Thinspiration

In this generation, there is a growing need and desire for approval from the people around us, our peers: everyone knows the pressure of fitting in and being what others want us to be. Looking the way they want you to look, saying what they want you to say, and questioning yourself before every move you make: never fully being comfortable to be yourself. One of the biggest flaws in a person is insecurity. When you are a person who is insecure you constantly doubt yourself, and think of every little thing you say and do. In a way you torture yourself by the judgment you place on your own shoulders. Why do people care so much about what others think? Furthermore why do people feel they have the right to judge anyone?

Almost every person would agree that we are all in some way brain washed to think a certain way. We are told everyday what to buy, what to wear, and what to believe. The media is at the center of our society: it has the biggest influence on our everyday lives. The media constantly puts images and messages in our faces. It shows us what beautiful is suppose to be according to them. To the media beauty is actresses and models: the pictures of women and men posted all over magazines. These women are usually skinny, with good hair, and the latest clothes. The men are handsome with fit bodies. A message that is constantly drilled into our minds in these photos and magazines is to be pretty, thin, wealthy, and powerful is to be happy. The sad thing is we, the consumers of products like these, eat up everything we are told. We see these pictures and think that’s what beauty is and that’s what I want to be. We look at the people around us and wonder why they don’t look like these plastic perfect people. We strive to look the same. We buy the make up they wear and style our hair the same way to please the eyes of society.

Another way of describing fitting in is changing yourself so that you are no longer and individual: to not standing out, or be special. Original, different, rare, these are all synonyms for individual and that is not what the media wants to sell to us. One of the biggest ways a person tries to fit in is by looking the way others want you to. Women everywhere are put under the most pressure to be perfect. Women aren’t suppose to fart or burp, instead we are suppose to look pretty and clean the house. Some women spend half their lives trying to be the ideal. Being skinny and fit is the biggest enemy to any woman who enjoys her food. Being fat is simply unacceptable to most people. To be fat shows you have no control. Being overweight may not be a healthy choice, but again who are we to judge how someone lives his or her life? What is upsetting is some people’s perception of fat. Some people actually think a girl wearing size four jeans should lose a few pounds. Not just women, but young teenagers feel the pressure of having to be thin. As a result many young girls and older women starve themselves in order to lose weight. Thinspiration websites tell these women not only to starve themselves, but also to be anorexic. To get so skinny that their bones are sticking out. Women everywhere are dying from bulimia and anorexia. The ones who survive strive to help others like them get healthy again. These websites are a danger to the females in this world.

Losing weight is just one more way of changing yourself to make others happy. Some say they want to look that way to make themselves happy, but why does being that size make you happy? Is it because others think you look good? Truth is the only reason you like being thin is because over time we have been told being small is attractive. What if the media told everyone being curvy and even chubby is what is appealing? My thought is over time our own opinions would change and therefore our views of others and ourselves. We would soon think weighing a little more is alluring. Sadly there are millions of people with eating disorders who wake up in the morning and have almost no strength. These people can barely move, and they are never happy because they are emotionally unstable and can only see themselves as fat, ugly, and worthless.

The media tries to warp our minds through commercials when they show young pretty people always happy. One of the most talked about incidents for commercial discrimination is when ABC and Fox network refused to show a Lane Bryant commercial featuring fuller sized women in lingerie. The networks released a statement saying the commercial was too revealing, yet everyday there is a Victoria’s Secret commercial playing with skinny women in skimpy lingerie and that is considered appropriate.

People want so badly to be the ideal look, that they not only starve themselves, but they pay to be cosmetically altered. Cosmetic Plastic Surgery has only dropped 2 percent since the economy has gone down. Almost 10 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2009. Women had 91 percent of these cosmetic procedures. Even though people have been struggling through financial problems, they somehow found a way to spend thousands of dollars on being nipped and tucked. The things women do to improve there looks could be as small as shaving there legs and arm pits, waxing there eyebrows and lip hair, putting on makeup, getting there nails done, getting a tan, whitening there teeth, and dying there hair. Or they could be as severe as botox, liposuction, face-lifts, breast augmentation and many more. Laser hair removal has also become a big fad for women, because we should never have hair unless it’s on our head, and we should also always have smooth skin.

