Blog 4-- Theoretical Approaches

In our book, Charles Larson talks about theories that relate to several controversial issues found in our society today.  The way women are portrayed in the media is one of the issues that need to be addressed, but is mostly “shrugged off” in a sense because of other issues that come before it.  There are different sides to this issue: women are still not treated equally when it comes to the media, and when they are portrayed in the media their presence comes off as such that all women need to look and act a certain way because of what we see every day in the media. However, the real issue isn’t what the problem is with the perception of women in the media, but more how are we going to deal with this problem and who is going to initiate a change.

Larson’s Persuasion textbook has several theories listed, one that I would like to focus on is the use of symbols. Womens body image seen throughout the media can be identified as the symbol the media throws to society and all women. The super skinny and gorgeous show hosts and the flawless skin, perfect looking actresses contribute greatly to the rise in eating disorders in young woman today.  Symbols can either have positive outcomes in their goals or they can lead to negative effects.  The use of symbols provides great awareness into how this issue is being argued in the public. The symbol of this argument is the image of the woman. Actress Jennifer Lawrence was quoted in an interview saying, “in Hollywood I’m obese, and considered a fat actress.” Whitney Thompson, season 10 and the first plus-size winner of America’s Next Top Model said in the model world a size 6 is considered “too fat”. A size 6 is the average size of healthy weight for a woman in the 5 foot height range. Both of these famous women refuse to resort to the ways of the media, and they want to be positive images for girls and they promote being happy in whatever skin you are in.  Even Marilyn Monroe was seen as an icon to all females and she was a size 10.

With this issue, the symbols represent the way women are seen in the media and this perception is a symbol of deception.  The media makes it seem like it is only okay if we look like this, and we need to look and act a certain way. Another theoretical approach found in the book is Psychologist Russell Fazio’s approach about “implicit memory”. This approach says people sometimes relate to efforts at establishing a “new normal”.  I believe the media is strongly attempting to establish a new normal in the way women are perceived. Perfection in the appearance of women is what I believe this is, the media is trying to make all women feel  they need to look and act in this “perfect” way to be accepted by society. This idea is not only for perfection, but the roles women still have in the media are lesser than male roles and this is also is not helping change this idea in society.  This is trying to continue the normal of women just having household duties and lesser roles in the work world, rather than a change of women higher in society. Most women in the media are the symbols that deceive us all into this crazy idea that our bodies need to look a certain way.  By understanding these approaches we can learn that our society including the media is not always persuading us in a positive way. They can deceive us into thinking we need to act and look a certain way, or persuade us to believe something we don’t want to.

Blog 3--

The controversy I will be discussing in my term paper has to do with how body image in the media affects young females in negative ways. At some point in a female’s life she becomes overwhelmed with the way the media portrays women and how they’re looks are depicted as the norm of how one should look. In magazines and ads you consistently see women who are tall, skinny, and flawless; and this is mostly due to the fact that sex sells. What the industry fails to take into account is that many young girls see these women daily and look up to them and aspire to look just like them. The media is constantly shaping the way a perfect woman should look and it is manipulating the reality of what beautiful body image really should be.

Although these glossy magazines and ads aren’t actually aimed at girls under 16, they can still read them. Girls like Rachel Johnson let the media be the fuel to eating disorders such as anorexia. Starting at the age of 13 she idolized all super slim celebrities in magazines and had an eating disorder for 4 years. She stuck magazine cut outs in her school locker and made motivational scrapbooks. She made an e-petition which calls for the Government to ‘ban airbrushing images’. It states that such images give a false representation of beauty and subject children to completely unattainable images. Although she became known there are many many other girls who are in silence fighting this battle. As of Jan 2013 56% of teens feel that the media's advertisements are the main cause of low self-esteem and 44% of teens skip meals as a tactic to losing or controlling weight.

There are several examples of public advocacy related to this issue. There are several advocate groups that address this epidemic and there are some campaigns trying to aid this issue. A non-profit organization I found, About-face, equips women and girls with tools to understand and resist media messages that may affect their self-esteem and body image. There was also a protest in San Francisco where a group of people stripped down to their underwears in front of Victoria Secret to promote diverse and realistic body images.

The best thing to do to lessen body image issues in young girls is to educate them and raise awareness about the media that degrades and/or insults females. Also one can write an email, letter or even start a e-petition to these companies and tell them you refuse to buy their product until they change their advertising.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2136948/My-anorexia-fuelled-celebrity-magazines-Victim-demands-ban-airbrushed-photographs.html

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10376673.htm

http://www.policymic.com/articles/49229/protesters-strip-down-in-front-of-victoria-s-secret-to-promote-a-healthy-body-image

http://www.about-face.org/take-action/get-action-ideas/

 

Blog 2: Car Wars

In the advertising world there are small wars that go on between companies to try to appeal their product to consumers. Some companies choose to directly reference their competitors and degrade their competing products. One of the most commonly known battles that use this approach is between Pepsi and Coca cola, who battle using global advertisements like print ads and video ads, trying to lead each other. But these two are not the only ones, car companies are also well known for bashing each other. It is no surprise that the car brands are referencing each other in advertisements as they exist in a fiercely competitive market where an edge in anything could directly affect the sales of that car, whether it be engines, appearance, or name value. I came across an ad war between BMW and Audi (http://piximus.net/vehicles/advertising-war-between-car-brands#13) that I found to be interesting.

In the article, there are different ads that each either promote their brands strong points such as winning the car of the year, or having the greatest appearance, engines, or just degrading other brands, such as the picture show, BMW and Audi each trying to show the deficiencies of the other cars.

Audi and BMW both respond to each other’s attack with similar approaches, in this case going car for car, presenting their best car that they feel can compete with the others car accompanied by a phrase that responds to the others ad. An example of this is shown on billboard ads that depict a vehicle and a chess reference phrase that responds to the previous ad by the competitor.  

Another article I came across on Forbes went into describing this ad and how the war has escalated to now. “Case in point the latest “billboard war.” It started cheekily enough with Audi, fueled with bratwurst and bravado, posting an ad for its new A4 with the headline: “Your Move, BMW.”

These advertisements can hardly be called “friendly competition” but it is still a healthy competition as the companies are each showing their points of differences for the customers in a funny attractive way. I notice that they are both using the ad hominem fallacy, which is commonly used in persuasion, because they attack each other instead of their position, being gaining more consumers and keeping their current consumers through creative marketing.

Works Cited:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robschwartz/2012/01/29/audi-vs-bmw-the-war-escalates/

 http://piximus.net/vehicles/advertising-war-between-car-brands#13