Intro – Negative Media Issues

Almost everyone is hiding something behind closed door. Many people want to look great on pictures for Instagram, Facebook or Twitter and get enormously huge number of likes. People see perfect life of a celebrity we admire and start changing ourselves to look alike. However, society cannot see the full process of creating the post, not only at the moment of taking picture, but the possibility of using Photoshop or long-process work that was done. That can affect audience in a negative way, as an example can be fashion industry with perfectly and unrealistic edited media posts. Moreover, some psychological representation of personality can be analyzed by a person’s account. Comparing with media influence in the past and people can find solutions for the future. People should be aware about risks and be less dependent from the social media. The purpose of this blog is to make people be more acknowledged about the problem of the negative influence of the hidden side of social networks.

Other Blogs, Other Issues In Media & Society

Social Media is not only about negative and hidden side of it. Network has many other issues to deal with and how to solve those problems. Although, blogs contain description about noticable events in modern society and informatiove experts’ point of veiws.

• “How our modern society influenced by the Social Sites?“, article written by Evgeniya Kononova provides information about positive and negative sides of media. Drawback or benefit, effects and consequences, read and enjoy:

https://evgianamedia.blogspot.cz

• Another informative blog was writter by Adil Merzlov. He describes a view on video games through media persperctives and provides examples of events with great expert’s opinion on it:

https://satori285.blogspot.cz

• Martina Malarova emphasizes an issue of Cyberbullying in the Internet. Before social networks people were bullied in real-life and in the modern society people have an opportunity to shame people online. How to deal with it, pros and cons, all relatable information you can find in her blog!

https://cyberbullyingviasocialmedia.wordpress.com

• Anastasia Peleshenko created an amazing blog anout patreotism in Social Media. Her point are clear and easy to understand. Reading her blog will provide you a lot of great points about issues with patriotism in Media:

https://patriotisminmedia.wordpress.com

• Last, but not least. Political issues in Media is highly important nowadays. “Post-truth Politics” written by Adina Zhantykeyeva explains connection and consequences between truth, politics and yellow press. She provides information about media view and breaks stereotypes aboutmany political issues:

https://politikstoday.blogspot.cz

Craving for Beauty – Event I

Social media creates borders for people’s minds. Today, fashion and beauty are subjective terms, but some people still want to become the most beautiful creature in the world. The phenomenon as “real-life Barbie and Ken” is known for a long time now. People such as Valeria Lukyanova or Nannette Hammond think that “live in plastic is fantastic” and never confirm their plastic surgeries, claim that mother nature created their appearance. Nevertheless, how many plastic surgeries can help to almost destroy a body for beauty? Psychologists would emphasize, that kind of values for themselves might be a mental problem, such as not enough self-esteem and confidence. However, the effect can be dreadful for a person and lead to death. As was said previously, the topic is going to be about “real- life Ken”, who after 50 surgeries could not breathe properly, what caused a condition when his nose tissues begin to disintegrate. 33 years old man from Brazil – Rodrigo Alves announced his number of plastic surgeries at British talk show “This Morning” and pointed out about his nose job issues in 2017: “July of last year I had my nose reconstructed with a piece of cartilage from my ribs. That helped, but I still can’t breathe 100%”. In total, besides eight reconstructive nose jobs, Alves had other fifty operations, such as chest implants, Botox, laser liposuction and calf shaping. The amount of money that he spent was for surgeries can be equal to one million dollars. However, even money could not help him to allow him to breathe normally again. Surgeons and psychologists emphasized that “Human Ken Doll” was diagnosed with BDD – Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Mental illness, when a person starts to be obsessed with the body change to accomplish unrealistic appearance and become perfectly flawless in their perception of beauty. In 2016, he was diagnosed with necrosis, which caused nose tissues destruction. Attempt to achieve modern beauty standards can be even deadly for body and health, however people still risk their lives just to be appreciated by society.

