Introduction When most people look at certain images in the media of people, they come to a fairly quick response. These responses can be both positive and negative. The reason this topic had stood out among others was to see the impact of how these images do effect woman. This topic is important based solely on the fact that everyone should be comfortable in their own skin and the media has portrayed images of how everyone should look and feel about themselves. By using the article The Positive and Negative Media Image Effects on the Self which is based on experients done to test how woman react to certain body types in the media and how it effects their self esteem. After reading this article we conducted our own ad campaign for Lu Lu lemon. This campaign is directed at using the positive side of media images especially in the younger generations. We feel this campaign can be successful by using images of everyday people so that everyone can relate and feel good about being themselves.
The Positive and Negative Media Image Effects on the Self.
The article written by Dirk Smeesters and Naomi Mandel is a summary of research towards images of models to woman and how it effects there self esteem. The research has shown that images of thin woman have been known to cause self enhancement and some negative self image. The first part of the research that was studied was how certain woman reacted to extreme body images as well as moderate body images. They would be shown an extremely thin/heavy model or an averagely thin/moderately heavy woman. The article uses the word assimilation to describe how some woman view the images to them. The article explains the natural tendency of people to evaluate themselves by comparing with others. There are two different types of comparisons they are upward and downward. Upward meaning that people perceive the image positively and downward meaning negatively.
A researcher by the name of Mussweiler is referenced to a model known as the selective accessibility model. This model takes place in three stages the first stage is finding a comparison target whether the model is thin or heavy. The second stage is similarity and dissimilarity comparison. The final stage is to evaluate one’s own abilities. In further research it showed that woman view moderate body types as possible selves where as the extreme body types they view a difference. Most of the self comparisons take place in a spontaneous matter and can result in assimilation. Most of the judgments of self are measured using a response mode. This can include a rating scale there are lower self ratings for thin models compared to heavy. Overall self esteem is based on the models size and the response mode.
The research overall in the article showed that seeing advertisement models can have both enhancing and lowering of a woman’s self esteem. In comparing one’s self to models there were two factors found. The first being the comparison standard is crucial in determing the assimilation and contrast effects. The second is that whether assimilation and contrast occurs depends on a self evaluative question and whether it is framed as a rating scale or free response mode. Studies have shown that woman spontaneously and automatically compare themselves to models in advertisements. Overall it is found that woman have a negative response to thinner models than they do to moderate or average sized woman.
What we got out of the article
The article itself was based on self esteem and how woman base that on models in advertisements. A woman will use different response modes to base their overall response to models or to how they portray themselves based on the model. The research showed that advertisements of models can cause both enhancing and negative effects on a womans perception of herself that effects her self esteem. Overall when woman were comparing themselves to models it came down to two factors. The first being that a woman’s comparison standards are crucial in determining assimilation and contrast effects. The second was that whether assimilation or contrast occurs depends on a self evaluative question and whether it is framed as a rating scale or free response mode. Basically this comes down to the fact that woman have an immediate and spontaneous reaction to models in advertisements, so that they compare themselves in either of the extremes causing it to effect their self esteem quickly.