Television Programming - Essay Example

Everyone is responsible for what they watch, and therefore it becomes a personal decision when it comes to what one chooses to belief. Television advertising and programming are known to affect people’s perceptions and believes (Myers & Biocca, 1992). Visual programming and advertising can alter the way someone sees her body and this is particularly so among women as it affects them most. An example can be seen whereby the media advertisements and programming most of them portray the perfect body of a woman to be thin (Myers & Biocca, 1992).

There are those advertisements and programmes that promote dieting and cutting weight which show that the body of a woman is targeted in most programming and advertisements. One is likely to follow these advertisements and programmes by starting to cut on weight. A woman’s body is exposed as something that is viewed for its attractiveness, that it should be slender. The impact that such programming and such advertising has is mostly seen by the increase in the number of women who are dieting and the number of television programmes that host shows about slimming.

Advertisements are meant to appeal to the wider populace. An advertisement aims at ensuring that people note whatever product is being advertised (Bhargava, 2009), people who watch advertisements are likely to buy a certain product because of its advertisement in the same way a programme would affect someone. A person who watches a specific programmed would like to have the kind of life style that is portrayed in the programme (Petronio, 2007). Most of these programmes usually portray the American culture, people would like to mimic the behavior of the people in those programmes or the lifestyles that are shown in the programmes, and in effect, they copy the American culture.