“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth”,
said Malcom X, an American black militant leader. Indeed it’s true that media
holds power to ruin or to build. The media to a certain extent did attempt to
increase the confidence of people both emotionally and physically.
Through social
networking sites such as Facebook, people could readily express thoughts and
present themselves the way they want people to see them. This arguably
increases the confidence of some who dare not speak up and allows them to take their first step out of their comfort zone to freely express.
Infact through sites such as Youtube, people get to showcase their talents and
hobbies. In some cases, people were discovered for their talents, and in some
others, people found friends who share the same interests. Looking at the case
of how Justin Bieber was discovered and how “Wongfuproductions”, a film company
got their first signed overseas project with pop star Wang Lee Hom (both discovered
through their videos on Youtube), we could see that somehow media did increase
not just confidence, but also the acknowledgement of different individuals’
talents which builds up a healthy self image.
Furthermore,
with the current increase in beauty and health products commercials, people are
subconsciously introduced to the theory of “the world having no ugly people,
but lazy people”. This motivated many to do something and even to try out some
products to self actualise in a physical way to reach their “ideal self image”.
This largely increases self confidence and assurance.
In contrast
to the stereotype of media being all adverse and negative, perhaps, media do
have certain positive effects on the self image and confidence.
Resources/ video links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPHnayNNJhY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELsp2qjvTE&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL81C96652C0E4C7BE
Resources/ video links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPHnayNNJhY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELsp2qjvTE&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL81C96652C0E4C7BE
