Visual Media s Influence On Society - 1661 Words

Allyson Lynn Sarah Wilson Writing 101 20 October 2015 Visual Media’s Influence on Society Information is easily accessible to Americans through the media. Americans can get this information from print, audio, visual, and online. For eight to eighteen year olds, media in some form or fashion normally takes up seven and a half hours of each day. Of those seven and a half hours, most is spent in front of the television. Along with watching TV, video games and use of computers consume an hour for each (Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders). Even though there are many contributing factors, visual mass media has a negative influence on American society. The increasing amount of mass media have contributed to the growing rate of†¦show more content†¦The National Eating Disorders Association states that mass media are a leading source for the issue concerning women being dissatisfied with their own body. As stated by the National Eating Disorders Association, mass media’s influence is greatly increasing. With this issue in mind in 2004, Dove created their campaign for real beauty in the hopes of reaching women struggling with body image issues. Dove’s campaign began as a way to strike up a discussion over the true definition of beauty. Since 2004, Dove’s campaign has had many different ways of achieving this goal to reach out to those struggling with beauty. These campaigns include counterarguments on issues including aging, thin as beautiful. Dove even made a commercial which showed women describing themselves to an artist, and then another individual coming in and describing that same person to the artist. Later the women got to come back in and see the difference in the drawings, which gave them an insight to how others view them and their true beauty. Dove conducted a study in which the results were that only four percent of the women in the world thought of themselves as beautiful. Their research also states that nine out of ten girls want to change at least one thing about their physical appearance (Our Research). Since their campaign for real beauty, Dove has set a movement for self-esteem. This