Negative affect of MEdia

Social cultural standards of beauty are in almost every form of media today, bombarding men and women with unrealistic images which are considered to be the “ideal image.” With the media using such impractical models; which have been photo-shopped, the media continues to send out a message that being beautiful means looking unhealthy. Popular types of media target men and women, which begin to affect them on a negative term. Our brain believes that our body must look a certain type of way because of the media, and when our body does not meet most of our unrealistic goals, we allow the media to bruise our self-esteem. Our self-esteem begins to drop down entirely and men and women today begin to resort to unreliable solutions. Analysis and researchers have examined media images to body images of male and female disturbance.

“Body is a complicated aspect of the self-concept that concerns an individual’s perceptions and feelings about their body and physical appearance (Arabian, Ann-Marie E)” Researchers have recently pointed out that images portrayed by the media do affect men and their body image, just as much as it does for women. Males no longer see that is it okay to look like a cheeseburger, but rather want others to see them as a big mac. “In our society, muscularity is commonly associated with masculinity. According to Olivardia, compared to ordinary men, muscular men tend to command more respect and seem more powerful, threatening and sexually virile. Muscular men perceive others as “backing off” and ‘taking them seriously (Clark Nancy).” With the media consistently showing off buff men on the front pages of magazines and billboards, men react under the assumption that to get women that pine over these show st...

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...tening and they are not good enough to be heard (Body Image, Boys)” because they do not look the way media wants them too. The media have negatively affected both men and women strongly in their self-esteem. Both female and male are more and more obsessed and even depressed with how they feel they should look, and will take any measures to do that, whether its plastic surgery or anything else, even if it leads them to feeling helpless, useless or drowning in how the “must” look.

Overall the aspect of media affecting a man and woman’s self esteem is factored in a negative way. Ones self-esteem can only be influenced and affected by the media. The media is intended to influence the desired audience, however it is up to the individual to filter the given information and not allow it reflect the impact it has on their personal ability and self esteem.