Reference:

Finn, H. (2017, February 9). After 50 Plastic Surgeries, the ‘Human Ken Doll’ Can’t Breathe Properly Anymore. (Dr. Oz The Good Life) Retrieved from MSN: Lifestyle: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/after-50-plastic-surgeries-the-human-ken-doll-cant-breathe-properly-anymore/ar-AAmJyMZ

 

The Photoshoot – Event II

Social networks, Instagram and The Kardashian family. How many times have you heard about this connection? Many people are interested in their family because the Kardashians almost rule the media world. Kim’s Instagram has around 100 million followers, who probably admire her as a standard of beauty. Kardashian family reflect significant influence not only to fashion trends, but also as a power of feminism and success, what without any doubts inspire people. A lot of people blame them for being untalented and too fake. However, the hidden side of this representation in social sphere is enormously high amount of work, plastic surgeries and Photoshop. One of the current “scandals” that included Kim Kardashian’s desert photoshoot for her web page – KimKardashianWest.com. In 2017 the photoshoot in a desert was seen and appreciated by millions of people. However, when non-edited pictures leaked to the Internet, Kim Kardashian’s follower were surprized about the difference between pictures. Even recently, paparazzi posted raw photographs of Kim Kardashian, afterward her followers and she were dissapointed about the situation. However, Kardashian family is just a clear and exaggereated example of how real entertaining media industry works. Not only celebrities, but even scrolling through the news feed or Instagram, that is noticable that personal friends create posts where they are looking nore aatractive than in real life. Other editing programs just help to get more likes and be more appreciated ny society. However, this modern state of living makes people more dependent on the Internet, social networks and other’s people opinion. Nevertheless, this “fakeness” in social media can affect other people to have more doubts about their personal life.

Reference:

McLaughlin, A. (2016, June 13). Why Keeping Up Matters: The Kardashians as a Reflection of Society. Retrieved from Macalester College: https://www.macalester.edu/news/2016/06/why-keeping-up-matters-the-kardashians-as-a-reflection-of-society/

Carolynn Pennington – Expert I

The problem with negative influence in media is not new. Many girls follow their idols through social networks and start to notice flaws in their own bodies. Representation of art in media causes mental disorders, such as anorexia, bulimia or binge eating. According to Carolynn Pennington’s blog, a member of School Medicine and Dental Medicine, for UConn Today, she explains reasons why social media negatively effects to teenagers’ state of mind. Pennington emphasizes that “The “selfie” culture is another example of being excessively concerned with physical attributes to the neglect of other, more meaningful qualities about a person”. She considers that people start to be uncontrollably obsessed with their physical appearance and become dehumanized, because public appreciation is more important for them. Eating disorder, such as binge eating, could be seen as escaping from routine and current life problems, although overcome boredom, sadness or frustration. On the other hand, bulimia and anorexia are mental disorders, when a person thinks that it is better to be as skinny as possible, just to become appreciated by unknown people in the world web.

Reference:

Pennington, C. (2015, February 23). The Impact of Social Media on Body Image . Retrieved from UConn Today: http://today.uconn.edu/2015/02/the-impact-of-social-media-on-body-image/

 

CBS News – Expert II

One of the issues in Social Media is cyber-bullying. Not a lot of people know that probably some of their friends could be bullied, because they keep it private not to disturb society. According to Columbia Broadcasting System News (2010), over 42% of teenagers become victims in social media bullying at least once in their life. Attempts to terrorize others people’s privacy in front of their friends becomes more and more widespread nowadays. Probably because of people misunderstanding and lack of confidence towards others, push people to write offending comments and shame people for no reason. Popular personas are cyber-bullied every day, because the more people know about person’s behavior, the more opinions are going to be spread via social networks. Moreover, celebrities can easily not pay attention to any negativity towards them. However, ordinary people who became victims of cyber-oppressors sometimes cannot handle the pressure from the society, have deep depression deep inside and as a result commit a suicide. Social Networks can be a great opportunity for people to find an inspiration, but the dark side of public opinion can destroy a live of innocent person.

Reference:

PennState: Psych 424 Blog. (2015, November 16). Social Media and the Negative Impact on Individuals. Retrieved from Penn State University: https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2015/11/16/social-media-and-the-negative-impact-on-individuals/

 

Recommendation

• 1.  In the 21^st century young generation becomes more addicted to the media and the Internet. However, parents should be more aware about consequences that can appeared in future with their children. The article “Physical and Social Effects of Internet Use in Children”, written by John Patrick (2011), can help parents to be more acknowledged about future physical, cognitive and social problems of their child.

