Recommendations to Visit

In this project, my classmates took other perspectives on different issues in media and its influence on society. Some of these blogs were very challenging for me. However, the topics that I enjoyed the most are the following and I would like to recommend them to visit.

Anna Sabanci

-this blog was exciting because she pointed out that media are just picking the pieces of the information about Islam. They use specific information for their purpose of attracting the reader’s attention, however, just because they point out one example, it does not mean that whole religion follows this example.

http://media4islam.wordpress.com/

Uliana Formina

-I do recommend this blog because the influence of advertising on children is taken from many different perspectives. She does not only talk about the violent ads that children can see on the TV. However, she includes the opinion of various organizations, sex portrayed in media and also the influence of woman’s image on little girls.

http://ads-and-kids.blogspot.com/

Jakub Hribik

-I do recommend this blog because Jakub showed his own opinion as well as he gave a clear support for what he is claiming. It is true that violence can be caused by media, however in which percentage. He makes us think if there are not other reasons why people do act violently or why they are committing the attack.

http://mediaandviolence.wordpress.com/

Zhazira Alikhanova

-I strongly do recommend seeing this blog because there is a variety of supportive material. The pictures of anorectic models are very horrible. However, the advertising against anorexia seems so strong to me as well. Zhazira points out that the media should admit that they are creating a fake image of woman ‘beauty’ which is hardly achievable by ordinary women.

http://zhazira.wordpress.com/

Elmira Ilyasova

- I recommend seeing this blog because Elmira chose a topic where there are many interesting debates going on. This blog is full of supportive videos and every viewer can make his own opinion. I like how she looked at many different types of music and their development. She shows her opinion on topic clearly and she also includes some of her personal experiences.

http://subculturalcosmopolite.wordpress.com/

Introduction

Women characters play an important part in our society. Women that take place in commercials are there to attract potential customers. These commercials are not just for female audience but for male as well. These women are often shown in particular way in sexy image and body.

For example, the commercial for Axe in Czech Republic where there is an attractive woman in short skirt who is interested in male figurine just because he is sprayed with this deodorant. For male audience, this shows that if they use this particular perfume, attractive women will be attracted to them.

However, this also creates a definition of how is an ‘attractive woman’ supposed to look like. The ‘ordinary women’ could not compete with special make up, camera in studio and computer used to create a better image of this female character. This fact is used by many companies that produce pills and other products for shaping body.

Furthermore, women in society who are trying to look like those who can be seen on the television or on billboards and magazines often harm their body and even in some cases these practices might cause death. For someone, it might be hart to understand that what they see is just an illusory image. In fact, it is important that every woman should know that fake image created in studio can not be compared with natural beauty of every woman.

Current Events

One of the most frequent issues shown in advertising, especially now after Christmas period, are various methods for women advising how to loose weight. Women are often concerned with their bodies. Christmas is well know for the bigger amount of food available and consumed. After this period is over, many women are not satisfied with amount of calories that they gained over the Christmas period.

Companies that produce various pills and medicaments for weight reduction are aware of this fact, therefore they increase theirs pressure on potential customers by advertising. These products are for various female audiences. Some companies use women in older age as their target audience, others try to address their message to younger audience through well known actresses.

It is in nature of woman that she wants to look good as well as she wants her environment to see her as attractive person in every age. There is a group of women that are aware of the fact that they ate a lot during the Christmas period and are willing to do something with their body just to loose necessary kilograms. These advertisements might just help them to choose the best suitable product for them.

However, there is also another group of women who would not even think about loosing weight after happy Christmas seasons as well as they would not think that there is something wrong with their body shape. Although, after the ‘attack’ of ‘loose weight’ commercials, these women might start do get worried about their body parts even if they do not have to.

Furthermore, when this kind of advertising appears, the problem connected with these products occurs as well: women start to question their bodies according to some ‘rules’ set by the television. However, they do not realize that people on the television did not use these products. Their bodies are specifically adjusted with camera so the image is the best but not real. Therefore, these women might have a big problem of creating unreal TV image from their real body.

Please see the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12_9WVsmM0c&feature=related

Anorexia Nervosa Part 1

Current Events 1

Another current issue that influences women over the advertising during the Christmas period is various types of cosmetic appliances. These products use different methods how to attract women’s attention. Many of them use slogans such as “maybe she is born with it” or “because you are worth it”.

Other parts of method that they use are famous actresses and artists that carry out these commercials for cosmetic companies. They are supposed to present the beauty and perfection of every woman that uses the particular product. However, it is doubtable if actresses use these products in the reality and if they are as trustful as they claim to be.

Potential female customers that see these commercials are expecting the same results that they see on the television. However, they might be disappointed if they do not see the same image that is created by camera, computer and special effects.

Women see the beautiful actress with perfect make up, unbelievably long eyelashes, gorgeous lips and shining hair. This image sets a definition of a ‘beautiful woman’. The problem occurs when customer realizes that she would not be able to get the same result at home in front of her mirror.

In stead of realizing that it is just a marketing method used by product company and advertising, women start to question their natural beauty. In more and more cases at the present time, these women end up at plastic surgeries just because they want to be as close to the image that they see on the television as possible.

