A M S D📸 – Eleanor Luttrell

For my production, I’m creating a double page spread based on how women are portrayed in magazines, in comparison to men. The aim is to determine why they’re portrayed in a certain way. The target audience will be 16-24-year-old women. Some of my magazine references are outdated, however it was difficult to find any recent articles regarding magazines.
Magazines: An overview
Many magazines meet similar needs for readers but also may serve special interests or unique segments or populations. People depend on magazines as a source of infotainment, a combination of information and entertainment for the reader. It’s predominantly known for its bad criticism. Goldman (1992) suggests that advertising in magazines is a main social and economic institution that pursues to uphold cultural hegemony by providing us socially constricted ways of seeing and making sense of society. Carilli and Campbell (2005) argue women play a crucial role in advertising. It encourages women to see themselves as ‘merchandises’ as an object. This leads to women being a sexual objectification, meaning they’re shown as sex objects for men. Sexual objectification is achieved by exploiting their sexuality, or by fragmenting the female body into eroticism zones, for example lips, hair, face etc.
Mills (1995) tells us that the fragmentation of exposing women’s bodies has two effects. The first one is ‘the body becomes “depersonalised”, objectified and reduced into parts’ and the second one is the female model in the imagery cannot be seen as a ‘unified conscious living being, the scene cannot be focused from her perspective.’ (Mills 1995 p. 172). Then there’s Kuhn, arguing that this cultural perspective of a woman’s body as a sex object has originated from ‘whenever we look at painted, drawn, sculpted or photographed images of women; it’s important for us to remind ourselves that images of women have traditionally been the prominence and property of men’. Kuhn also relates this to the male gaze, a commonly used term amongst feminists suggesting the role of a female is for a sexual objectification of a male spectator. The ‘Male Gaze was originally used in Laura Mulvey’s essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, and when she uses the term, she related to the women spectacle in film. Kuhn states that ‘the male gaze is shown in photographic images is on an extension of how men see women in the streets’ (Kuhn 1985).
The main issue with the male gaze is that men ‘asses, judge and make advances based on these visual impressions.’ This results in the patriarchal culture that ‘males will feast his eyes on any female object that catches his ‘fancy’. This therefore pressures women to ‘beautify themselves, make themselves desirable and “siren like” to catch the males’ attention’ (Carilli and Campbell 2005)
During the past few decades, fashion magazines have increasingly targeted young women as a speciality audience. Angela McRobbie has suggested that ‘in media and cultural studies, scholarship on magazines has occupied a less central and prestigious place than scholarship on other media (1997: 192). Unsurprisingly, it’s mainly women who research into magazines. In her study ‘Inside Women’s Magazines’ (1987), Janice Winship has discussed the ‘double-edged’ nature of researching women’s magazines, which she claims prevented her from engaging with a serious study of the genre for a long time. As a feminist, she felt a ‘simultaneous attraction and rejection’ towards Women’s magazines on the one hand finding pleasure their escapist quality and recognising their mass popularity, but on the other, feeling a strong sense that to be a feminist, one must reject the construction of womanhood put forward by most popular women’s magazines:
‘Many of the guises of femininity in women’s magazines contribute to the secondary status from which we still desire to free ourselves. At the same time, it is the dress of femininity which is both source of pleasure of being a woman […] and in part the raw material for a feminist version of the future.’ (Winship, 1987: xiii)
Social class is also something to think about with advertising/magazines, as well as in general. Social class refers to the system of stratification of the different groups of people in a society. These different forms of classification are, in most instances, based on gender ethnicity and age. Social class makes everyone’s lives extremely different. For example: How long one can expect to live. In a wide range of ways, from success, to one’s health class, social class influences people’s lives (Grusky,2003). Historian David Potter says in People of Plenty that “the most important facts of this powerful institution (advertising) are not upon the economics of our distributive system; they are upon the values of our society.
Over the years, ‘chav’ has become a new word to define the white working-class. In The Anatomy of Disgust, William Miller argues that:
Emotions are feelings linked to ways of talking about these feelings … Emotions, even the most visceral, are richly social, cultural, and linguistic phenomena … Emotions are feelings connected to ideas, perceptions and cognitions and to the social and cultural contexts in which it makes sense to have these feelings and ideas … They give our world its peculiarly animated quality; they make it a source of fear, joy, outrage, disgust, and delight. (1997, p. 8)
What we should note is the term animation is particularly provoking. To animate something is to breathe life into an inanimate figure. The idea that emotions are animating is a useful way of analysing how figures are brought to life and endowed with affect through mediation (see Ngai 2002). One of the ways in which social class is emotionally mediated is through repeated expressions of disgust for those deemed to be of a lower social class. As Miller argues, disgust sustains “the low ranking of things, people, and actions deemed disgusting and contemptible” (1997, p. xiv). Davidson’s invocation of “dole-scroungers, petty criminals, football hooligans and teenage pram-pushers” illustrates how the chav figure comes to embody in a condensed form a series of older stereotypes of the white poor. As Hayward and Yar argue “the ‘chav’ phenomenon recapitulates the discursive creation of the underclass, while simultaneously reconfiguring it within the space of commodity consumption” (2006, p. 16).

