Images in the Media - Dissertation Example

The effect of the representation of women in media through both photojournalism and fashion photography acts as a catalyst to emotional responses which have helped to frame the way in which women see themselves as members of Western culture. The issues of body image, self, and identity are often manipulated by the media as women grow from childhood through adolescence. The influences that media imposes upon women can often lead to issues such as anorexia, bulimia, BED (binge eating disorder), and other medically dangerous conditions.

  Objectification of women has now begun to shift to subjectification, leading women into a world where they must now be the aggressive sexual being, rather than the passive object. Through research conducted using images and the discussion of twelve women who were put into a focus group, the concepts of image and self are explored through the information gathered within the interview process. In a qualitative study of the emotional responses to women when a ‘story’ or suggested interpretation of images was interjected, the concept of trend is also explored as it relates to the interpretation of the responses to the images.

  This type of research helps in understanding the way in which images influence the direction of how women perceive beauty and how they are positioned within the discourse of attractiveness. The power of photo imagery in contemporary discourse has influenced culture, making changes in the concept of beauty and ’normalcy’. 1.1Background The objectification of women is not a new concept. However, the ways in which images of women have been formulated to specifically associate women as objects as an everyday occurrence is a part of the information age.

  As advertising has become cycling of images through television, the internet, and print media such as magazines, the concept of the female is habitually stripped of its identity and reformulated into creatures of ’otherness’, usable objects of the imagination. An example of this can be seen in Fig. 3, women are morphed with objects, redefined as something consumable as indicated in Fig. 4, and objects of manipulation as seen in Fig. 4.