Post 4: How coporations utilize the media and its platforms to convey and influence audiences' self image

Corporations utilize media to reinforce the “importance” of self-image both materially in terms of physical looks and intangibly in terms of their self identity portrayed on the internet.  They do so by anchoring on the agenda setting theory where they present certain images and advertisements to the public usually with a subtext (to encourage purchase) under the explicit content. Usually for commercial benefits such as to reap high profits margin with their products.

Subjected to the influence of the media as leavisim (the lost of traditional cultures) caused by the perceived norm of cultural hybridisation (no clear distinct line between mass pop culture and traditional values) becomes prominent around these days, the audience or people are vulnerable to accept what is given to them. This is despite the fact that the new media now is multidirectional (audience can communicate and feedback to the corporations and to the mass). People still feed on what is given to them in the media as the exposure to media’s influence is inevitable and unavoidable.

Furthermore, with corporations making use of media to carry out the cultivation theory by teaching the audience values of what is beautiful (physical looks), can affect audience’s perceived self image. Anchoring on the social learning theory, audiences tend to model after what they see on the different platforms of media. Hence, the more exposed the audience are to the models that commercial corporations use, the more they compare themselves to them and this affect their self image and confidence.

The media often shows how commercial corporations advertise their products with an explicit tag line that seems to say how much they are concern with the consumer or audience ‘s health. When in actual fact, they are irrationally combining health together with physical looks. Audiences perceive looking good (eg. slimming down) as equal to having a healthy body and a healthy self image.

Like what the advertisements seen below, audience are led to perceive slimming down as being healthy, ignoring the fact that the capsule or product might be harmful when used in long run. Besides slimming down does not equal to being healthy as the method of slimming down is important as well.  

These advertisements show how corporations utilize media to reinforce the “importance” of self-image materially in terms of physical looks.  This further contribute and worsen the generalisation of beauty in terms of physical looks (slim = pretty, fat = ugly). This could cause internal conflicts within individuals and affect self esteem and confidence which pushes them all the more to consume the products advertised. Furthermore, with the readily available advertisements practically everywhere with the help of mass media, people are highly subjected to the media’s influence according to the corporations’ marketing strategies.  This could largely affect self perceived image and the ways of pursing an ideal self image in terms of physical looks, to be rather material, cliché and superficial.

Corporations also used what is available on the internet to sell their ideas to the audiences. The widely used networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace could affect and influence the self identity that the audiences wants to portray on the internet. With the high interconnectivity of the new media (the ability to transfer information to and fro across different platforms), people need not frequently update their statuses on their computers, they could do it even through phones. This encourage the frequent visits to the networking sites. Corporations such as Facebook started out as a networking site to ease the convenience of staying in touch with friends. However, it promotes the importance of the online identity where people start to update their statuses according to how they think people should see them.

What benefits such online coporations is that, with the frequent visits to their networking sites, they gain greater control over larger audiences, hence getting more paid advertisements projects on their sites.

The frequent updates and the consciousness of how people look at each other on the internet, people starts to be very aware about what they post, such as to change what people think about them in real life. Thus, through the power of media, online corporations could influence the self-perceived image and identity of people to be surreal, unnatural, and inauthentic as well.

In conclusion to this post, we can see that both the physical and online self image of people are subjected to large influence by the utilisation of media through different platforms such as print (poster) and online advertisements carried out by the different commercial corporations. In the next post, we will discuss how people are able to respond and counter these influences by media through cultural jamming, taking advantage of the multidirectional flow of information through media.

Resources


pictures from http://sg.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=advertisement+slimming+products&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-712&tab=organic&ri=2

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