The Influence Of Mass Media

Superior Essays
According to Malcolm X, “The media 's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that 's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Mass medium, or mass media, is a form of mass communication that is intended to reach a large audience such as: TV shows, movies, music, newspapers, magazines, advertisement, and the internet. Mass media plays a vital role within American culture and many other countries. In fact, mass media can be seen within the daily life of almost everyone in the industrialized world. Mass media often portray messages in many ways. Ways messages are passed is through advertisements of products, fashion trends, politics, news, and many more. …show more content…
Everyone perceives the body differently. Because of this, how the mass media portrays body image is very controversial. The question is if the body image the mass media represents is positive or negative. Moreover, is the mass media truly at fault for these images or is there another factor that contributes to it? People will have different opinions to this, but as for me, I believe that the body image that the media depicts is negative, but they are not at fault in making it negative.

There are many ways the mass media can depict their version of what the body image should be. Video media is an ideal way for the mass media to show their representation of the ideal body image. When watching a movie or a TV show, how do the main characters usually look? They are often good looking and slender. Popular characters in movies such as Star Wars, the Godfather, Indiana Jones, or Kill Bill are fit and strong. You don 't see Luke Skywalker or Michael Corleone as "fat "or big people. Even in children’s’ films, the media shows that slender is better. MediaSmarts.ca states that “Movies – including those aimed at young children – fare no better in representing
…show more content…
Advertisement can be found almost everywhere; in magazines, on television, on billboards, on buildings and on the radio. Nina Easton believes that “advertising has taught men contempt for women and women contempt for themselves.” In Eason’s article she notes “the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women concluded that ‘Advertising is the worst offender in perpetuating the image of women as sex symbols and inferior class of human being.’” Surely you have seen the Carl’s Jr. commercial where they advertise their burgers with a “sexy” girl, usually a model or celebrity, in minimal clothing. The girl is usually eating the messy burger in the most sexual and sensual way. Most advertisement will consist of thin, curvy, busty girl models. If these models look a certain way that has males (or females) drooling, why wouldn’t other girls want to be thin, curvy, and busty? Girls would think that those models are what the “perfect” girl would be. Girls would then be insecure about their bodies and they would go and starve themselves to make them thin like the bodies in the advertisements. Some girls would go have surgery to alter their appearance. But girls are not the only ones to be affected by the negative body image the media creates. In advertisements, men are often the ones who have washboard abs and a muscular body. They are the ones who are often making love

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    It’s also how you feel about your body and how you imagine, portray and emotionally feel about your body. Media shapes and influences how the public sees things. They influence everyone opinions, but we abuse the media’s hurtful thoughts towards the public. Images in the media make people want to be someone else’s idea of perfect and completely forget about their own personal goals. The stereotypes from the media are someone that’s thin, tanned and rich.…

    • 411 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Media Autobiography Essay

    • 1474 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Media Autobiography: Chelsea Guy It is easy to take for granted the level of influence that media has on your life as it becomes engrossed in your daily activities. Sometimes we may not even realize how the media contributes to the way we speak, dress, act, and interact with others. Mass media refers to any means of communication that reach relatively large sums of people. Some examples of Mass media include television, movies, music, internet, books, newspapers, and social networks.…

    • 1474 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Miss Narwin Research Paper

    • 1626 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The media, a fast paced, always changing portal for information and inspiration. The media influence people and how they behave. Anywhere from influences from the movies and television, the violence our society is exposed to, the positive influences, twisted “facts” that the media taught us, the negative influences involving school work, how we are influenced to spend out money, how Miss Narwin was effected by the media, how the media makes us think about our body image,and how the media makes us think about drugs, alcohol, and sex. Many people get influenced from the movies and television shows that are on the television today. A movie can leave a lingering effect that can cause behavioral changes in people.…

    • 1626 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jean Kilbourne

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Jean Kilbourne’s documentary “Killing Us Softly” and article “The More You Subtract, the More You Add” and Susannah Stern’s article “All I Really Needed to Know (About Beauty) I Learned by Kindergarten” shows that ads only sell products and not ideas. But behind the rose-tinted glass, ads show that women are being labeled by marketers. This leads to stereotyping and generalizations of women. When something becomes generalized by the population it is automatically accepted as the truth.…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ruining Body Image

