Journal 6

The article I read was Muscular Ideal Media Images and Men's Body Image: Social Comparison Processing and Individual Vulnerability, by Duane A. Hargreaves. The main topic of this article was the effects of media on the male body image. What the article said is that the media makes men want to bulk up and get more muscular. Which is quite the opposite for women. Men take steroids to help them bulk up. They also go to the gym more often than usual.

This article does not go against my previous article it agrees with it in the sense that social media does have a negative impact on someone’s body image.  Neither does it go along with my last article’s topic. My last article talked about how false body encouragement is made so products can be sold. “Overall, the results show that exposure to still photographs of muscular media images leads to some negative consequences, specifically in body dissatisfaction” (Lorenzen, Grieve, & Thomas, 2004).  “While media and cultural ideals would have us believe we are only worthy of value when we meet (or believe we meet) cultural beauty ideals...,” (www.beautyredefined.net).

 Those still photos referred to in Hargreaves article are probably being used to sell items veered towards men.  

            This article was helpful to my research. The article gave me another point of view when thinking about the effects of media on someone’s body image. It made me see it though a male perspective. Whenever you think of body image a women normally come to mind. I had to remember that media affects men as well it just isn’t publicized as much. I think that too can be because of media’s idea of a man. Men  are thought to have no emotion and not to be effect by anything. This makes me think about who else is effected by social media and how.

To further my research I would like to search how social media affects different groups of people and their takes on it. Like discussed in my past journal I think I would like to see how social media affects African American women because the ideal perfect women is a tall thin blonde and Caucasian. African American women rarely come close to fulfilling these requirements. Searching the effects on all of the different races in America would add an interesting perspective to my paper.