Barbara Cagle is a Highly qualified, certified teacher for English. Barbara has had websites up and running for over 10 years and uses websites in the classroom to bring students highly relevant and up to day information. If you want to learn about building websites there is a FREE resource you can access from one of her sites. Click Here to visit the site now. Growing Effects on Growing Cultures The United States Census Bureau reports that the population of the United States in growing at the net gain of one person every twelve seconds. This includes one migrant every twenty-seven seconds and at present represents a population of over 301,419,776 (US Census, 2007) people from all walks of life, all age groups, and all ethnic and religious origins. How then do advertisers influence the cultural whole in America when faced with such a wide diversity? This is a question that is perhaps best approached through the studies of advertising effects on subcultures within our American cultures; The greatest difficulty arises because of the nature of such studies. Cognitive processes differ with each subject which means the number of different processes is equal to the number of subjects participating in any one study at a given time. Were we to do a nation wide study, for example, we might validly assume to be dealing with millions of unique perspectives and personalities. How then can we study the effects of advertising on a culture? Ideally we can not, however, we can consider small subcultures in relatively small studies which allows us to arrive at a hypothesis that is applicable to an average Take weight loss advertising and adolescent girls for example.
In his paper discussing Coase’s work on wants-based objectives of policy (Pratten, 2001) Pratten notes that Coase “highlights the importance of examining the As noted by Elspeth Brown in her paper of 2000 concerning origins of American photography, “the same people who thrill and suffer and cry and grow hot-tempered over the tempests and joys of fiction, …are touched and influenced by that heart which is put into advertising” (Brown, E., 2000: 728). This suggests that the advertisers utilize the same “visual strategies” used in fiction (Brown, E., 2000: 729) to “spark the consumer’s
While many women may succumb to a “cultural beauty norm” (Maddox, 2006:259), only a few, usually younger consumers, fall into the range of developed eating disorders. Harrison explains that “exposure to the thin ideal could promote social comparison, which would lead to disordered eating as a means of attempting to meet external standards of comparison” (Harrison, 2001: 290). Gayle Bessenoff puts forth the idea that a commonality exists between body image and the internalization of the thin ideal in that there is a tendency for comparison between one’s self and those with whom one associates or the community as a whole (Bessenoff, 2006: 239). He explains that in the social comparison theory we tend to compare others we see as similar to ourselves with our self concept (Bessenoff, 2006: 239). In his study he uses “mood scale”, “state self-esteem scale”, “automatic thoughts questionnaire”, and other surveys to develop his theories (Bessenoff, 2006:242). His study, however, was also limited. He used 112 participants ranging in age from 17 to 39 years (Bessenoff, 2006:241). As shown earlier, this is only a very small fraction of the available consumer demographic and thereby may be adequate to negate or at least pose questions of his research. Brown states that indeed “fat prejudice is widespread; is openly espoused by conservatives, liberals, and radicals alike; and has a negative impact on the lives of people of all sizes (Brown, K..2007). In accepting that people’s belief about what they must be or do to have value and self worth as a person (Sanchez, 2005: 64) is contingent upon the society or culture in which they are raised, one might quickly hypothesize that a culture that revolves around such so called reality entertainment as “American Idol” and “Are you smarter than a 5th grader” (CNN, 2007) may be in trouble as far as the messages that are being broadcast to the unsuspecting youth of the country. Many studies have been conducted in recent years in an attempt to understand various aspects of media influence on body image. Deborah Marquardt wrote in MS. Magazine that “women starve themselves in attempts to become svelte because they perceive advertising images as "standard" and "acceptable" (Marquardt, 1987). A great deal of research has suggested that body dissatisfaction is a widespread phenomenon among women (Hargreaves, 2002: 287) Among teens a desire to be popular seems to be inherently entwined with the self image of most teenage girls and is apparently fostered It is widely accepted that young people watch many hours of television each week as well as being bombarded by magazine advertisements, billboards, messages in music and pressure from their peers to fit into the accepted norm. Hargreaves states that media and advertising place a “much greater emphasis on physical attractiveness and slimness, in particular for women” (Hargreaves, 2002:287). He further puts forth that there has been “found a relationship between television watching and body dissatisfaction” (Hargreaves, 2002: 288). Throughout these and many other studies that have looked at the impact or influence of media on society as a whole, specific culture and cultural development, as well as impact or influence on the individual have brought forth the theory that media, especially visual media, does effect the individuals. The levels of these effects may be tempered by various factors such as education, but overall we are all affected to some degree. We equate the cultural norm with what we see in the media, in spite of the fact that most realize the false nature of such imagery. Models are ‘made up’ and body doubles are used to maintain the illusion for example. There are certainly few individuals that will argue that media, especially television, has no effect on their lives. History shows us changes and advances in culture that could easily be attributed to media influence. While there may not be an abundance of scientific studies that satisfy those observations in the so called hard sciences, there are still a plethora of valid studies that indicate the apparent certainty of media influence. If we are to rely on the methodologies available to us for the study of media effects, we must utilize them to their best advantage. Perhaps it is also advantageous to look at the As we have seen from these few studies, there is reason to believe that the media, television and advertising in particular, have a profound effect on young women with regards to personal body image. It is true that many recognize the messages contained in weight loss advertising (Hobbs, 2006:723); however, it is also true that many of the subtle messages that are received are absorbed without cognitive understanding or perusal. The use of endorsements by ‘doctors’, for example, was rarely met with disbelief because we, as a society, tend to trust the doctors, while before and after imagery was
Perhaps the question that should be asked, and as yet has not been addressed is, Is it worth it? References Brown, Kelly D., Rebecca M. Puhl, Marlene b. Schwartz, & Leslie Rudd (eds.). KINDER APPROACH TO ERADICATING FATNESS, A. Psychology of Women Quarterly, Volume 31, Number 1 (March 2007), pp. 121-122,http://ejournals.ebsco.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/direct.asp?ArticleID=4A0EA0EE9E36 CNN Top 10: Neilsens. (February 26 – March 4, 2007). CNN ENTERTAINMENT TV.http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/TV/top10/index.html retrieved March 20, 2007. Engeln-Maddox, Renee. (2006). BUYING A BEAUTY STANDARD OR DREAMING OF A NEW LIFE? EXPECTATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH MEDIA IDEALS.
Hobbs, Renee, Sharon Broder, Holly Pope, and Jonelle Rowe. (2006). HOW ADOLESCENT GIRLS INTERPRET WEIGHT-LOSS ADVERTISING. Oxford Marquardt, Deborah. (1987). A THINLEY DISGUISED MESSAGE. Ms.Volume 15.(May 1987). Abstract. pg. 33.
Sanchez, Diana T., and Jennifer Crocker. (2005). HOW INVESTMENT IN GENDER IDEALS AFFECTS WELL-BEING:THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL CONTINGENCIES IN SELF WORTH. Psychology of Women Quarterly. Volume 29. (2005). Pp. 63-77. http://ejscontent.ebsco.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/ContentServer/FullTextServer.asp?format=fulltext&ciid=C6395A9CE4A8738C5A500E51440677ED6A1462BEB603D54773FCAAB63A00F8E0DAA557A3784CE622&ftindex=1&cid=FE3C9BFC013BFD31DDB7F674B77BD2083C474B0867481B6B4FDD6942BE308DA5&ext=.pdf
United States Census (2000). Summary File: 1 (SF 1). Retrieved March 20, 2007 from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=D&- Copyright Barbara Cagle. All Rights Reserved |