 

 For this project, we have been asked to create some production work based on chosen topics. For mine, I have decided to do a double page spread and front cover of a magazine based on gender. I have chosen this as there’s plenty of feminists who have written about and researched into why women are shown as sexual objects through different types of media, so I will be able to see the different opinions both agreeing and disagreeing with women being portrayed in this way. I have taken a lot of my inspiration from magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Bazaar magazine as these are predominantly about females and empowerment rather than sexual objectification, as well as their layouts being the style I would like mine to be.

I want to discover how people feel about the way women are portrayed through interviewing a target audience of 16-24, predominantly females. Notably, a lot of sources I find discussing magazines may be dated as they’re not so much researched anymore due to social media taking over and a lot of print magazines no longer being spoken about in academic sources more recently.

The academic sources I have found however talk about the things I would like to discuss within my magazine which I will therefore be able to include if necessary. I decided to do a magazine as I feel I will be able to discuss plenty on my topic as I will have enough room for interviews with people. Double page spreads are helpful for said interviews as it’s a large amount of space, and a lot of bigger magazine companies do dedicate a double page spread to a celebrity with an interview which inspired me to do the same.

I will make sure to plan my work, so I have a clear idea of what and how I’ll do it. I have also got a pre-production plan set out already that I’ll include in my appendix. By doing this it’s allowed me to understand why I’m doing a magazine, as well as how I want my magazine to look based on the inspiration I’ve taken from Pinterest and Google images. I have also made sure to highlight my submission date to ensure everything is done before this date, so I have time to go over everything and make sure it’s all done to the best of my ability. I have also got consent forms ready, as well as my ethics forms, for people to sign when I interview them that I will again include in my appendix. I have already planned the questions I will ask and have done them in a form of magazine style as it’s more of an informal conversation I have learnt through researching other magazines, so I have done it in this style. I have made sure they’re not too sensitive for my participants, so I cause no upset when it comes to asking the questions. I will also be using my own equipment as I have my own camera, as well as my phone and if I don’t end up using my own photos I will make sure to reference them so I’m not claiming them to be my own. When going off campus I will always make sure I take someone with me when gathering my research, or text someone to tell them where I am always. Most of my work will be done in my hometown so I will always be with someone I know, or someone will be nearby. I will also be doing a lot of work in my house so I know I will be safe.

07/10/19

With this question I struggled, purely because I don’t think into this too much as I don;t have the biggest opinion on it. I know in this day and age there’s plenty of programs and videos empowering women and showing just how strong we are, which I love, because people are showing just how amazing we are.

