lccs+Media+Representation

Home The influence of the Media and Print Representation of men and women has changed the attitudes of all young people today. Teenage boys and girls are exposed to many magazines and television shows that manipulate the way they see themselves and the way they see life.

In these magazines there are many pictures of men and women exposing them self to some degree. Teenagers are exposed to these magazines all their life; and thus their view of adults and other people is dramatically changed.

For example, the magazine Ralph, is a magazine filled with pictures of naked or half-naked women. However, these pictures have been edited to make them more sexually appealing. Skin has been edited to be flawless; breasts have been enlarged; facial features have been enhanced and even body shape has been changed to be more voluptuous.

This magazine and many others effects teens radically. Many teenage girls have bad self esteem and body image due to the media's representation of men and women. Teenage girls now believe that they must have the biggest breasts, the curviest body, the cutest smile and all the rest. This media has damaged the attitudes of many young girls and for generations to come.

But boys have also been affected. In Ralph magazine, there are many images of "perfect" women. Many teenage boys now expect this to be the normal girl and have very high expectations. These women also present themselves very sexually and expect all girls to be the same. This has pressured many girls into doing many things for boys that they did not want to do.

Also, in many sports magazines, men are presented with large muscles, perfect physique and other faultless qualities. This can bring down the self esteem of many growing boys who do not match these criteria. There are also many myths represented about puberty and adolescence in the digital and print media. Some of these include:

//Everyone will go through a state of depression and that it is inevitable.// This encourages teenagers that going through depression is alright and that they will get over it. However, depression is serious and teenagers should seek help immediately. //Acne is preventable and that it can be vanished within twenty four hours.// This is clearly not true. It is impossible for acne to completely disappear in such a short period of time. It gets teens hopes up and then crushes them when there are no results. //You cannot get pregnant during your period.// This is actually true because the egg cell may not have exited the body even though a lot of the lining and blood has. This encourages teens to be careless, thus resulting in more young pregnancies. //Getting a tan prevents acne.// This is obviously not true. However, even if it was true, the person would still suffer from sun damage in the long term which is much more dangerous than acne.

Although there are many myths, there are also many realities. Teenagers nowadays are a lot more aware about sex, puberty and drugs than they were before. Due to this expanse of knowledge at such a young age, teens now believe that it is alright to be sexually active at a very young age (for example: thirteen years old). This knowledge, that the teens have learnt from the **media** has not benefited them, but in fact encouraged them to be careless, irresponsible, sexually active and even smoke and do drugs.

Overall, the print and digital media representation of society, teenagers, adults and culture is a terrible influence on the current generation of teenagers.