Media and Self Esteem

“All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values”, says Canadian communications theorist, William Berbach. Some studies have shown that media can shorten attention span, distort body image, create fear, and increase aggressive and anti-social behaviors if exposure is unmonitored and unlimited. What is mass media? Mass media can be defined as mass communications that are controlled and owned by organizations which use these tools through: television, radio, newspaper, and Internet. People have used their media resources to communicate with others but this can have a down side causing emotionally and mentally abuse to the youth throughout these social networks known as Face book, MySpace, and Mocospace. To understand this topic, one must understand what self-esteem is, how the media affects self-esteem, there have been suicides as a result cyber bullying as it relates to 15-year-old, Megan Meier, and why it is important to help others dealing with self-esteem issues. The negative impact on the lives of today’s youth through media is impactful and very dangerous being that the media plays a large role on teens and young children lifestyles and out looks on life. Nevertheless, media images seemed to perpetuate the idea of “the perfect body” in females.

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In an article, here's what an elementary school teacher had to say about the media and body image: "The media, music, and modeling worlds all portray the ideal girl or woman as being thin and perfect. On TV, the commercials seem to constantly be about some weight loss program. We are brought up in a society that glorifies thinness, and this may cause most teenage girls to be more preoccupied with their weight. The influenc...

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...re-selfesteem.com/problem_years.htm here are some ways to help overcome self- esteem issues: do something for others that will help you feel you are contributing to the world. Stop focusing on yourself too much and try to help others,don’t be afraid to ask others for what you want,examine why you feel bad about yourself and what you can do to change this, and examine your self talk and question your negative statements about yourself. As a result of the system failing to work in Megan Meier’s family the law has set aside harsher sentences in the judicial system and here are points taking down if one is victim of cyber bullying: Advise an adult of this behavior so proper action can be taken, stop all communication with the cyber bully,make hard copy of any and all materials the, cyber bully has posted or sent

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online, as evidence.