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how to advertisements contribute to the body image of women
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I have to admit I am an avid reader of magazines. I read everything from the the stupid celebrity gossip magazines to Time magazine and National Geographic. Since our brief overview of magazine advertisements in class, I decided to look into how magazines make us think and more specifically I wanted to see how the magazine advertisements portray women, since that has been a hot topic for a while now. I like analyzing advertisements and looking at how viewers react to specific advertisements that may or may not be targeted toward them. The question I wanted to research was “How are different genders and sexualities represented in magazine advertisements?”, but I figured it was too broad for this assignment so I narrowed it down to: “How are women represented in magazines and magazine advertisements, and how is beauty portrayed?” I also wanted to touch on how gay women are represented, and I will towards the end of this paper.
What really got me interested in this topic was learning how advertisements and magazines like Seventeen effect girls’ self-esteem in health class many years ago. I actually decided I may want to pursue a career in advertising, so I know all of this knowledge will be helpful. What overall sparked this question however, was the discussion we had in class about advertising and the in-class exercises we did that made us look at advertisements in our own way. Lastly, I decided to write about women in magazines and magazine advertisements because lately there has been a lot of controversy over how women are portrayed and what the “ideal” woman looks according to advertisers. So, to answer my question I looked at many sources within the Academic Search Complete database and found one great article titled: “The ...
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...or another article that strayed away from my topic but answered the question “How are lesbian women portrayed in magazines and magazine advertisements?”. I was hoping to find that there was a difference between the way gay women are represented versus straight women, but I found that it is quite similar given that the women most often look the same and are portrayed in a artificial way.
Works Cited
Lim, Weng M., and Ding H. Ting. "The Construction of Beauty in Malay Magazine Advertisements." Contemporary Management Research, Sept. 2011. Web.
Moeran, Brian. "Advertising and the Technology of Enchantment: The Portrayal of Beauty in Women's Fashion Magazines." Openarchive.cbs.dk. Copenhagen Business School, June 2009. Web.
Skorek, Mał Gorzata. “A Thin Line between Being Straight or Gay: Portrayal of Lesbian Women in Advertising”. Praeger, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013.
The Home Depot is a supplier of home goods and appliances such as refrigerators, grills, and paint. The store often uses visual advertisements to attract customers. In these ads there are portrayals of both men and women, which help to illustrate the gender scripts that are prevalent within society. To analyze these illustrations and come to conclusions in terms of stereotypical gender scripts in commercials, a visual sociology research project was completed.
Throughout time the evolution of American advertising has drastically changed. What hasn’t changed is the way that women are being presented. From the roaring twenties to modern time magazine ads have always advocated the main focus to be a woman’s beauty. As time goes by the advertisement industry focuses more on things like big breasts, tiny waists, long legs, and of course beauty. For instance, Chanel, a perfume line, constantly misrepresents their models in there ads by making the main focus to be their bodies.
I chose these four journal writings because I believe they are the strongest pieces I have written from the second half of the semester. The main focus of these journals was based on readings under the women as objects topic. The oppression of women has led to females being objectified and used as gratification for men. A woman’s body and appearance have become a commodity, especially in the media. Films, television shows, music and advertisements use women’s bodies to attract their audience and sell products. The movie watched in class “Killing Us Softly 4,” highlights this fact while presenting how women are represented throughout the media. The media has set and perpetuated a particular standard of beauty that is restrictive, but for some many women completely unattainable. The women represented in the media are young, thin and have western or European characteristics. Where does that leave the majority of women that do not fall under this category? This leads to women developing eating disorders to achieve an ideal body image that is manufactured through Photoshop and other picture editing systems. Women of color, women with disabilities or any woman that does not follow this standard is not represented within the media. When a few women do break this mold and become famous, they are set at a different standard. These women’s differences become the highlighted feature of their fame. However, the one constant in the media when it comes to women is the objectification and sexualization of women. This sexualization can lead to aggression or violence against women and the perpetuation of rape culture. The images viewed in the media directly impact how women view themselves and how others view women. By examining the issues women f...