One of my media preferences however would be to reach for a guilty pleasure romance film. Maybe this is because it shows you an augmented reality of how women are trated by men, in a good way. It expresses love that sme men have for women and treat them with plenty of respect and care. An example of this is To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, a Netflix original.

Speaking of Netflix originals, some are very hit and miss. For example, the film they recently brought out called ‘Insatiable’ I refuse to watch as I do not believe that showing a bigger woman trying to be slimmer to be pretty is in any way helpful, if anything at all it’s offensive. It portrays the opinion that women need to look a certain way to be accepted which I do not feel is acceptable.

However, I’m not afraid to admit I do end up preferring films like Avengers to be male dominant, probably due to me loving the actors who play the characters. Also, I sometimes feel like in some films that are predominantly males actors, the directors will force a small scene of women to come together as one, which is what they did in End Game, which ended up being a mere 5 minutes and (if you haven’t seen End Game stop reading now) the person who actually saved the day was a lead MALE character, rather than a group of women, so I felt like they’d thrown it in there just to say that they’d added in a part of powerful women coming together to save the day when in actual fact it seemed rushed.

01/10/19

Identities are…

• A means to acquiring and circulating power (Carah and Louw 2015:167-169)
  – Living social relationships we create via our interrelations with the symbolic and material world.
  – Process of locating ourselves within the social world and its power relationships.

  Identities are a difficult term: more or less everyone knows more or less what it means, and yet it’s precise definition proves slippery – (Lawler 2014:1)

• Identity politics: Groups underprivileged gaining power to fight for their rights.

What are representations?

• Connects meaning and language to culture. Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture. It does involve the use of language, of signs and images which stand for or represent things. (Hall 2013:1)
• Representations reveal different things about a culture, such as its values, tastes and most importantly, power structures. (Hall et al 2013; Carah and Louw 2015)

Quantitative Representation ~ Concerns over the amount or proportion of representation. In/visibility as core issue.

Qualitative Representation ~ Concerns with nature of representation e.g shallow vs rounded, stereotypes.

Intersectionality: The idea that identities overlap and that interest groups may have similar goals/ideas – e.g. campaigners for LGBTQ+ rights may want similar equalities to campaigners for disabilities and rights. It’s the recognition of belonging to more than one group/identity.

Stereotypes: A ‘fixed impression’ (Hartley 2013:236). Act as a shorthand for particular people/groups. They’re often negative e.g. dumb blonde, but this isn’t always the case, e.g French being good at cooking. (Perkins 1979)

Myth: The moves beyond simple connotations and looks deeper at the social myths that texts replicate and reinforce e.g. charity, power, myths of race, gender etc. Think of myths as ‘stories’ or ‘messages’ our culture perpetuates. Not always negative, but they’re always created. Often so commonplace they seem normal, somewhat ‘common sense’ or obvious. (Barthes 1972/2009) calls myths the falsely obvious.

Othering: The way we perceive people as ‘other’ to ourselves AND assumption that the reader and the author are the same and aren’t part of the ‘other part’.
Some othering may be unavoidable, we often conceive of ‘the self’ in relation to others who are different to us (Hall 2013:227)

This project has allowed me to research into the ways people see themselves and social media, especially Instagram.

My research may be considered similar to other studies conducted over the years as people are constantly trying to figure out what it is that makes people have such big insecurities and why they base a lot of their social medias on what other people will like. My theory that based heavily around social media was the hypodermic needle theory, and this represents how people see things on social media and feel they need to be the same as these celebrities, even when this is not a real perception of reality. However, this theory is challenged because some people are not blind to the fact many posts are edited or only showing the positives to ones life, so as much as people are seeing this perfect lifestyle and wishing theirs was the same, they know that everyone has their dull days and Instagram isn’t there for the bad days. I enjoyed this project because I realised how insecure some people are when it comes to Instagram and knowing I’m not the only one is a relief. Being able to explore this topic has helped me to understand many people base their plans around what they can post on social media which isn’t healthy. People were open to answering the questions I had honestly which made this project work in my favour as I needed to most honest results in order to see if Instagram really is damaging.

