Why Media Representations Of Identity Matter: Impact Of Sexual Objectification On Women

Why do media representations of identity matter?

The media representations to the construction in any medium is the different aspects of reality like the people, places, objects and events or other abstract concept. The representations are in speech or writing with still or moving pictures. The term refers to the processes which involve the products in relation to the key markers of identity like the class, age, gender and ethnicity (Arnett, 2010). The representation also involves how the media is constructed in the process of production and reception by the people whose identity are differently marked in context to the demographic factors. The instances are related to the production, reference where the semiotics foregrounds the process of representation. We have been bounded with different violence, gender stereotyping and increased sexual promiscuity that has been cites as the major ills of the media outlets. With debates over the influence, it is difficult to decipher what is the true influence of media. The theme is evident that objectification of women in media has different effects with different demographics in society but have a strong effect of women.

The exploitation of women in the mass media is the use or portrayal of women like the television, film and advertising to increase the appeal of the media or the product to the detriment of or regarding interest of the women portrayed. The representation of women in media is sexual objectification and a dismemberment which can be a part of the objectification (Aronson et al., 2010). There are different critics of the same who think that using sex could help to sell their goods and services. The media emphasizing on their objectification and sexualization to sell where it exploits the women bodies to help in selling the products. The girls look to the images of the models in short tops etc. The media has the power to stop this portraying of women and prevent them from feeling completely disempowered or objectified by continuing to show how the images and degrading women tend to raise issues on ethical reality. The media is destructive, and it is difficult for the parents to hide such things from the kids due to the increased growth of technology. The media allows the women’s bodies to be objectivised for the profit and money which is becoming an important part than any human dignity which is immoral.

The social media shapes the society and politics where the viewers are influences by what one tends to see. The media sexualisation of women is generally hard to ignore where the culture damages the girls and the women from a young age only. The media sets the hyper sexualised beauty standards and sends out the message to the people. It also focusses on portraying oneself in a beautiful manner, as to what men would like (Carney, 2016). The emphasis is on how one is able to promote this sort of behaviour and appearances. A proper portray of white, thin or long legs make the other people demotivated or depressed, where some young girls imagine the photoshopped images also realistic. A trend has been developing in the entertainment media where the specifications in the movies, videos, music etc are strongly focusing on the sexual objects. This is directly detrimental to the society where the media is creating some socialised stereotypes for the men and women which results in the unhealthy social and physical habits. The advertisers use the content where the girls are portrayed in small clothes, thin legs etc, to associate it to their products and services with sexy imagery and hoping that hotness get attached to their brand in the services with consumer subconscious minds. The media does not tend to sell the messages and material they are presenting, rather they promote to sell sex. The continuation of the trend is detrimental to the society where the sexual messages in the mass media have the immediate and the long-term effects (Eisend & Jana, 2007). Viewing the television program can change the person’s immediate state of inducing arousal which leads to the inhibition of impulses and then activating the thoughts or associations. This could also lead to contributing towards enduring the learned patterns of behaviour and the cognitive scripts with schemas about the sexual interactions, attitudes and the benefits about the real world. The message is about sticking over the time to lend to the negative effects on the society where the stereotypes are mainly amongst the society that focus on the permissive sexual attitudes that men are sex driven with the women who are the objects of men desires with the major appearance of men being important as well.

Argument

The sexualisation and objectification of women in the modern media is through appearance and sexual appeal where there is an investigation of power, gender and sexuality. The paper also focusses on addressing the connections between the notion of modern media and the people. It is possibility to assert that sexualisation of women in media could be mainly responsible for the notion of rape culture where the objectified women are seen nothing rather than the fodder for the consumer desires with male consumers. The demonstrations are based on hyper-sexualisation to understand about the manic expressions of sexual desire or explicit sexual themes through the in-depth research of modern societal trends (Liberman, 2008). The assertion of the modern society is about how it is harmful to the young children, youngsters and the girls who seek older female role models as a base of their action or inaction. Through the understanding, the paper also focuses on the unspoken words of the ideal woman.

The argument is about the observation of current studies that have shown to prove that the existence of the culture of sexualisation is no doubt damaging the societal role of women. The objectification focuses on the advertising of the women’s body parts and the other sexual functions which are separated out from a person. In modern media, the worth of a women can easily be measured by her perceived usefulness in a society where sex sells. The new technologies increase the ability as human beings to communicate and increase the abilities to share the explicit images and videos with one other. This is about normalising the view on what is offensive for an individual (McGannon et al., 2016). The leading sociologists concerns with the portrayal of the women where the same stereotyped images of women are appearing in the magazine advertisements that are nude or partially nude, with women increased from 1979 to 1991 by 30%. The studies have also shown that the view of sexual objectification images of women in the media are likely to accept the violent towards the women. The normalised view on the female nudity, ex and the objectification affect the psyche with treatment of women placed upon them. The self-image of the modern woman has changed the feel of disappointment or self-loathing at the realisation that she is never be able to become an ideal woman. The strongest routs with which media appears is to influence the attitude change that is through persuasion (Smith & Roy, 2008). The discussion is on how media can have the effects on the perception of social reality. The fact is about displaying and working on the roles which influence consumption patterns and lifestyle. The researchers note that the power of television is to influence the people who are illiterate, where one cannot write or read easy to purchase the products or develop the lifestyle values. In this essence, the media is also able to convey the identity as a social concept (Saleem & Ramasubramanian, 2017). Here, one needs to engage any media with the essence of receiving the ideas in a different format. Objectification of the women in advertisements are harmful to the society ideals mainly due to the shape and how one perceives the romantic partners who are even having the material goods. The men are adopted with the harmful attitude towards the relationships, intimacy and sex where the adoption is of the negative self-image and attitude that perpetuate the negative stereotypes about the women, sexuality, intimacy and relationships. The dismemberment mainly has to deal with the cultural dissociation of a person from the body.

Conclusion

The media has profound effects on the social identity formation of young people, where the identity of adolescents takes an understanding of what the “identity” actually entails. The starters tend to social construct the attributes with the concept of knowledge, that combines with self-awareness to develop a cognitive relationship with self which is called identity. We are the people who are controlled by the internal and the external factors to make us one who we become (Singh, 2010). Considering the media, like internet and media is considered to be bringing a change to the life of people, with identity formation, as a social concept.

Reference

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