Projection.
We know what we think, but what do others think?
The basis for all mass communication is based up on this idea of focusing on projection: the internal vs. the external.
There are two ways to look at mass communication.
- What are the makers of the mass media thinking when they send out messages on a particular medium?
- How does that message from that particular medium come back to affect us?
I governed my final project around this idea of how the media affects and attacks our self-esteem and our self-image. I narrowed my research to target those who seemed most affected by it: young adult females. My research got even slimmer when I hollowed out everything except the one medium that affected my target research group: Instagram. As an image-based medium, it has a very real and damaging psychological affect on young developing women. Humans come in every shape and size, but Instagram rewards the accounts of those who project an unattainable body type. It toys with the notion that a woman is only pleasing if she looks a certain way. An image will only get likes if it looks a certain way. Being that most people cannot afford the plastic surgery to look such a way nor do most think to photoshop every photo of theirs, this particular look feels unattainable and leaves women feeling inadequate. This transfers into eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and in extreme cases suicide.
We live in an age where online followers and likes determines a young woman’s worth.