Reference:

Patrick, J. (2011, August 17). Physical and Social Effects of Internet Use in Children. Retrieved from LiveStrong: http://www.livestrong.com/article/516549-physical-and-social-effects-of-internet-use-in-children/

• 2.  Nevertheless, Internet can disturb not only children, but also students. Shikha Nain (2016) provides ten various problems which can be caused by social media. She describes each issue and why that has negative influence for studying. However, not inly problems at school could appear, but also in case of private life. Nain emphasizes the problem of creativity loss, physical inactivity and distractions which affect studying in different ways.

Reference:

Nain, S. (2014, June 10). 10 Negative Effects of Internet on Students. Retrieved from Lists 10: http://lists10.com/1o-negative-effects-internet-students/

• 3.  Further research by the National University of Malaysia, explains in more detailed both sides of media – positive and negative. 200 young adults from Malaysia were asked to be checked for Internet addiction. Research was based on western practices, moreover, results were used for academic sources and governmental works.

Reference:

lam, S. S., Mohd, N., Hashim, H. N., Ahmad, M., Che Wel, C., Nor, S. M., & Omar, N. A. (2014). Negative and positive impact of internet addiction on young adults: Empericial study in Malaysia, 3. Retrieved from Intangible Capital: http://www.intangiblecapital.org/index.php/ic/article/view/452

My View

Is media positive or negative? This question has different points of views, where people are divided in two parts. Both sides are balanced nowadays, but the negative part is stronger than the other one. Positive opinion about social networks can be seen as new representation of the beauty in modern society. With new social networks, such as Instagram or Pinterest, people can easily find an inspiration for creativity and curiosity. In that case, media shows only the top of the iceberg, where the world exists as a delighted place. As an extremely large bottom of the iceberg could be shown the drawbacks of the social media networks, where users hide their problems to be more secured, but at the same time damaged inside. The drawbacks of the social media are modern laziness, which represented as lack of creativity, cyber-bullying with body shaming and lack of personal communication face to face.

With the 21^st century technological progress schools became more developed. Students all over the world make presentations, write essays and researches. However, creativity level decreases because of the influence of the Internet in educational system. University papers can be checked at least for plagiarism, to identify the level of exactly the same ideas. Jim Rubin (2012), professor at Union Collage, emphasizes that there are two main points to consider that media and technologies can cause the potential creativity decreasing among younger generation. The first one is change in the motivation and productivity, because in the 21^st century for teenagers is easier to find information in the internet, rather than create by themselves. The second one is the possibility that reducing creativity level could bring other problems in future, Rubin provides an examples as probability that future generation will have less creativity and more depended on modern technologies.

The second issue is cyber-bulling, which is common problem all over the world. Richard Donegan (2012), professor of Strategic Communication in Elon University, provides information about bullying and emphasizes everyday more and more children become victims of cyber-bullies. Moreover, he stresses that with modern technologies bullies from real-life started to spread all over the Internet with easier access to comments and private pictures. Victims of cyber-bullies can get some mental issues which can lead to depression and suicide. Nevertheless, usually in modern society the main target groups to be shamed in the internet are girls and women. The perception of beauty standards are different in every culture, however, not all people can understand it and be more tolerant toward others.

In the 21^st century the lack of communication face to face starts to be a problem. Smartphones, social networks and media let people to communicate through messages, rather than talk to somebody in person. Emily Drago (2015), a member of faculty in Elon University, indicates that the modern technology era damaged interpersonal relations, either quality and quantity. By quantity, she means that a group of people during a face to face meeting is probably going to pay more attention to social media and smartphones, than for natural conversation. Nevertheless, by quantity Drago means that modern society started to have dates more rarely than usual. This problem could be caused by less effort to talk with friends via Skype, than have a conversation somewhere face to face.

To conclude, negative effects are more dominant rather than positive and inspirational ones. Everyday laziness maintains more people and increases lack of the creativity, intolerant people bully other because of the easy access to others’ privacy and people become more anti-social because internet makes life easier. However, media is balanced more or less and modern society still has an opportunity to increase curiosity and change the future.

Reference:

Donegan, R. (2012). Bullying and Cyberbullying: History, Statistics, Law, Prevention, and Analysis. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 3(1), 33-42.

Drago, E. (2015). The Effect of Technology on Face-to-Face Communication. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 6(1), 13-19. Retrieved from Elon University: https://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/academics/communications/research/vol6no1/02DragoEJSpring15.pdf

Rubin, J. (2012, June 8). Technology’s Impact on the Creative Potential of Youth. Retrieved from Creativity Research Journal: https://www.unionky.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/pages/creativity%20article.pdf