Body Image

Various studies show that media’s effect on body image is high in numbers. The effect starts from a very young age. A survey was administered to children aged 9 and 10, and it was found that 40% have tried losing weight. Body image is reflected in all forms of media from advertisements, magazines, TV shows, movies and more. Eating disorders has been a main concern over the years regarding the influence of body image on both males and females; however there have been several engagements to reshape the public body image to that of obese people.  The movement to reshape body image to that of a larger woman is wrong to promote due to negative side effects of being overweight, diseases, and an unhealthy lifestyle.

In recent years the magazine industry worked towards overcoming the trend of excessively thin models. The Quebec magazine Coup de Pouce has included full-sized women, not obese, in their pages. Châtelaine has also decided to not touch up photos in their magazines. Various retailers also pledged not to use underweight models for their clothing. This portrayal of body image is positive for it shows a healthy image as opposed to the movement to start encouraging obesity.

A 22 year old Mass Communications student launched a Facebook campaign called “Love your body, you’re beautiful” to encourage overweight girls to change how they see their bodies. The main aim of the campaign is to help overweight girls feel more self-confident with their bodies.  The student, Bassant Ashraf Al-Qassem said, “Girls must love their bodies first in order to be able to improve its shape.” (2014). Despite her chivalrous efforts, promoting a larger body image to the public is just as dangerous as the obscenely thin body image of the past. Being overweight is linked to various diseases and an overall unhealthy lifestyle.

In 2012 it was noted that about 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years were obese. Obese youth are more likely to grow into overweight adults and are open to the risks of cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and type-2 diabetes. Children and adolescents who are obese and continue to be overweight are also more susceptible to strokes and several types of cancer. 80% of people who are obese between the ages of 10 – 13 are likely to become obese as an adult. To prevent these statistics it is important to encourage healthy lifestyle habits.

Regarding the fact that the media regarding body image easily influences children and adolescents, it is crucial to promote a healthy image, not the acceptance of obesity. If the movement to encourage larger body images prevailed, then the media would also be encouraging younger generations to accept the diseases they are more prone to due to obesity.

Both men and women between the ages of 8 – 18 are engaged with media images for an average of 7.5 hours a day. It has been proven through various research studies that the media does contribute to pressure regarding body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. The media plays a crucial role in portraying a healthy lifestyle for people to follow, and changing body image to accept obesity does the same as keeping the body image to exceptionally thin women and muscular men.

Some cultures regard beauty on their own scale, regardless of what is medically healthy. A study suggests that African American women have a different picture of what unhealthy weight looks like. Regarding the cultural views of what obese is, Elizabeth Lynch said, “The fact that women felt that overweight body sizes were not too fat suggests that being told they are overweight even by a physician, may not be sufficient motivation for them to attempt to lose weight.” (2014).

A poll was administered and compared the views of women in three different weight categories. Overweight women had low ratings regarding health status. It is a great concern to the women’s health community, and should be another reason to discourage the change of body image to obese figures.

Despite the valiant efforts of increasing appreciation for ones self, it is crucial to do so while encouraging a healthy lifestyle. A pediatrician, Chris Tiongson advised to parents of obese children, “Try to keep the focus on health” (2011). Since health is the main concern in encouraging obesity as an ideal image, it is not an image to be the new idea of body image through various mediums of media.

Public Relations Tools – Old and New

Public Relations specialists use tools to complete the tasks at hand. Public Relations is a leadership and management function that facilitates organizational change, defines philosophy, and achieves organizational objectives for the company. The tools that PR specialists use have changed over the years through modifications and additions thanks to the increase in technology. Today a mix of old and new PR tools are used to accomplish their goals.

In the past, PR specialists had to turn to snail mail. This is the act of placing press releases in envelopes and mailing them individually to people. There was no technology to speed up the process. Today it is now possible to send mass emails to people, and to place their press releases and newsletters on the Internet at the public’s disposure.

Another way to send out information to the public in the past was the use of fax machines. Fax machines are not used today on a daily basis. The use of fax machines is limited to very specific needs. To be able to send a fax machine PR specialists have to obtain the numbers of individual household fax numbers. Their main use of them was to send out client news. Today it is possible thanks to the Internet to send out client news via the Internet. This information is found on multiple social networks like Twitter and Facebook, personal company websites, and can even be sent through email.