This project could potentially be improved by interviewing more people, or researching a lot more! Starting the project a lot earlier would’ve helped me to gain a lot more results. It would also help if I’d have paid for memberships for things such as survey monkey to be able to see all my results and not just a select few.

This project could be developed further in the future by moving on from Instagram and comparing it to sites such as Tumblr, which one of my interviewees told me about, as this site is more about expressing yourself instead of posting for your followers, so I feel it would be interesting to see the difference between the two and explore that further.

This has taught me that people are caught in a bubble when it comes to social media, too scared of what others may think and now not wanting to post what they want for the fear of judgement from others. It shows just how insecure we have become as a generation, and how much we rely on social media to make us feel complete and in the loop. Many people see social media as a growing and developing way of communication, and extraordinary way to keep in touch with loved ones as well as showing of your life, myself included, but it’s becoming incredibly dangerous for people’s mental health just as quickly.

SURVEY

For my survey I ended up having 117 people take part, with the majority being females. One problem I did face was if I wanted to see more than 100 responses, I needed to pay, so this limited me to only being able to see 100 responses, which explains why on my questions, it says “answered: 100 skipped: 17”. However, having this amount of people respond still did help me to see what everyone’s opinion on social media was, Instagram especially. The main age range I got was 18-24, with that section dominating with 85%, however I did get some under 18’s which I was wanting.

I’m able to see the percentages on the bar charts for my survey, showing how many people have clicked on which option.

My findings also showed that people who had more followers spent more time on social media, suggesting people who have that bigger following feel like they need to update their followers on a daily.

The next question I asked was “Do you think the things yourself and others post on Instagram are representative of your lives, or more skewed to only show some aspects?” to which I had quite a mutual response of people saying it’s skewed for reasons such as ‘only show the good aspects of life, we don’t Instagram pictures of us crying, it’s just seconds out of a very long day’ 

Quite surprisingly, 37% of people who took part in my survey said they only uploaded to Instagram for the response. People are quite obsessed nowadays with reactions they get from things they post so this may explain why.

 

The response from this question was rather opinionated when people explained why they feel they can’t truly express themselves, with some people saying how they feel they need to look a certain way. It explains just how much people depend on looking good on their Instagram.

The respondents made it clear that Instagram is a hard social media to fit into, as they feel they need to look a certain way, act a certain way and portray themselves a certain way. Many people feel insecure and lack self esteem due to the amount of people who edit their photos, or posts so many bikini pictures. It also made me realise it’s usually women who feel they need to live up to a certain expectation which is showing just how much Instagram affects people’s confidence, especially young women.

From this survey, I realised people use social media mainly to show their lives as fun and ‘perfect’, yet people have admitted how this is not the case. It’s proved how people have a rose tinted view to reality, using social media as a cover up for what their life really is.

When comparing my interview and survey, it shows how I gained the same sort of responses from all people who took part in them. However, the interview definitely let people go into depth. I think this is because the questions are quite similar in a sense, and people do seem to have the same opinions on Instagram and social media as a whole.

I’ve learned people rely a lot on social media nowadays, yet some are willing to give social media up in order to leave the toxicity behind.

Below is the interview questions and the responses I got:

INTERVIEW

Questions: 

1. Do you see a way social media could positively affect people’s self esteem, what would you suggest?

First respondent, Female, 18 years old: Yes, as it can be used as a positive platform based on what you follow, more positive accounts, for example influencers who are supporting loving your own body or positive quotes. It’s just hard to be able to be positive on social media nowadays without people judging anyway so it’s like, what’s the point?

Second respondent: Female, 20 years old: Social media may effect people’s self esteem positively in some ways, but in my opinion it’s only short term. The way it does this is through likes on photos for example, I think this gives people confidence and satisfaction but again it’s only short term because it’s a superficial kind of self esteem.

