Sunday, 11 March 2012

Post 3: Perhaps the influence of media on self image is not so bad after all?

Could media possibly help us to gain further insights into maximising our fullest self potential?


 “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

1 comment:

  1. It is good that you work on a topic that is relevant to our society. You have also put in considerable effort in interviewing different people. However, you could have organized your literature review, interview results and examples to form stronger arguments. It would also be good if the respondents that you interviewed are from diverse demographics (age, occupation, gender, etc).

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