User:YOLOpurple/Media and gender

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Body Image:

Although media's effect on body image has been historically primarily researched for the female gender, there have been increasingly more studies on males. The masculine ideal of a "lean, muscular mesomorphic body type" represents a minuscule portion of the population that is drastically different than the average which results in increased body dissatisfaction (Agliata & Tantleff-Dunn, 2004) and low self confidence in physical attractiveness and muscle satisfaction (Hargreaves & Tiggemann, 2009). The reason for this causal relationship can be attributed towards Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) where individuals value themselves based off of their performance in comparison to environmental others and Cultivation Theory (Gerbner 1969) which internalizes exposure towards the ideals presented in media.

For the LGBT population, there has been minimal research due to cisgender studies being the primary targets; however, studies have shown that LGBT youth are more likely to exhibit high body image issues than cisgender and heterosexual individuals, given that the timeline for eating disorders and body image dissatisfaction is initiated during adolescence which has a large correlation with the development of sexual orientation. Although the media causes a higher negative impact towards the LGBT population, media has also been proven to be less likely to feature gay individuals due to the "Marketer's Dilemma" in which companies don't want to diminish from the straight consumer base.

Social Media:

Throughout the world, feminine and masculine ideals are construed through both the social and cultural environment. The emergence of social media creates a consumer motivation towards rapid growth in entertainment, socializing, information sharing, self-expression, and status representation resulting in both negative and positive effects.

In the chapter of "Gender" from How the World Changed Social Media, the negative effects found through all nine field sites of their study foster the enforcement of gender stereotypes. For example, Southeast Turkey consists of a predominantly Muslim community in which modesty and purity are the values for women, so this population omits featuring life that does not adhere to those ideals; because social media is particularly prone to analysis, both male and females present gender segregated and conforming posts on their pages. Similarly, in rural China, it is custom for women to delete their social medias after marriage or create a portrait of traditional family and romantic values for both men and women. In Italy, the content of men's pages consist of masculine content: "politics, news, powerful motorcycles and sports" while women place emphasis on feminine content: "roles as wives and mothers". In almost every region, this chapter conveys a feminine ideal of family values and physical aesthetic while the masculine ideal is more individualized and material; however, it has also created new opportunity for the expansion of communication, female access to novel career paths, and access to the external world in the same examined regions.

Advertising/Television

Gender norms are created and emphasized even at an early age through the use of visual cues which has been proven to greatly affect a child's interpretation of gender. Studies using "the gender content in an ad-- characters, products, settings, role portrayals, peripheral cues (colors, language, voice-over)" have proven that a higher degree of gender flexibility has a positive correlation with children's attitudes when viewing advertisements with gender content which conveys the significance of the effects of media in advertising towards youth.

In the 1940s, companies began differentiating their marketing based on gender to broaden their sales and create a completely separate line of products that would be purposed for solely either a boy or a girl. These products fostered intellectual development; however, with the new gendered division of toys came the reinforcement of masculine and feminine ideals as well as a clear pink and blue colored divide. "Girl" products such as dolls and makeup foster a passive attitude and put emphasis on striving for beauty while "boy" products such as action figures and cars foster a more aggressive and active characterization. A significance behind toys is the initiation of the learning of new skills and even the initiation of curiosities behind professions. As manufacturers begin to shift towards creating a more inclusive environment and creating non-gendered products, the emergence of more gender neutral toys, dolls, and colors that puts more emphasis on personal interests instead of gender ideals is on the rise.