In the past there were no easy editing tools to catch possible mistakes on press releases. To edit, PR specialists had no other option but to edit by hand. Today, there are programs that allow quick, efficient, and simple editing. Depending on the individual assigned to editing, they might prefer the old tactics as opposed to the new ones.

Every company is required to have a Press Kit Folder. In the past, a press kit folder was an actual folder containing a press kit. The information compiled within a press kit includes the biography of the company, the senior management, a testimonial of client comments, photos of products, and a reprint of newspapers and magazine ads. If one wanted access to the press kit for any reason, whether it is to review or add information, they would need to physically handle the documents in their hands. Today, thanks to technology, companies have virtual press kits. It is easy to access or add information at any time due to the easy online access.

A part of Public Relations is conducting press tours. In the past press tours were strictly conducted in person. Today there are organizations that prefer conducting their press tours in person; whereas, there is the option of having them done virtually. It can be found online, or at the actual company with a virtual automated guide.

Client media coverage is essential for companies. PR specialists would save client media coverage. In the past they were required to physically cut out and save clippings from newspapers and magazines. Today, most of the printed media can be found in archives online. This makes it easier for PR specialists to find client media coverage and to save them. Online it is possible to search for key words to locate all applicable information that a PR specialist might require in terms of saving client media coverage for further use.

It is extremely important for the public relations office to have access to media contact information. Today it is extremely easy to find contact information. This information is accessible to the public on multiple websites and social media networks. If one was unable to find this information, they can easily request it. New technology has also opened new forms of contact. There are phone numbers, emails, Facebook, Twitter, and many more ways of reaching media contacts. In the past there was no easy virtual way to find contact information. A directory was used for PR specialists to search for media contact information. Directories are rarely used today, if used at all. It is a book filled with the contact information of people in the area.

Not all employees would work with the office from the office itself.  To be able to contact the office from outside of the workplace, people today can use their smartphones to contact on almost every possible network. They can call from any location, email, use social networks, and more. In the past it was only possible for people to contact the office from payphones and landlines.

There are tools that were practiced in the past and are still practiced today. The attendance of PR managers at Public Events is essential to attract public attention. It is also a way to engage the public and different organizations. Another benefit is that it gives PR specialists a place to publicly speak directly to the public. In turn, media coverage of the event reflects the PR specialist’s words to the greater public.

Creating a press release and sending it out to the public is a tool that was used in the past and is still used today. A press release is information found as part media mediums like television programs, magazines, newspapers and more. The old way of administrating press releases into the public varied from mailing them, sending them via fax machine, and other in person deliveries. New technology permitted the ability to send press releases via the Internet.

The use of newsletters is another tool that was used in the past and is still used today. A newsletter is information of the organization, its products, and services. They are created to maintain a relationship with the company’s target audience. It is also used to share news and information that would interest the public, as well as promote the company’s products. In the past it was sent out to the public the same way a press release was. Today it is found on company websites, social networks, and can even be mailed to people who subscribe to the newsletter.

New media technology has opened doors to new Public Relations tools. Blogging is a new tool that was introduced after the introduction of the Internet. It targets an online audience. PR specialists make use of digital press releases and newsletters to reach the public through blogging. It is also easy to administrate two-way communication between the public and the organization.

Social media and social network use have skyrocketed in the years since they have been created. Social media marketing uses social media networks to market the company’s products online. Social networks also offer a direct way for organizations to communicate with the public.

Public Relations tools have expanded greatly over the years. The Internet allowed PR specialists to find a way to make the tools they practiced in the past easier. It also created new tools for them to use. A new audience was introduced expanding the reach of companies. Over the years PR specialists have managed to optimize the use of both old and new PR tools to their advantage.

Social Media Evolution

Social media is a big part of our every day lives. People use social media all the time! People also use social media for anything imaginable. Now people will go to their social media accounts for personal reasons, professional reasons, and even for extra knowledge.

Social media doesn’t only affect the consumers but also senders of information. Many news outlets and companies have social media accounts to market their stuff and interact with the public.

In class, we were given an infographic on how social media changed in a 10 year period – from 2004 to 2014.

Flickr is a major photo sharing website. It offers advanced features for the users to play with when they share their photos. In 10 years it grew and became the world’s most used photo-sharing website.

People now have the option to use Flickr as a portfolio of their photography.