Third respondent: Female, 19 years old: I think that social media could positively affect people’s self esteem due to the fact there are groups out there that are put in place to help support people with low self esteem, and instead of focusing on the negative social medias that portray an image of looking good 24/7 there are groups where people confide in each other and make each other feel better, for example Tumblr is social media that’s a massive community and everyone looks after everyone in a way and people seem to be comfortable in their own skin on there, the same can’t be said about Instagram.

2) Would you say social media is so influential to young girls?

First respondent: Yes because they look up to influencers and are heavily influenced by what they promote so if they see an influencer promoting a product then they are most likely to buy it straight away.

Second respondent: I think social media is hugely influential to young girls as they see so many other women posting the highlights and best bits of their life, then compare themselves to what they see and may think they are not good enough or they don’t have as much of a privileged life

Third respondent: Social media is incredibly influential to them because they are surrounded by images of unrealistic figures that have clearly been photoshopped to an unrealistic standard that’s completely unachieveable and young girls want to try and gain this look.

3) Do you feel people are going on social media at too young of an age?

First respondent: Yes, I think there should be a higher age limit on all social media platforms to prevent mental health becoming an issue younger.

Second respondent: In my opinion children shouldn’t go on social media until they fully understand the positives and negatives of it. Although stopping your child having it at the age most of their friends is getting it is detrimental as they are then missing out on the social benefits of it

Third respondent: Leading from question 2 I do agree that people are going on social media at too young of an age as they are unfortunately naive to think that these types of bodies and looks exist in real life – when in fact probably most of what is shown on social media is far from reality and has been edited – even if it’s the slightest bit of smoothing skin for example.

4) Does social media affect your happiness?

First respondent: Sometimes it can affect my happiness due to seeing other people’s posts and comparing myself to them and wishing I could do the things they are doing.

Second respondent: I would say social media does affect my happiness but not on too deep of a level. Sometimes I feel unhappy with my appearance when i compare myself to the picture perfect images i see online but reminding myself that everybody has insecurities and imperfections encourages me to not let this get me down too much. It can make me happier too when i see funny things, or good news or updates from family and friends i don’t see as often in person

Third respondent: Social media does affect my happiness especially in the sense of friendships as you see online what your friends are doing when they haven’t invited you to places for example. However as a result of feeling unhappy from social media I did delete it and has found my mood has lifted immensely.

5) Would you be able to cope without social media for a day?

First respondent: No I don’t think I would be able to cope without social media for a day as I spend a lot of time during the day just scrolling through platforms particularly Instagram.

Second respondent: I would cope easily without social media for a day as i think it makes me less productive and distracts me from what actually matters and is real in life

Third respondent: Following from question 4, I do now cope without social media as I distract my time with other more beneficial things such as reading and actually spending time with people on the flesh rather than over text – which isn’t really a great friendship or relationship.

6) Can you describe a time you’ve felt self-conscious due to portrayals of body image on social media?

First respondent: Yes, I see lots of models and influencers on Instagram who post regular photos of themselves in bikinis on holidays and I begin to feel self conscious due to not looking the same as them.

Second respondent: I can’t describe a specific time but body image because on social media i think body image is the in the limelight far to often and the experience of feeling self conscious because of what you see online happens far too often

Third respondent: I have felt massively self-conscious when seeing unrealistic images of very slim and slender girls who also have larger chest areas yet still having such slim other features.

7) Did it make you feel inclined to change something about yourself, in what way?

First respondent: Yes, it made me feel like I needed to lose weight to fit in.

Second respondent: body image on social media is usually focused on female weight loss so i guess it makes you also want to lose weight to fit with society’s beauty standards

Third respondent: It did make me feel inclined to change and as a result to change my figure which was not fat in the slightest and perfectly normal for my weight and height. To change I started eating more healthy and working out but I also constantly stood and stared at myself in the mirror which made me feel even worse. Thankfully due to deleting social media I do not have these worries anymore and am very happy with my body and in my own skin

8) Do you think because of the media there is a specific definition of ‘perfection’ that most people want to achieve?

