Ideological and value message

Media Text: Picture

The message showcases and questions a woman's strength versus a mans.

Hayley Millar

Media Homework Log 2

In this video, we step into Minnie's daydream as she ambles down a Paris street. She dreams about being a famous model and getting ready for a big walk down the runway with her fellow Disney stars. She gets her pictures taken and gets made up by many make up artists. Just as she and her friend Daisy Duck are about to go down the runway, Tinkerbell appears and casts a magic spell over the girls causing them to turn tall and slender with solemn expressions, they are almost beyond recognition as the two usually short chubby cartoons are now tall with long legs and skinny torsos. This concept I believe is one of media containing ideological and value messages. It sends the message to young girls that to be a model they must be tall and skinny and have perfectly proportioned bodies when this is not true. It also targets the younger girls as Daisy and Minnie are role models for the young age group, too young to understand that you don't need to be skinny to be a model, they simply understand that models must be fully made up, skinny and tall. Thus, increasing the risk of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders in young girls .

In this Advertisement for Nivea, we see a man of African-American descent arched back and ready to aim what looks like the face of an Afro descent man. I believe this ad represents how media constructs reality by giving off the impression that men of Afro descent are that of 'uncivilized' and of lower class. It affects how people who don't know the men of Afro descent, to automatically assume that they are not civilized and men of African decent are higher class when this is not true at all.

Media Homework Log 1

Log 1:

Assignment: Find another example of a construction of reality in the media (ex. news article, magazine, TV show, etc). Explain how media is constructed in the piece. Explain your reaction to this piece (1-2 paragraphs, with the picture/link/item in question).

            The pictures above show how magazines have altered the appearance and features of two perfectly normal women. Both women looked healthy and happy but the magazine felt the need to edit and alter their bodies. This constructs reality, as many women who read these magazines and follow the trends and styles of celebrities will feel pressured to look and have the similar appearance. The media presents an altered image of the celebrities who ‘grace’ the covers of the glossy magazines with their ‘natural bodies.’ It changes the way society sees women and it paints the image of how women are supposed to look and act therefore, constructing reality. We often see the thin bodies, the lifted cheek bones and the magical thigh gap that appears on the covers but what we don’t see is the hours magazine computer employees, hired with degrees in I.T and whizzes at photo-shop, put in to carefully edit and alter the celebrities body to, well, society’s idea of a beautiful woman. We don’t see how the extra inches on the hottest country star’s arm get trimmed off or the USA’s number 1 basketball player’s biceps ‘magically’ get larger. This not only affects women, but men often see the athletes on the cover of sports magazines flaunting their abs and quads, making them feel, well as though, as a man they need to be muscular and buff as well.

            Seeing these images and knowing many are altered make me feel disappointed as I know that even the women on the cover of the magazine aren’t really the cover of the magazine. It’s sad to know that this is how far media has gone to make society feel the need to only want to see these perfected, edited people on the cover who aren’t even realistic and make men and women strive to be this altered person.

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