These procedures are often very dangerous and women have to go through painful process. The desired result does not appear right after the operation. Women’s body first has to get adjusted to the particular changes. After this step is accomplished and all the swollen parts of the body disappear, there is still some process necessary; now, to hide the unreal image. After all, there is necessary check up needed. Otherwise the woman’s health might be in danger.

However, the pressure of advertising that is put on average women every day is great, women have to be aware of the hidden advertising methods behind it and not get influenced by something that was made by computer and great technology.

Article

The article called Report: Media Portrayals Of Women Affect Health was written by Deborah L. Tolman. This article is written from a different prospective. It concentrates on sexual image of women shown in advertising and it cause to the surrounding world. It is important to mention so it is clear how big the influence of advertising is and that it can also start in very early age.

There are different types of sexy images of women shown by media. These images can show little girls with different make up to make them look older, offensive phrases used in well know songs or even Disney characters like Little Mermaid who shows more skin that would be appropriate. This can cause confusion for male audience when looking for this kind of image of woman in real world as well as confusion for young girls who want to look like these models.

In the second part of the article Tolman claims that “sexualized images are projected to suggest sexual availability to the exclusion of other personal characteristics and qualities, which is inappropriate for any female.” There are many young models looking older in the advertising. This might cause a problem to younger girls that get easily influenced and there is a chance that they carry out the problem of a fake image with them until older age.

It is a duty of parents to explain the media influence to these little ladies. By this action, we prevent them to grow up as women who do not see a real image of themselves but they try to look like some unreal picture created in front of the camera.

Please see the article on the following web page:

http://cbs5.com/health/sexual.media.girls.2.452656.html

Article 1

Ivy Ickes is the author of the article Advertising May Have Negative Effects. In this article, she talks about Jean Kilbourne’s lecture regarding women influenced by advertising.

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. is a well known speaker famous for her work concerning alcohol, tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising.

Ickes in her article shows the importance of Jean Kilboarne and her work. She cites students and their opinion on this lecture. Female students claim that they realized how they are affected by advertising and the image of women’s body more than before. In her presentation, she encourages young audience to think for themselves and take what is best for them from advertising.

Ivy Ickes claims that “the advertisement industry tells women that they can never measure up with a basic message sent -- that the more you subtract, the more you add. Therefore, a woman can simply disappear as a person and become an object instead.” When we think about this, women shown in the adverts are really just the objects without any deeper meaning.

For the better perspective of Kilbourne’s message, please see the following videos

Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FpyGwP3yzE

Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession with Thinness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7143sc_HbU

Ivy Ickes article Advertising may have negative effects can be found on http://media.www.bgnews.com/media/storage/paper883/news/2001/03/20/LocalNews/Advertising.May.Have.Negative.Effects-1282981.shtml

Recommendation of Web Pages

For interested readers, I would recommend seeing following pages. They are interesting in showing different perspectives of advertising development and its influence on women.

The first web page has an article with title Roles. It is interesting because it shows old cases of advertising and how they influenced women. Women in 1960s were portrayed in total different as at present time. Young ladies were shown as housewives and were there mainly to serve men. There are also pictures available.

Link: http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/pages/roles.htm

The second is called Love Your Body: Offensive Ads. It is a page, there is group of people collecting the signatures for the petition to stop advertisers from creating the offensive advertisements. The interesting part about this site is that the viewer can not only see the recent offensive advertising but he or she can also see the reaction of women that have seen these ads. There are also particular images of ads available.

Link: http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/offensiveads.html

The last internet article is called The Effect and Moderation of Gender Identity Congruity: Utilizing 'Real Women' Advertising Images written by Susan Douglas. The most interesting part for the topic is the first paragraph. It shows how famous companies such as Nike are willing to change their advertising methods. They claim that they are advertising the products that women can identify with.

Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=946275

Thus, I recommend visiting these tree web pages because there is a clear image of how the offensive advertising developed and more importantly what present women think about it.

Should We Make a Difference?

The role of woman was always important in our society. She was exposed in images that varied in different periods as society developed. At the very beginning, woman was shown as a keeper of the family because of her ability to give birth. Later on, woman was portrayed as a person who is supposed to stay at home, look after her man, children and household. She was not supposed study in school or work on her carrier. At the present time, woman is a symbol of beauty, intelligence and capability of being successful either at home or at her occupation. This new portray influenced the advertising business, or maybe the advertisements influenced the recent role of women in our society.

From the times of Merlin Monroe, the figure of women in advertising went through a big change. None of her hips and belly would be acceptable in advertising businesses nowadays. In the recent ads, there are extremely skinny women presented with unnatural shape of their body. In fact, in many cases this type of body can be either inherited either forced by some drastic eating methods. However, only a little percentage of women in our society can have a body like this.

Conversely, the ordinary woman who sees these kinds of ads can get a wrong impression of ‘modern’ beauty. According to A. Hendriks, “after simply viewing images of society’s perception of ideal bodies, 95 percent of women overestimated their body sizes. Forty percent of women overestimated by 50 percent the size of their cheeks, waist, hips or thighs.” This clearly shows that recent ads do leave some kind of an effect on women living in this society.