First respondent: Yes, I think a lot of girls feel they need to look like the majority of influencers on Instagram with toned bodies and nice tans.

Second respondent: Definitely, and this is so unhealthy for everyone because the perfect body does not exist! The media portray an idea of a dream beach body of slender and toned women, but then you’re criticised if you’re too toned as being ‘too muscles or manly’ and if you are too slim you’re criticised for being ‘too skinny’ and told to eat more.

Third respondent: I think there is perfection but its your own definition of it. So for me I think perfection in looks is when you feel 100% confident – I would class this as perfection rather than something physical.

 9) Do you think men are equally as objectified? 

First respondent: No, I feel as though girls are objectified a lot more than men in the media.

Second respondent: No i don’t think men are objectified nearly as much as women. However a lot of male insecurities do go unnoticed and people tend to assume it’s only women who can feel insecure from what they see online

Third respondent: I do think they are in terms of building muscle but not in as much of a sense of girls as typically girls do love to post a whole lot more about their physique then males.

10) When you see an advertisement promoting diet pills or other products to look like a celebrity does how do you feel about it, does it lower your self esteem or motivate you? 

First respondent: It makes me feel angry that people with such a huge platform are using it for things that could have a huge negative impact on thousands of girls.

Second respondent: personally these products don’t make me want to change myself or lower my self esteem because i’m aware that people have been paid to advertise these as a healthy and sustainable way of losing weight. These products shouldn’t even be aloud online as they’re so bad for you and the celebrities claiming they’ve lost weight through using them is false, it’s likely they have personal trainers, nutritionists and so on

Third respondent: To be quite honest when I see an advertisement on celebrities selling pills my first instinct is to initially ignore it as I know most of the time celebrities don’t actually use these products and just promote them for the money – however that may be due to my age as I can see past fake news and fake advertisements.

 

The two most suited methods for my survey are a survey and an interview. This is due to a survey helping me compare anonymous results and interviews are very raw so I’ll be able to get real emotions from people which suits my research topic well.

SURVEYS AND INTERVIEWS

The strengths of surveys are as follows:

They’re capable of collecting data from a larger number of respondents, as well as these respondents remaining anonymous so it’ll be easier for them to be honest as they won’t feel like anyone’s being judgemental towards their chosen answers. They also don’t take too long to create, so I can easily make the survey and get it published on the same day to be able to get the answers I need. These surveys can be done via email, phone, mail as well as the internet which I believe I’ll be using for this particular survey as my chosen research topic is Instagram so requires the internet as it is. I will also be able to ask numerous questions about my subject, giving extensive flexibility for data analysis and lastly a broad range of data can be collected (e.g. attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values, behaviour and factual)

The weaknesses of surveys are as follows:

People may not feel encouraged to provide accurate, honest answers. Respondents may not feel comfortable providing answers that present themselves in an unfavourable manner. Respondents may not be fully aware of their reasons for any given answer because of a lack of knowledge or memory on a subject, or even boredom. Customised surveys can also run the risk of containing certain types of errors so I will need to make sure I preview and test it first before publishing it for my results.

The strengths of interviews are as follows:

They have accurate screenings, as well as able to capture verbal and nonverbal cues. People are less likely to lie when in an interview as they’re put on the spot so have to answer as honest as they can usually. It’s also easier for respondents to keep focus on the interview as they don’t have any distractions when it’s a one on one interview, it’s therefore easier to catch real emotions and behaviours.

The weaknesses of interviews are as follows:

The quality of data by the interviewer may differ, sometimes interviewers do not ask the right question to gain the right result so I will need to make sure I read through my questions and make sure they’re easy to understand as well as questioning whether I’ll get a good response from a respondent or not. Also, they can be very time consuming as you have to manually enter the data yourself to a database to then examine it for key patterns and interesting results. Lastly, the sample size may be limited as some people may not feel comfortable in partaking in the interview you’re holding.