There is so much pressure for girls to be thin and beautiful that it is close to impossible for women to reach these standards. These pressures stem from the medias idea of perfection and what is expected of impressionable girls. 

My fourth graph was about mediated sex and I was not surprised by my findings. I watched a horror film called “See No Evil”. It was one of the most violent and disgusting films I have ever seen. There were many scenes where the women in the movie were sexually abused or portrayed. In one scene, a girl is taking a shower while the psychopath is watching her. In another scene, the psychopath locks a girl in a cage as he masturbates while looking at her. For some reason, sex and violence go hand and hand. I think movies like this definitely demonstrate the desensitization theory in action. 

My third graph on violence in tv show was very interesting. I watched a kid tv program called the power rangers and an adult cage fighting show. Surprisingly the kids show had more verbal violence then the cage fighting did. In the power rangers there are 2 women and 3 men that fight numerous villains. The villains were both male and female. The power rangers are seen as heroes for fighting evil. In cage fighting, I only saw men but I am not sure if it excludes women or not. It was extremely violent, with a lot of physical contact, blood and people cheering the violence on.

My second graph on the portrayal of Arabs was not very surprising. It is very true that most arabic people are portrayed as evil, low, terrorists, and not very smart. I have seen the mummy before but after watching it again and really paying attention it was very interesting.  I think that we are so used to seeing arabs in this light so we have become desensitized to their portrayal.

Ethnic Groups in the Paper

My graph showed that the most frequently seen ethnic group were caucasian males. They were portrayed as political figures and successful business men or police officers. The second most frequently shown group were white females. They were also portrayed as political figures and successful people. Then I saw african american men. They were portrayed as either criminals or cops. The last group were black females. They were hardly ever in the paper and if they were it was mostly in the background. I think I found this information because people are still trying to portray certain ethnic groups as the “bad guys” and the others as “the heroes”. I think the news should offer more diversity and in a fair way. Not every black man is a criminal and not every white man is a saint. I think there should be a way for each ethnic group to be able to produce their own news coverage so that they are not always painted in a bad light.

Theory Definitions

Theories of uniform influences= The argument of uniform and powerful direct media has been labeled the bullet theory or hypodermic needle theory and even later was known as the stimulus response theory. Studies conducted after World War I indicated that propaganda and advertising campaigns in newspapers were highly effective in shaping the attitudes, beliefs, and consumer behaviors of their audiences.

Theories of selective influences= is a theory of communication, positing that individuals prefer exposure to arguments supporting their position over those supporting other positions, media consumers have more privileges to expose themselves to selected medium and media contents. People tend to engage in information that comforts and agrees with their own ideas and as a result, they avoid information that argues against their opinion.

Disinhibition Theory= is a term in psychologist used to describe a lack of restraint manifested in several ways, including disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment. Disinhibition affects motor, instinctual, emotional, cognitive and perceptual aspects with signs and symptoms similar to the diagnostic criteria for mania. Hypersexuality, hyperphagia, and aggressive outbursts are indicative of disinhibited instinctual drives.

Desensitization Theory= This theory posits that because people are exposed to so much violence in the media, violence no longer makes a strong emotional impact upon them. Most people would agree that by watching lots of violent movies, a viewer no longer gets upset while watching violent movies.

Sensitization Theory= says that same continuous exposure of violence would make individuals more reactive to aggressive cues as opposed to violent cues.

Cultivation theory= is a social theory which examined the long-term effects of television on American audiences of all ages.

Developed by George Gerbner and Larry Gross of the University of Pennsylvania, cultivation theory derived from several large-scale research projects as part of an overall research project entitled 'Cultural Indicators'.

Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, politicians and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies.

Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking “what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people” (Katz, 1959) . It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs.

The agenda-setting theory is the theory that the mass-news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them.[1] Agenda-setting theory’s main postulate is salience transfer. Salience transfer is the ability of the mass media to transfer issues of importance from their mass media agendas to public agendas.

Reinforcement theory is the process of shaping behavior by controlling the consequences of the behavior. In reinforcement theory a combination of rewards and/or punishments is used to reinforce desired behavior or extinguish unwanted behavior.

According to schema theory, our interpretation of television programs is guided by our application of relevant social and textual schemas.