YouTube is known to be the world’s best video sharing website. There are thousands of videos uploaded every day. The website was launched ten years ago in 2005 and has exploded ever since. Today there are 6 billion hours watched per month on YouTube.

People have the option to share and upload their own videos, and as of 2014, 100 videos were uploaded per minute!

Apart from social media, a major change that can be noticed is in the journalistic world. Now there are citizen journalists who take to online media to publish whatever they want. They use certain kinds of sites that are designed for blogging purposes.

Blogger, is an example of a blogging website. People can use blogger as a personal diary, a journal, or whatever else they have in mind.

Wordpress is another website that people have blogs on. But it is a website that offers blogging publishing tools that blogger does not offer. There are also different accounts on wordpress – free and premium. Paid account users have the option of having their own domain and using the wordpress tools to design their own blog-styled website.

There are also micro-blogging websites. An example of one is twitter. People just tweet whatever they want, whether it is news, personal feelings, communicating with others, or even advertising.

Each channel has different ways that people can communicate and get involved in the world of media.

There are so many different social media aspects that keep changing over the years, and new ones keep popping up at every corner.

Instagram is a more recent social media application that people use to share photos. I have even seen dentists using instagram to advertise their personal clinics! In the year 2014 it was registered that there were 60 million photos uploaded per day along with 1.6 billion likes per day!

Instagram users keep increasing along with the reasons behind accounts. Many accounts for online shopping have also emerged, along with fashion updates and anything else. It isn’t just a typical “photo sharing application” for people to use. People have adapted the application to suit their individual needs, or the needs of their company.

Pinterest is an example of a microblogging website that has changed the way that people file and organize different ideas. Pinterest takes the form of having different boards for people to “pin” images to. Each image can be linekd to an external site. This makes it easy for users to find things they would like to buy from clothes to games to household items.

There are also recipes on pinterest. People could pin images of delicious food plates and if they click on the picture they will be sent to the website with the recipe and instructions on how to cook the meal.

These are just a few examples of social media applications and channels that have grown a lot over the years. In a few years time the numbers will have increased exponentially, and new outlets will be added to the list.

Schema

New media can be outlined in a way to show what it is made up of. This is also called a “schema’ for new media.

The following schema is based on the book New Media, Critical Introduction, Second Edition.

The schema of New media has 6 parts.

New Textual experiences is the first on the list. This has to do with the way that text is formatted. This involves different types of entertainment that people use the media for. It could be from watching shows to playing video games to going to a special effects cinema.

People use the media to entertain and please themselves. And the new ways that we do it could fall under new textual information. Social media is a great example because the way we use it shows the different ways that we now send and receive messages images or videos.

Back in the day, people used to have to do things in a way that took up a lot of time. It also took more effort. Lets say you wanted to “message” someone, instead of just sending an instant text you would have to write a letter, wait for the letter to deliver, wait for them to write and send one back, and wait for it to get to you. There was no instant activity in the past unless you were face to face.

Even newspapers had to deal with the time restrictions. If something happened you wouldn’t know about it until the next paper was delivered. Today we know about things as they are happening.

Another part of the schema is “New ways of representing the world”. There are different ways that new media reflects what is happening. It has new possibilities and experiences available for the people, for example virtual experiences and simulations. These two are main characteristics of new media. Each one manages to send a person into a different experience that could not be done before new media happened.

People would have to physically learn how to do things at the time. Like flying a plane took a lot of practice on actual planes. Now pilots have the option to have flight simulation practice. This lets them fly a plane and learn how before actually being in a plane.

New relationships between subjects and media technologies – another category in the schema of new media.

The subjects are the users and consumers of media. So this shows the relationship between people and how they use the new media technologies. Now people instantly use things. They can read articles on things as they are happening, comment on them, share them, and even write their own version.

Twitter is an example of something that also changed the relationship, people are constantly tweeting their thoughts or what they see. They also tweet news headlines and embed links to other places that offer more information.

The 5^th part of the schema is new experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity, and community. This has to do with the different personal and social experiences. These experiences include time, space, and place. Each type has different effects on people as they use the media. This could be how people see themselves or how they see the world, or even both, how they see themselves in the world.

The sixth part of the schema is new conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to technological media. This means that it is hard to tell the difference between something fake and something real.

The final part of the schema is new patterns of organization and production. This is about how there are different integrations and realignments in many different categories. These categories are media culture, industry, economy, access ownership, control, and regulation.