SURVEYS

I designed my approach by planning what I wanted to ask, making sure my questions would cover what I wanted to know. They all give me a good answer for what I want to know, from how someone feels about a certain thing to what their gender and age is.

I shared the survey on my Instagram as that is what my research topic is on, so I figured people would most likely give me the answers I needed from that. A lot of my followers are also in my target audience age range so I knew I’d be able to get the variety I needed.

I faced the issue of people not wanting to partake in my survey due to the questions I was asking, so to overcome this issue I had ethic forms for people to fill out for them to agree to what I wanted to know. They also then knew what they were answering and why so it came as no surprise to them.

From my pilot study I learnt that many people have the same opinion on my chosen subject as one another and I got the results I was expecting to get. I made sure I posted my survey link to Facebook as well as Instagram as I wanted a varied age range to see the different views and if there were any differences with age and opinions.

I conducted the research by gathering different studies which related to my topic first which can be seen in my Literature Review. I wanted to make sure what I was finding out was possible. I saw how many people had done research on topics similar so knew it’d work out. I then thought out my 10 questions I was going to ask and put them into a survey to then share it with my target audience. I was able to gain the findings I needed through this method.

INTERVIEWS

For the interviews I conducted, I asked people in the 16-24 age range if they would mind coming to have an interview with me so I could get more specific answers, as well as the answers being a lot more in depth and personal to these people.

I faced the issue of some people not wanting to participate due to the nature of the questions which is understandable, so instead I used the same method from my survey of making an ethics form so people know the basics of what I’ll be asking.

References

1) Debois, S. (2019). 10 Advantages and the Disadvantages of Questionnaires – Survey Anyplace. Retrieved from https://surveyanyplace.com/questionnaire-pros-and-cons/

2) DeFranzo, S. (2019). Advantages and Disadvantages of Surveys. Retrieved from https://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/advantages-disadvantages-surveys/

3) DeFranzo, S. (2019). Advantages and Disadvantages of Face-to-Face Data Collection. Retrieved from https://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/advantages-disadvantages-facetoface-data-collection/

For my study I’m researching whether Instagram is the worst social media for young girls’ mental health and well being. The aim is to determine how, and to what extent their mental health is being affected by what celebrities post. The target audience will be 16-24-year-old girls/young women. I want to be able to see who compares themselves to people of high popularity on Instagram and if it does impact the way they see themselves. I also want to explore what parents think about Instagram, to see if they feel that Instagram is part of why young girls feel they need to look/dress/speak/live like the same celebrities. Throughout this literature review I will have my work in sections because I want to explore into what social media actually is and the effects caused, such as depression, anxiety and loneliness.

Social Media: An Overview. 

The term social media ‘refers to the various internet-based networks that enable users to interact with others, verbally and visually’ (Carr and Hayes 2015). About 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some sort, and at least 92% of teenagers are active on social media. Although social media is available for almost anyone, with young adults being the most active users. Straying from Instagram, Nadkari and Hofmann (2012) say that people are motivated to use Facebook for two primary reasons: a need of belonging and a need for self-presentation.

Toma and Hancock (2013) found that Facebook profiles helped satisfy individuals’ need for self-worth and self-integrity. One of the most popular reasons was to make new friends, read comments by celebrities and politicians and finding potential romantic partners (Smith 2011). Smith also found that middle-aged and older adults use social media to connect with others with common interests and hobbies to them, whereas younger adults wanted to connect with those already present in their life, such as friends and family members.

Effects of social media use: Current research and speculations.

Understanding the impact of social media users’ well-being has become a priority due to a simultaneous increase in mental health problems (Kim, 2017). Some activity in younger people could be seen as abnormal. For example, ‘young people who frequently post images of themselves (‘selfies’) may appear narcissistic’, but such behaviour has emerged as a social norm in younger social networks (McCrae 2018). As explained by social comparison theory (Festinger 1954), people tend to compare themselves to others to assess their opinion and abilities. This therefore relates to my research as it shows that people do tend to compare themselves and try to get the approval of others, in which cases these people they seek approval from they may not even know.

