PRESENTATION

Iris: Hello everyone :)

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Introduction
We will present to you the impact of the media on our body image, and the way we
perceive ourselves.
Around 3.6 billion people use social media today, beginning an important part of our
culture.
However, spending his time scrolling through posts can impact your image of yourself. In
fact, in the past different media such as campaigns, magazines,…, always tried to influence
and promote an ideal body, stereotyping others. This can affect people who compare their
body’s appearance to societal standards all the time. A negative body image can cause
unrealistic expectations of how your body should look and could lead to unhealthy
behaviors.
We choose this topic because we think that it’s important to understand the impact of the
media on us, especially young adults, and how media success to do that. We want to
understand the mechanism that media are using to impact our body image, but also, in
another part, the positive impact that media can have on our body image. So it just depends
on how we are using media, we just need to know them to avoid this feeling.
- Research question
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- Slide with all of the theories
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We will try to analyze it thanks to the theory of Hall, between media shaping, mirroring, or
representating. In fact, when media influence the society it’s shaping, but on the contrary
when society influence media it’s mirroring, because they just represent the society. But
according to Hall, there is a link in the both cases, they influence each others forming a
circle.

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We will also speak about laswell’s theory of the communication process.Indeed, it’s a chain
reaction with the sender who sent a message by a medium to a recipient. This message will
have an effect on this last one.

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We will also use cultural studies, especially of Stuart hall and raymond williams about the
audience. For them the audience is active, the meaning is constructed by the reader, who
encode the message.

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And finally, we will speak about the theory of bird about the participatory culture, the
spectacle, we will see if we are all producers now.

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I. How media impacts the self image/ body image of young adults

To be defined, a body image is a perception that you have of your physical self and the
thoughts and emotions that result from this perception. 4 factors can determine our body
image: the perceptual body image, affective, cognitive, and behavioral.
Indeed, social media has an important place in body image development because young
people can be judged and make comparisons with others. Exposure to particular content
can make you believe that a thin body type is more natural than it is. Particular body types
are considered ideal and this may lead society to view these body times and specific eating
behaviors as more attractive and healthier than other ones, as shown us the number of likes
on these idealized bodies. They are considered objects and not really human bodies. These
social norms may impact how you view your body because humans have a general need to
gain approval from others and avoid their disapproval. As a result, might conform to the
social norms related to appearance. In 2021, a study found that the more they compared
themselves to people they followed on social media, the more dissatisfied they became with
their bodies.
Social media users often choose to share the best parts of their life with the world. We may
begin to feel that we are not good enough, compared to the people we see on Instagram. In
fact, in 2018 a study saw a link, a correlation between our negative body image and the time
spent on social media, and disordered eating. It’s evident with the constant exposure to an
image posted online that social media is shopping our concept of beauty…
Moreover, it is currently on social media to use photoshop and a lot of filters, and the
majority of the photos are edited. This fact can contribute to negative body image because
photoshop and filters are readily available to users playing into the unrealistic body image.
In addition to that, some social media accounts, named fitspo and thinspo exist in order to
encourage followers to be fit and thin. Although this tag intends to inspire you to become
more healthy and fit, research on the #fitspiration tag on Instagram shows that these
objectifying features of bodies harm people’s body image and self-esteem.
Moreover, social media can provoke an increase in eating disorders. In fact, exposure to
toned and thin bodies, and some diets can have an impact on our body image. It can even
provoke body dysmorphic disorder, which is exaggerated flaws, or even anorexia nervosa,
by restricting food and overexercising. The healthy eating movement on social media has
also been linked to Orthorexia Nervosa, which is characterized by an obsession with healthy
eating and limiting ‘bad’ foods, which can lead to malnutrition. There may also be negative
consequences for your physical health. In addition to psychological symptoms, nutritional
deficiencies can lead us to feel exhausted, dizzy, and unable to concentrate. Even seemingly
well-intended “movements” that appear periodically, such as people posting images of their
“healthy” meals, have an undercurrent of toxicity and diet culture as they lack context and
people are too ready to copy this kind of consumption.
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Example:
Women: kardashian or jenner
For example,Kardashian's family has more than half a billion social-media followers between
them… That's more than twice the size of the United States. They used a lot of plastic
surgery to have the perfect body. In fact, The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery
revealed that between 2011 and 2016, the use of neurotoxin injectables increased by 87
percent.Thanks to social media, especially instagram, these women inspire a lot of other
women to become like them, to change their body to have bigger buttocks and breasts, but
to be still thin and fit, so only possible with surgeries…