In this study I will do a content analysis of the portrayal of men in 20 magazine advertisements. 5 ads were taken from "Maxim," a men's magazine targeted at 20 to 30 something males. 4 were taken from "Men's Journal, a men's magazine targeted at men from 30 to retirement age. 5 were looked at from Harper's "Bazaar," a women's magazine targeted at adult women. 4 were taken from "Allure," a women's magazine targeted at women in their 20's and 30's, and two were taken from "Entertainment Weekly," an entertainme...
Vanessa Hazell and Juanne Clarke. “Race and Gender in the Media: A Content Analysis of Advertisements in Two Mainstream Black Magazines.” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Sep., 2008), pp. 5-21
In this essay I intend to look at two magazine covers aimed at the adult female market one magazine, Marie Claire, is aimed at heterosexual females the other, Diva, at lesbian females. Now in order to make that simplistic statement I have already used semiotic information, for Diva the sub title "For the lesbian in you" was enough to give me a pointer, sorry signifier, in the right direction. For Marie Claire I relied upon my wife.
...my Malkin, Kimbrlie Wornian, and Joan Chrisler, argues that women magazines more than men magazines makes the individual feel inadequate due to the appearance of articles relating to diet, exercise, and cosmetic surgery. Conversely, today's women are health conscious and are looking for ways to balance their health, beauty, and their everyday lives. In conclusion magazines just simply play the role of giving the individual the option of being informed. Also, magazines that appeal to men do not always appeal to women and that is why content differs.
In Airbrushed Nation, Nelson (2012) shines a light on the differences between how men and women are viewed by the majority of the magazine industries. With regards to the media’s influence on its readers, although magazines have their quirks in modern society, critics say that the media, including magazines been negatively influencing many individuals, majority being females, with their excessively photoshopped models, false advertising and articles, and controversial ideals for years on end. Furthermore, the sole purpose of providing false standards and content with magazines is to ultimately bring sales up in order to keep the magazine industries
Although, in society today ads are being produced with different characteristics of feminism; for example, having more "plus" sized models in ads instead of the typical tall, skinny models. The mass media is still predominantly a gender discriminated aspect in today's society. The media presents aspects of masculinity and femininity in ads produced for general ideas of how people in our society should look like and wear to be appealing.
Advertising surrounds the world every second of the day. This form of influence has had the power to influence how society views gender roles ever since men and women began to appear in advertisements. Through the exposure to many different gender portrayals in advertising, gender roles become developed by society. This stems from how men and women are depicted, which forms stereotypes regarding the individual roles of men and women. People often shift their definition of an ideal image towards what they see in advertisements. From this, they tend to make comparisons between themselves and the advertisement models. Advertisements tend to be brief, but impactful. The different portrayals of men and women in advertising show that advertisements
The objectification of women in the media is an ongoing problem. This article shows a study done to show how women are sexually objectified and stereotyped in the media (advertising) and how the effect of media literacy plays a role in this issue. The article goes into the different areas of media literacy with the female portrayal in the media. They made sure to not just use one view of women. In one context, they used a music video and another was just for advertising. The researchers showed a group of men and women
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
The average American is exposed to hundreds of advertisements per day. Advertisements targeted toward females have an enormous effect on women's thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, and actions. Most of the time, women don't even realize these advertisements are formulating self-image issues. These ideals surround them daily and they become naturalized to the ads. Advertising creates an entire worldview persuading women to emulate the images they see all around them. In order to create a market for their products, companies constantly prey upon women's self esteem, to feel like they aren't good enough just the way they are. This makes women constantly feel stressed out about their appearance (Moore). Advertising has a negative effect on women's body image, health, and self-esteem.
The ideal image that the media has created is to be exceptionally thin and tall. This is what the media considers to be beautiful. This ideal image can be seen on a daily basis just about everywhere on advertisements, which promote this unattainable image constantly. Research has proven that women tend to feel more insecure about themselves when they look at a magazine or television, which makes them feel self conscious(Mackler 25). The irony in this is that not even the women in the advertisements are as flawless as they appear to be. In order for a woman to appear in the mass media her image must be enhanced in several ways. A women is often airbrushed to conceal their actual skin but it does not end there. Through various computerized programs a woman's actual features are distorted until a false unrealistic image is reached.