In 1995 the HomeNet Project provided internet access and a computer to 93 households that had no previous internet experience and tracked their psychological health over several years. After the initial year of internet use the researchers concluded that greater use of the internet was associated with more signs of loneliness and depression (Kraut et al 2002). This related to my chosen research because it shows how Instagram along with other social medias are a big cause in mental health, more people are staying in and contacting one another through social media as oppose to going out and seeing one another. In 2012, Rosen, Cheever and Carrier coined the term ‘Disorder’ defined as the negative relationship between technology usage and psychological health. In 2013, Rosen et al studied the Facebook usage of 1,143 college-aged students. The researchers found that major depressive disorder, dysthymia, bipolar-mania, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder and compulsive behaviour were predicted by one or more Facebook usage variables (general use, number of friends, use for image management.) This relates to my research as social media all fits into the same bracket; the majority of people are constantly checking their social media as well as it having an effect on their mental health which has been proven in several studies. There’s a constant link between social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. Also, this study is six years old and since then more has been researched into for the other social medias to also cause mental health issues which I’ll be researching into.

Social Media and depression: 

A Croatian study found time spent on social media was positively correlated with depression (Panticet al 2012)

Social Media and anxiety:

A study found that 45% of British adults indicated they feel worried or uncomfortable when they can’t access their emails or social network sites (Anxiety UK 2012). Rosen et al (2013) found that younger generations are checking in very often (defined as every hour, every 15 minutes or all the time) with their messages and social media networks. Younger generations were scored as consistently more anxious than older generations when they were unable to check their social media and texts. A new medical term has been created due to this constant connectivity.

Phantom Vibration Syndrome: defined as perceived vibration from a cell phone not vibrating, it’s been reported to occur with large numbers of people (Drouin et al 2012; Rothberg et al 2010). Phantom vibration syndrome may reflect a manifestation of the anxiety that cell phones elicit in those who are obsessed with checking in on their social media and messages.

How Social Medias affect mental health – Theories: 

Young adults operate at a vulnerable precipice: as a population, young adults are at a higher risk of developing mental health problems as they experience emerging adulthood. These same young adults are the most active users of social media, which has a distinct connection with mental health problems. Although many theorists have intriguing perspectives on how social media affects young people’s mental health, none of them provide definite proof that social media use causes a decline in mental health. By me doing my own research, I will see a clear pattern in how people are feeling towards social media, if Instagram is a toxic social networking site and if it is in fact incredibly damaging for those who go on it for long periods of time every day.

Displaced Behaviour Theory: People who spend more time on social media have less time for face-to-face social interaction and physical activity, which have been proven to prevent mental disorders (Martinsen 2008). This relates to my research as I’m going to find out how long people spend on Instagram daily to see how much of their days are taken up by said social media.

Social Information Processing Theory: Walther (1992) discusses how people get to know each other online, without non-verbal cues and how they develop and manage relationships in the computer-mediated environment.

What is a social media influencer and how do they influence?

A social media influencer is described as someone who has established credibility in a specific industry, with access to a huge audience and can influence many ordinary people with their authenticity and reach. They can influence by gaining their audiences’ trust, catering to specific groups of people. They’re passionate about what they do which helps for people to boost these social media influencer’s popularities, whether it’s beauty, food, sports or fashion. Choosing to focus my research on Instagram will show how much people feel they need to live up to the same standards as these social media influencers, with ordinary people feeling they have to act the same and live the same, or at least want to.
References:

1) Carr, C. and Hayes, R. (2015). Social Media: Defining, Developing, and Divining. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(1), pp.46-65.

2) Carrier, L., Cheever, N., Rokkum, J., Rosen, L., & Whaling, K. (2013). The Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale: An empirical investigation. Comput Human Behav., 29(6), 2501-2511.

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