Pia:
Example for Men: Toxic Masculinity
What is toxic masculinity? →the definition says, it is a set of certain male behaviors which
are associated with harm to men and society
- Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominancy, misogyny and homophobia
- → they are seen as toxic because of their openly promotion of violence
- example: sexual assault & domestic violence → sayings like "boys will be
boys"
Social media is reinforcing those toxic traits and images of a men
- pressures men to be & act “manly”: be muscular, strong, though, aggressive even
violent → show power and dominance instead of emotions and weakness
- additionally media consumption leads to low body perceptions (regarding
muscularity, thinness, hight)
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Research
Social media influence especially: Insta & body image: Fardouly et al., 2018: specifically of
image based platforms as Instagram: social media consumption is associated with greater
self-objectification which leads to social comparison and negative impact on mental health
Countermovements: Leyan Mezger, “Challenging dominating beauty standards? A content
analyses of body positive accounts on Instagram”, 2021: explore the phenomenon of body
positivity, its aspects of criticism, and whether it could be interpreted as a
countermovement and alternative to the hegemonic ideals of femininity
- body positive content is less often appearance-focused and objectifying,
commercialism combined with body positive messages, leads to positive mood and
body satisfaction (Cohen, Irwin, et al. 2019)
- body positive content on Instagram may lead to comparable psychological and
protective assets, such as greater emotional, social and psychological well-being
(Halliwell 2015)
- exposure to body positive content increased state body appreciation (Williamson &
Karazsia, 2018)
critic: body positivity creates a new burden for women, having to love their body but feeling
worse if they do no (Oltuski, 2017)
- it still keeps the focus on appearance (Cohen, Fardouly, et al. 2019 & Webb 2017)
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Countermovements
body positivity movement communicates body positivity by depicting a wide range of body
sizes and shapes with a focus on representing diverse body types including overweight or
obese bodies that are incongruent with the dominating societal beauty ideal of the thin or
unrealistic curvy ideal (Kim Kardashian)
→ key goal is to challenge the unrealistic beauty standards displayed in traditional and social
media content by encouraging the acceptance of more diverse body sizes and shapes
Research: viewing body positive content has a positive impact on emotional well-being and
increases state body-appreciation (Williamson & Karazsia, 2018)
→ post about womens body positivity are way more popular, there are only a few accounts
that focus on male body positivity
-→ if so, mostly feminist accounts that focus on equality in general or toxic
masculinity → no specific male body positive accounts
- reasonable because: historically & womens bodies get objectified a lot →
creates more awareness for female bodies and the self perception of women
- examples for body positive content on insta:
- women: @danamercer, @ashleygraham (plus size model)
- men: @heforshe, @feminist, @faanil
PROBLEMS of the movement:
- influencers mostly fit into the society's standard of beauty → some bodies like
disabled bodies etc. are excluded
- mainstream: modifies the core message of the movement and diminishes its original
goals (Cwynar-Horta, 2016a; Lazuka et al., 2020; Luck, 2016)
 - commercialization: partly content gets used for cooperations with companies some
of them represent the opposite of what body positivity stands for (Muttarak, 2018)
- it still also keeps the focus on appearance → new idea: body neutrality as a new
form of body positivity: focusses on the functions of the body rather than its
appearance by statements such as “you are more than a body and your body does
not exist to be pleasing to the eyes of others”
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Media Theories II
- Halls: Social Medias influence shapes the society/ users → Society mirrors social
media → mutual relation
- Laswell´s theory on communication process: the Influencer or advertisments
promote a body image on social media platforms as instagram that the users of
those platforms consume and in conclusion it could lead to an adaption those
forms of body images and to toxic comparison with those unrealistic images
- stimulus response: users as the audience that gets confronted with content
- Bird´s theory of participatory culture: Perception of every single user as a possible creator
(on instagram)

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Conclusion: What can we learn?
Media can manipulate → the right handling is key → media education in schools/
regulations on the age of social media platforms and their consumption
- As Laswell and Hall showed with their theories: media and society have a mutual
relation they exist in codependency → media influences society but the society is
also in charge of changes in the media → shown by the try of body positivity
movement
It does have an effect on your self perception, body image and mental health → you as the
user can influence the effect by influencing the algorithm with the people you follow,
content you like and share etc. → example by following fore diverse and body positive/
neutral accounts, only accounts you don't feel stressed by seeing their content
In general: teenagers and young adults are strongly affected by the consequences of their
social media usage as several research studies and for example surveys and mental issue
and suicidal rates among young adults show
→ there needs to be more research especially about the influence of social media
consumption on the self perception, objectivation and body image of men and boys
- and a greater focus on not only diverse and body positive expressions and
acceptance of women and girls but also male bodies
- more knowledge about toxic masculinity and countermovements → not only by
feminist and female accounts but especially initiated by men!
- from toxic masculinity to inclusive masculinity
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Thank´s for your attention :) → Questions?
i