Epistemology In Advertising

Everyday females are exposed to how media views the female body, whether in a work place, television ads, and magazines. Women tend to judge themselves on how they look just to make sure there keeping up with what society see as an idyllic women, when women are exposed to this idea that they have to keep a perfect image just to keep up with media, it teaches women that they do not have the right look because they feel as if they don’t add up to societies expectations of what women should look like, it makes them thing there not acceptable to society. This can cause huge impacts on a women self-appearance and self-respect dramatically. Women who become obsessed about their body image can be at high risk of developing anorexia or already have

Cresswell (2009), revealed that as researchers anticipate data collection, many ethical issues arise during the data collection through different methods like interviews and questioners. While collecting data, researchers should not put participants at risk. Hence, researchers need to have their research plan as per the BERA guidelines (2011), which promotes respect for all researchers and participants and those who use the research. Because BERA is always continuing with the best ethical practice and

In today’s modern culture, almost all forms of popular media play a significant role in bombarding young people, particularly young females, with what happens to be society’s idea of the “ideal body”. This ideal is displayed all throughout different media platforms such as magazine adds, television and social media – the idea of feminine beauty being strictly a flawless thin model. The images the media displays send a distinct message that in order to be beautiful you must look a certain way. This ideal creates and puts pressure on the young female population viewing these images to attempt and be obsessed with obtaining this “ideal body”. In the process of doing so this unrealistic image causes body dissatisfaction, lack of self-confidence

These advertisements lower women’s status as the women portrayed in the photographs set merely unattainable standards that only assist in women’s inferiority. Advertisers should not seek to make women feel bad about their appearance as everyone comes in all different shapes and sizes and not all perfect thin and tall models. Women having a negative self-image of themselves is an ongoing issue, because the media unfavorably portrays them as they do not meet their standard of what the ideal body type of a woman should look like. Solving this issue would incredibly increase women’s confidence in themselves and their bodies, diminish eating disorders, and shrink the dieting industry that so drastically affects the health of

It is no mystery that women struggle with body image on a daily basis. It is also no mystery that young girls look up to their mothers and follow in their footsteps. In an advertisement by Body Image Movement, they exploit a little girl who is concerned about her weight to show that beauty standards effect women of all ages and sizes and that young girls like the one in the ad follow in their mother’s footsteps. This ad is heavy in ethos, pathos and logos and appeals to its viewers in a way in which they want to make a change on beauty standards and make sure that no girls at any age feels the need to fit into society’s beauty standards.

Due to media advertisements, women have felt the pressure to look good more than ever. In the book Where the Girls are, the author Susan Douglas expresses what women sometimes feel when they are exposed to media advertisements. "Special K ads make most of us hide our thighs in shame. On the one hand, on the other hand, that’s not just me, that’s what it means to be a woman in America" (Douglas 1995). Women struggle every day with these societal pressures that the media has created and sadly it is only getting worst.

This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an

The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).

Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.

Countless advertisements feature thin, beautiful women as either over-sexualized objects, or as subordinates to their male counterparts. The mold created by society and advertisers for women to fit into is not entirely attainable. More often than not, models are Photoshopped and altered to the point that they don’t even resemble themselves. W. Charisse Goodman suggests, “The mass media do not

One of the categories in being the ideal woman is being conventionally beautiful because, according to the media, a significant portion of a woman’s self-worth rests in appearance. This can be seen through women’s magazines in particular, which promote altering one’s appearance leads to the significant improvement of one’s “love life and relationships, and ultimately, life in general” (Bazzini 199). Therefore, the media presents a direct relationship with beauty and success: the more attractive a woman is, the better her life will be. Thus, a woman must the take initiative to look beautiful in order to be successful. Through the repetitive exposure of the same type of image in the media, what society considers beautiful often resembles a definitive checklist.

There are more and more sexualized women advertisements out in the public. “Female characters continue to show dramatically more skin that their male counterparts, and feature extremely tiny waists and other exaggerated body characteristics, this hypersexualization and objectification of female characters leads to unrealistic body ideas in very young children” (“Gender in Media” 2). As it is said in the quotation, advertisements are impacting people and children’s perceptions for women. The significance difference between women and men that women are more likely to wear seductive clothes than men and are more attractive than men is shown in most advertisements. This may lead to the fact that women are objectified in people’s perceptions.

In light of these, the following ethical issues will be taken into account when the research will undertake:  The objective of this study will be made clear to each participant.  All the respondents will participate in the research voluntarily.  Only those participants who are voluntary will be

The respondents in the study are human subjects and this required a number of measures to be put in place to ensure that the subjects were protects. The main ethical issues that have been given due consideration during the research are given below, Informed consent: Inform all participants that they are subject to the research project and that they are free to refuse to participate. Deception: true information given to all participants about the purpose of the research Confidentiality: identifying information about the subjects will not be made available to anyone.

This research paper presents a content analysis on the portrayal of women in advertisements. This paper is written to better understand the stereotypes of women in advertising. The paper will also include the harsh realities female receivers have to face due to the portrayal of unrealistically thin and technologically perfected super models. Many women are portrayed as sexual objects and are constantly being degraded. Few examples of using sex appeal will also be discussed in this paper.