The biggest parts of society affected by these advertisements are girls in young age. Steve Hall, the author of the article Portrayal of Women in Advertising Damaging, claims that “if all we see are unachievable representations of ourselves then certain unhealthy illusions of self are sure to emerge. And have. Just visit a high school hallway.” There are young ladies that visit web sites that actually advise them how to get skinny in the most unnatural ways: causing various eating disorders. In fact, these advices are very dangerous and can cause death of innocent lives: all just because of some fake image in the commercial.

The question remains, why should we care? We should care because the facts and figures are alarming. Anna Gonzalez states that “the number of girls unhappy with their bodies increases to 78 percent at the age of 18 and 53 percent of thirteen year old girls do not like their bodies” (Save Us From the Media). It seams like a new illogical fashion. What is going to happen with these girls when they get older? What kind of generation is going to be developed? There should be enough material available to prevent these actions and be used as prevention from the ‘true’ face of advertising.

We as women should realize if we want to follow a fake image created behind the camera, what we are probably not going achieve without torturing ourselves anyways, or if we want to make a change in this society. The advertisements are created for us so we should show that we do not agree with them. At the same time, male population should also look at these ads rationally because the women they see there are not real. Real women, maybe a little bit tired, with mimics wrinkles and different body size, are around them on the streets every day. That is a real image of woman and we should learn how to appreciate it in the world of many fake reflections.

Bibliography

Gonzalez, Anna. "Save Us From the Media." Discourse. 7 Jan. 2008

.

Hall, Steve. "Portrayal of Women in Advertising Damaging." AdRANTs. 31 Oct. 2005. 5 Jan.

2008 .

Hendriks, A. (2002). Examining the Effects of Hegemonic Depictions of Female

Bodies on Television: a Call for Theory and Programmatic Research. Critical Studies in

Mass Communications, (19)1, 106-123.

Should We Make a Difference?

The role of woman was always important in our society. She was exposed in images that varied in different periods as society developed. At the very beginning, woman was shown as a keeper of the family because of her ability to give birth. Later on, woman was portrayed as a person who is supposed to stay at home, look after her man, children and household. She was not supposed study in school or work on her carrier. At the present time, woman is a symbol of beauty, intelligence and capability of being successful either at home or at her occupation. This new portray influenced the advertising business, or maybe the advertisements influenced the recent role of women in our society.

From the times of Merlin Monroe, the figure of women in advertising went through a big change. None of her hips and belly would be acceptable in advertising businesses nowadays. In the recent ads, there are extremely skinny women presented with unnatural shape of their body. In fact, in many cases this type of body can be either inherited either forced by some drastic eating methods. However, only a little percentage of women in our society can have a body like this.

Conversely, the ordinary woman who sees these kinds of ads can get a wrong impression of ‘modern’ beauty. According to A. Hendriks, “after simply viewing images of society’s perception of ideal bodies, 95 percent of women overestimated their body sizes. Forty percent of women overestimated by 50 percent the size of their cheeks, waist, hips or thighs.” This clearly shows that recent ads do leave some kind of an effect on women living in this society.

The biggest parts of society affected by these advertisements are girls in young age. Steve Hall, the author of the article Portrayal of Women in Advertising Damaging, claims that “if all we see are unachievable representations of ourselves then certain unhealthy illusions of self are sure to emerge. And have. Just visit a high school hallway.” There are young ladies that visit web sites that actually advise them how to get skinny in the most unnatural ways: causing various eating disorders. In fact, these advices are very dangerous and can cause death of innocent lives: all just because of some fake image in the commercial.

The question remains, why should we care? We should care because the facts and figures are alarming. Anna Gonzalez states that “the number of girls unhappy with their bodies increases to 78 percent at the age of 18 and 53 percent of thirteen year old girls do not like their bodies” (Save Us From the Media). It seams like a new illogical fashion. What is going to happen with these girls when they get older? What kind of generation is going to be developed? There should be enough material available to prevent these actions and be used as prevention from the ‘true’ face of advertising.

We as women should realize if we want to follow a fake image created behind the camera, what we are probably not going achieve without torturing ourselves anyways, or if we want to make a change in this society. The advertisements are created for us so we should show that we do not agree with them. At the same time, male population should also look at these ads rationally because the women they see there are not real. Real women, maybe a little bit tired, with mimics wrinkles and different body size, are around them on the streets every day. That is a real image of woman and we should learn how to appreciate it in the world of many fake reflections.

Bibliography

Gonzalez, Anna. "Save Us From the Media." Discourse. 7 Jan. 2008

.

Hall, Steve. "Portrayal of Women in Advertising Damaging." AdRANTs. 31 Oct. 2005. 5 Jan.

2008 .

Hendriks, A. (2002). Examining the Effects of Hegemonic Depictions of Female

Bodies on Television: a Call for Theory and Programmatic Research. Critical Studies in

Mass Communications, (19)1, 106-123.