Media has a great impact in today's society. The more people rely on media for their communication, the more it affects their lives and relationships. Media tells people what they need to do, whom they are, and how they are supposed to conduct their relationships. The mass media is a source of images and photographs that people look at and focus on imitating, to fit in the current society (Turcotte et al., 526). Besides, media has cultural influences, as it is possible for people from different cultural backgrounds and groups to associate and relate without considering their differences. Media also affects the women’s standard of beauty, which influences their relationships with men because of gender stereotype.
In one way or another media is good and bad in some instances. People get entertained through watching Television, movies, and plays. People do research and read books and articles, magazines and newspapers, as well as other sources of information through the internet. Social media enables people to connect with friends and relatives. Because of technology, it is difficult for people to live without media, which tends to enhance their development and control their actions, thoughts, and feelings. There is a close connection between media and how people behave. Media leads to the interaction between technology, groups, and individuals. Through different media platforms, people exhibit different social behaviors.
Media and Cultural Aspects
Media, especially the social media has a tremendous impact on human culture. Through the social media or the use of the internet, the connections between people have increased. Social media also generates an environment, which allows people to share their pictures, opinions, and feelings with each other. Media enhances transcultural and intercultural practices. Through the media, people tend to change their ways of life, myths, languages, traditions, values, behaviors, beliefs, and norms. Indeed, media, especially the social media and the internet change people’s culture (Cho, and Park, 2321). Media in general has influence to the society in positive and negative ways. It connects people and enhances an environment of sharing opinions among different people. Media has also enabled the improvement of social awareness in the society as people share new opinions and ideas. Besides, through the media, people manage to engage in effective marketing and global business activities. In the present world, people prefer purchasing things online. In the process of transactions, people from different countries interact. Media enables unlimited flexibility and access to news.
Media negatively affects society, especially through addiction and exposure to immoral and bad pictures and videos, especially to the youth. The communication of inappropriate information through different media platforms, harassment, and bullying are some of the problems faced by people in the media (Dakanalis et al., 998). For instance, many pictures of females are exposed in the media, which receive negative and brutal comments. Such things have ugly, bad, and frustrating impacts on today's culture. Besides, the affairs formed vial the social media result to the victims being abused. For instance, men and women engage in relationships with strangers through the media, whom after meeting exploit them to the extent that others are rapped, kidnapped, and killed.
People’s Feeling of the Need to Fit in the Current Society
Based on the nature of changes in technology in the contemporary world, people have the feeling that for them to fit in the current society, they have to be connected to other people, which is only possible through the media (Perloff, 372). For instance, people focus on subscribing in the social media sites like Facebook and Twitter among other sites in order to avoid being left behind or being identified as people who do not understand what is going on in the world.
Media effects on men-women relationships
Media has changed the standards of beauty for women. The pictures and images, as well as a video that women post in different media platforms, speak more about them. Some people, especially women post pictures that are not real about them and out of the disguise, men develop thoughts that the photos posted are real and end up approaching or relating to the wrong person. It is possible to see photos of a white woman in a profile of a black woman.
Similarly, people post pictures of great places, which they even do not have an idea about but pretend to have been there. Such things lead to the communication of the wrong information to other people. It is evident that there is an increased posting of naked pictures of women through the media because of the rising rate of evil in the present world (Dakanalis et al., 998). The traditional belief that women are supposed to cover their bodies or avoid exposing their bodies to other people or the public is no longer applicable. Women have the mentality that once they expose their nakedness to other people, this enables them to be liked or become attractive to men.
Women have thoughts that beauty is all about the way they act, look and dress. It is not a big thing today to find naked women dancing in videos or photos of some scantily clad women in the magazines. Such things make women believe that the media is setting highly impracticable standards about beauty. The western culture, which has a major impact on the media imposes standards of beauty and attractiveness to women's sense of self. Only a few women can describe them as attractive or pretty. Consequently, women appearance tends to lead problems such as lowered self-esteem in women (Halliwell, 509). The majority of the fashion adverts makes women feel insecure for not being beautiful or worthy affection and love unless they resemble the ideal picture in the advert. In today’s society, media has made people to highly value the external self and increasingly undervalue the internal worth. The major cause is the beauty ideal that is depicted in the common fashion advertisements. Indeed, beauty inspiration is what motivates people to scroll in the social media and the majority of women’s conception of beauty is enhanced by the woman in the public domain.
Women are ford of rating the beauty products and sharing their body images and personal beauty stories, as well as posting personal ‘selfies' or images. Such behavior makes the social made to contribute to how the standards of beauty are changing in the present society. In the internet, women are persona media creators through they post in their pages. Despite the communication of those things that are happening on the society or in the general world, media influences how men and women relate with one another. Body images are objectified based on sex. Because of being exposed to objectified images of men or women, people in the present society suffer from high levels of hostility and anxiety (Turcotte et al., 526). Men tend to suffer from psychological problems because of being exposed to female media images. The issue of female body images makes the victims develop negative perceptions concerning their bodies and thing affects their self-esteem.
By viewing the images posted in the social media sites, men develop jealous feelings towards other men who comment or like such pages. Women have the habit of posting their pictures with their partners, therefore displaying their relationships. Media, especially social media makes people able to monitor how their partners behave. Consequently, it has led to the rise of people's stress levels (Perloff, 372). Relationships are highly breaking up because of the media, as people stop trusting their partners after monitoring their behavior through their postings. Also, people become jealous of the relationship between their partners and their friends, as the media enables them to share their feelings, opinions, and pictures with their followers. Because of the social media, men and women relationships are destroyed, as partners do not have time for each other based on the addiction caused by the media.
Indeed, media has a great impact on the current society. People have changed their cultural practice, beliefs, and norms because of their relationships through the media. Media has changed the standards of beauty of women because of the need for women to behave based on public demand. Because of the media, relationships between men and women are destroyed. What people post or write or comment about influences their partners to the extent that many relationships have broken up in the present society.
Work Cited
Cho, Seong Eun, and Han Woo Park. "A qualitative analysis of cross-cultural new media research: SNS use in Asia and the West." Quality & Quantity
47.4 (2013): 2319-2330.
Dakanalis, Antonios, et al. "The developmental effects of media-ideal internalization and self-objectification processes on adolescents’ negative body-feelings, dietary restraint, and binge eating." European child & adolescent psychiatry 24.8 (2015): 997-1010.
Halliwell, Emma. "The impact of thin, idealized media images on body satisfaction: Does body appreciation protect women from negative effects?." Body Image 10.4 (2013): 509-514.
Perloff, Richard M. "Social media effects on young women’s body image concerns: Theoretical perspectives and an agenda for research." Sex Roles
71.11-12 (2014): 363-377.
Turcotte, Jason, et al. "News recommendations from social media opinion leaders: Effects on media trust and information seeking." Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 20.5 (2015): 520-535.