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Many of the body types portrayed in the media, no matter the country, are unhealthy, uncommon, and unattainable for the average human; for example, it was found that the body type portrayed in the American media can only be found in about 5% of American females. This reality is extremely damaging to the mentality of young girls and a survey showed that 47% of girls ranging from 5th-12th grades in the US claimed that the pictures represented in magazines sparked their want to lose weight, while 69% of girls ranging from 5th-12th grades reported that body shapes and images found in the media has highly influenced their idea of a perfect body shape. Although the media can also portray the benefits of healthy eating and exercise, which would be beneficial to influence a body image, these benefits are shrouded by constant commercials and advertisements depicting new diets, medications, and plastic surgery that shows one can only be happy if they are…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A promotion is a message imprinted in a daily paper, or show to people, that endeavors to influence shoppers to purchase a particular item or concur with a specific thought. In the article "Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals" by Jib Fowles, he explains that publicists have two ideas in their advertisements: the item data and the emotional claim in the brains of buyers. The purpose of this essay is to show how promoting impacts on our day-by-day lives, self-image, and analysis the methods and strategies that advertisers use to appeal to consumers. To begin with, the appeal that I selected first utilizes the need for sex as the engage persuade men to purchase a particular fragrance.…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With its growing influence media has the opportunity to influence individuals of all age groups. Whether it be with their political choices, or their aspirations in life. With its growing impact it is necessary to examine, does media affect body image? After reviewing articles, I can come to the conclusion that media affects body image more negatively than positively.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Media Body Images Essay

    • 1518 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Media Body Images Body images in the media portrays an unrealistic, unhealthy, and dangerous standards of feminine beauty in today's society. These unnecessary standards can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves as well as how others view them. These standards are presented in many forms of popular media, such as magazines, news paper, T.V. Shows, and social media. These media barrages women with images that portrays what is considered to be the “ideal” body. The media puts forth an image of beauty that is unattainable.…

    • 1518 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Media Body Image

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Media affects body image Body image is an idiosyncratic picture of one 's own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by observing the reactions of others. Whether it may be a magazine cover, commercial or the internet, the media 's false portrayal of perfection greatly impacts children and young adults. The media glorifies models and celebrities as figures of a higher standard, as icons of beauty and youth. Media features female models with tall, slender body types and male models with muscular, toned figures ( "Body image & The Media: An Overview"). The recurring image of an idealized body is causing decreased mental and physical health that is becoming more prevalent in young children and adults.…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Media Bias Research Paper

    • 2014 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Stop the Media Bias, Give the People What They Need to Hear “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses” Quoted by Malcolm X. The media is very powerful and influential in today’s society. It helps influence the public’s opinions during Presidential elections and sways people’s views more to the left or to the right of the spectrum.…

    • 2014 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Advertisements: How media has objectified women throughout the years Advertisements have been a controversial part of America since the 1940’s, their purpose to persuade people into buying their products or look a certain way has survived to this present day. The process of objectifying someone almost always has a purpose behind it, in the case of advertisements the big conglomerates sell the “perfect woman,” in a magazine, whose ethics are to be and look flawless. When one looks up the meaning of the word objectify in the dictionary we get “to present as an object, especially of sight, touch, or other physical sense; make objective; externalize,” which means people are being portrayed as the specific items they represent on the advertisements…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The ideal body representations that people are exposed to through the media are reinforced through mass media and individual behavior patterns. The media holds a powerful position with a lot of influence over individuals. The media has the ability to send messages to society about body images and what is considered to be…

    • 1044 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The effect media has on body image Body Image, it’s something that affects everyone. You can see yourself or other people in a positive or negative way. On average 80% of Americans watch television on a daily basis, up to 3 hours each day. Millennials will spend most of their lives on their phones and on social media. With such an influx of media constantly it’s easy to be swayed mentally into believing everything in the media.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bad Body Image

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages

    These images affect the way men and women view themselves and in turn can affect their body image. Research on body image is vital because it can have an effect on a person’s quality of life (Cash & Fleming, 2002). Television is constantly displaying an idealized image of the bodies of men and women (Dietz and Gortmaker, 1985). Idealized images can leave men and women to believe they are inadequate because they do not have the bodies of those whom appear on television. More often than not these idealized images are unattainable (Agliata & Tantleff-Dunn, 2004) and this leaves the individual with feelings of decreased self-worth.…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Social Media Young Girls

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages

    What social psychological factors are in motion when media is shown to young girls? As the study that was discussed earlier on what a healthy body should look like and what influences a healthy body, it states that the focus group explained many thoughts that go through their head when they are personally exposed to the culture of seemingly acceptable physical appearance. These thoughts created a shared theme relating to self-discrepancy and social comparison when presented with these individuals. An additional study on body dissatisfaction and thinness was conducted by Gayle Bessenoff.…

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays