Research Paper on Media's Influence on Female Perception

Over the years, women have made significant efforts and steps in an array of domains. Despite these tremendous strides, the predominant culture that upholds how women look still persists. Along these lines, these conventional standards are illuminated by and through the media. The impacts of these beauty standards affect women and their self-perceptions. Thus, the beauty epitome on the global spectrum has become thin. Although expansive populaces of average women do not show clinically diagnosable dietary issues, they depict obsessions with body shapes and sizes. Today, this constant concern is acknowledged as an entirely reasonable and even inescapable piece of being a woman. Subsequently, a significant number of these social principles are built up in the media. The world is always encompassed by a wide range of media and which develops individuals characters to a limited extent through the images portrayed. Furthermore, the more young women are presented to thin-perfect types of media, the more they are disappointed with their bodies and with themselves in general. In light of this comprehension, this paper seeks to explore how the media influences the female perception of their own bodies. To achieve this goal, the research endeavor will present an in-depth analysis how the issue is addressed in the media as well as in the industry, utilizing various theories that will provide a better insight into the problem.

Over the years, the media and body image have progressively grown to be closely related if not intertwined. Nowadays, the media and self-perception are firmly connected with the self-perception advertising depicting influences on particular body images. Be that as it may, numerous different things impact the body image such as but not limited to the upbringing, education, and insinuate connections. Still, the media has a major effect. In this regard, people across the world spend billions of hours watching television. Subsequently, advertising accounts for a considerable portion of TV in particular and media in general. Thus, as children grow up, they spend a significant amount of time watching adverts on TV. Media, however, is not limited to television as there are numerous other types such as magazines which surround us in our daily activities. Key among magazines are women and fashion periodicals that promote and to some extent dictate certain ideals (Ossola). Children, especially young girls pick up these models and uphold them as they grow up. Anything that we spend hours looking at ends up influencing us or becoming part of us. The media and body image, therefore, are firmly related because of the quantity of pictures found in the press and the extreme measure of exposure emanating from those pictures. Furthermore, despite the fact that advertising plans to persuade potential customers to purchase things, advertisements from time to time mirror certain ideals that influence womens perception. For instance, an average female model has been portrayed to be a size four. As a result of this depiction, most women who happen to be bigger than that size strive to reduce weight. Moreover, fashion designers use slim models to advertise their products across various media platforms. Over time, these advertisements influence womens perceptions, imploring them to abide by these standards.

According to Levine (2000), social-cultural aspects impose adverse effects on body image (1). Extensive research and case study mirror that the media, through movies, magazines, and social media platforms relentless sell slender as the the epitome of body image. Content examinations affirm the vast majority's sense that magazines, TV, and film as often as possible, industriously, and plainly praise slimness and strict weight organization and attack fat as undesirable, revolting, also, shameless (1). Women are progressively consuming these messages from the media and making changes in their dietary plans and daily routines with the end goal of abiding by the promoted standards. Moreover, as young girls read fashion magazines, they compare their lifestyles and bodies to those of the models in the magazines. More often than not, these girls end up in disappointments when their lifestyles and body sizes fail to match those in the fashion magazines. As a result, the young girls strive to live up to the so-called ideal standards and body images as in the fashion magazines.

Subsequently, Susan Bordo, in an interesting illustration, narrates the story of young girl who was on a no-fat diet for weeks. Despite having hit her goal, she still looks fat as she stands in front of the mirror (Bordo 1). Comparing herself to various popular young ladies in music videos, she develops a sense of self-hatred. Her story represents many young girls idolize models and women in cover magazines. Some may argue that these ideologies stem from heightened westernization, but history begs to differ. In some cultures in Africa, certain festivals celebrated curvaceous while others sent brides to camps to be massaged to shape (Bordo). Thus, it becomes apparent that the female perception has always been ignorant of reason and logical reasoning. The society has progressively instituted certain standards and definitions of beautiful and acceptable body images (Burke). These definitions are often founded on unrealistic backdrops that enslave women and young girls into endless struggles. Since its inception, the media has endeavored to present digitally edited images of women, a fact that the society has failed to integrate into its judgment and description of ideal female standards.

