Module: Personal Development
Module: Personal Development
MEDIA MOTIVES
Instructions: Imagine you are about to make an advertisement, answer
the following below:
1. What type of product or service is featured in your ad?
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make up and gym equipments
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2. What approach has the advertiser used to promote or sell this product or
service? Here are some of the methods that advertisers use to attract
consumer:
▪ Sex Appeal
▪ Join the Bandwagon: Everyone is getting one!
▪ Highest Quality Available
▪ Financial Plans/Installment Incentives
▪ Negative Advertising
▪ Home-style or Traditional
▪ We Try Harder
▪ Best Value
▪ New & Improved
▪ Name Brands & Logos
▪ Health & Safety
sex appeal, highest quality available, best value, new and imoroved
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Media messages about body shape and size will affect the way we feel
about ourselves and our bodies, only if we let them. One of the ways we can
protect our self-esteem and body image from the media’s narrow definitions of
beauty is to become a critical viewer of the media messages we are bombarded
with each day. When we effectively recognize and analyze the media messages
that influence us, we remember that the media’s definitions of beauty and
success do not have to define our self-image or potential. Remember:
6. The usage of such unrealistic models in the media provides an implicit message that a woman must be faultless and
skinny in order to be considered beautiful. We are constantly inundated with ideals from all directions, so rather than
attempting to meet those unachievable standards, we must learn to love ourselves and our bodies much more.
• All media images and messages are constructions. They are NOT reflections
of reality. Advertisements and other media messages have been carefully
crafted with the intent to send a very specific message.
• Advertisements are created to do one thing: convince you to buy or support
a specific product or service.
• To convince you to buy a specific product or service, advertisers will often
construct an emotional experience that looks like reality. Remember that
you are only seeing what the advertisers want you to see.
MODULE: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
• Advertisers create their message based on what they think you will want to
see and what they think will affect you and compel you to buy their product.
Just because they think their approach will work with people like you
doesn’t mean it has to work with you as an individual.
• As individuals, we decide how to experience the media messages we
encounter. We can choose to use a filter that helps us understand what the
advertiser wants us to think or believe and then choose whether we want
to think or believe that message. We can choose a filter that protects our
self-esteem and body image.
• Through the use of magazine advertisements, we have discussed what
motivates the advertising industry and the effect that media has on body
image. A final conclusion is that each student is left with strategies about
how to strengthen themselves against these messages.