],"tags":[367,355,371,406,405],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-papers","category-writing","tag-advertising","tag-mass-media","tag-media-images","tag-self-esteem","tag-self-perception"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jasonmorrison.net\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}