Progressively, the community has regularly ignored and failed to consider how significantly the media impacts the untruths that it lets itself to uphold. On TV, in films, social media, and in adverts, the society is furnished with misleading information on how its members ought to behave, dress, and carry themselves. Ultimately, all these constructs shape up our perceptions (Dittmar 3). Today, young women living in standard cultures such as in America, accomplishing the ideal appearance is central to their incentive from a social point of view. Moreover, these women have to look as young as possible even as they age, as characterized by immaculate skin, eyes with long eyelashes, white teeth, and a thin yet feminine figure (Sigman 117). If the women fail to meet these standards, they are regarded to as ugly, and there is nothing they can do to compensate for it. Regardless of how hard they try, they cannot be sufficiently brilliant, sufficiently intelligent, and pleasant enough to adjust for their defective looks. Beautiful women are always accorded more credit compared to the counterparts who fail to meet the set societal ideals as advocated by the media. Besides, has categorically defined gender roles with men being firmly attached to money, insight, and physical qualities. Men are, therefore, expected to be exclusively masculine, while their female counterparts are supposed to stick to conventional feminine social constructs. From a tender age, the media portrays what is most esteemed in in the way of life for each gender. After some time, we deliberately and unwittingly disguise these social standards, assessing ourselves as well as other people in contrast with them. Generally, without cognizant mindfulness, we grow up attempting to imitate whatever the media esteems to be most significant on the grounds that we as a whole need to be desired, cherished, and wanted. In this regard, a substantial assortment of research recommends that the media is making an uncommon showing with regards to of making us develop self-hatred. As we disguise social qualities and standards of appearance, we turn out to be more disappointed with ourselves. Subsequently, we have to wind up plainly more major buyers of the media (Roxby). We have to consider the messages that we gain from an early age about what makes us valuable or not. As we turn out to be more mindful of our environment and the social messages we learned, we should decide if we seek to be a sure way since we trust it is correct or in light of the fact that we were socially molded to believe it is accurate.

In an effort to explore the media through the modern day perspective, Joseph Turow offers a deeper insight into the full mass communication (Turow). The author provides succinct definitions and employs a critical approach to the media and its various impacts on the society in general. Today, in light of the heightened globalization, the world is converging, and so is the media. Another key aspect of the press today is the rapid developments and dynamic nature. To achieve this goal, the author utilizes convergence as a focal point that puts the readers at the focal point of the significant changes in the 21st-century media world. Through this perspective, it becomes possible to comprehend how to ponder the part of media today and what these progressions mean in the present day and in future. The book's media frameworks approach goes past the run of the mill concentrate on media utilization and helps the audience to take a gander at how media is made, appropriated, and shown in the new world that the advanced transformation has made (Turow). Consequently, an analysis of media convergence exhibits the numerous ways the inescapability of the Internet have obscured refinements between and among different media. Along these lines, it becomes imperative to take a gander at the era of social media.

In todays technologically dependent world, there is limited control of the information conveyed across various media platforms. With the increased use of social media, stringent security and oversight measures are still wanting. Thus, we are living in a media-flooded world that has limited control over the messages passed across. For instance, the media gives a fundamentally important setting to individuals to find out about body standards and the value put on being appealing. In America, an average person is reported to watch at least three hours of television every day and spend at least five hours on social media. Thus, American children take part in expanding measures of media use, a pattern generally powered by the developing accessibility of web access through smartphones and computers. Indeed, even media primarily meant for younger kids such as cartoons still underline the significance of being attractive. Sexually typified pictures of young girls and ladies in adverts are well on the way to show up in men's magazines. However, the second most regular wellspring of such pictures is the ads in kids magazines intended for teenage girls.

The past few decades have seen women gunner more power, success, and global acknowledgment (Wolf). In light of these achievements, one would anticipate that females and the society as a whole would now be free of the entangling social chains that have hinder progress and individual freedoms. Key among these social chains is social control which Naomi Wolf, a writer, and journalist affirm to be primitive (5). As a result, beauty through the societal perspective remains to be a myth that encompasses an overly gratified obsession with physical perfection. The modern woman, therefore, has been enslaved by a vicious cycle as she struggles to be beautiful and appealing. The adverse ramifications of the myth are far reaching and impact both the ordinary woman as well as the famous celebrities. For instance, Katy Perry, a global star and a pop-artists openly admitted to being insecure about her looks on a social media platform (The Sun). This admission mirrors the struggles that women across the wo...