In its approximately 40 years as a part of American society, television has become an important part of almost every home. It accompanies much of daily life, either as foreground or as backfround. Numerous opinions about the importance of television in modern society cover almost the entire range that one can imagine. Despite the wide range of opinions about the importance of elevision, everyone agrees that it occupies a great deal; of its viewers' time with giving great influences on their psychological mechanism which is consisted of behavior and cognition. Then, is psychological impact of television strong enough to make some changes in society?. As a psychology major, I set this question as the main focus of this paper and tried to find some evidences in various references.
"All television is educational. The only question is: What does it teach?"(John, 1978). The quotation implies the significance of behavioral learnings, as the lecture covered, two opposite behavioral learnings; violent behavior and prosocial behavior; seem very crucial for their influence in many societies. Considering violent behavior, there are three logical possibilities; watching violence on television could make us more or less violent or have no effect whatsoever on our aggressive behavior; that are related to the contents from the lecture. But the vast preponderance of evidence supports the hypothesis of a positive association between viewing television violence and actual aggressive behavior(Huesmann, 1982). As expected, modeling hypothesis was the most popular among the psychologists who went through many experiments, correlational studies, and field studies. Modeling hypothesis is significant for its importance in social contexts. In other words, the evidence indicates that the more people are exposed to violent scenes in television the more they are likely to violent in their everyday lives. This may be especially true of children. For instance, it was very shocking to hear the report about the kids killing animals ruthlessly, just to imitate some cartoon characters from MTV. Astonishing fact about the problem with violence in television is that even if it is so apparent that people are imitating violences, not so many efforts have been made to regulate them(Tichi, 1991).
Contrarily, not only the modeling hypothsis of behavior contributes to expressing violence, but also to prosocial behavior through the similar psychological mechanism. Behavioral learning of prosocial behavior also requires the process of modeling or imitation(Huesmann, 1982). The trend in psychology with prosocial behavior is that some behavior psychologists try to amplify the effect of mere exposure to some others' prosocial behaviors(Condry, 1989). In order to recruit more people to prosocial activities, many prosocial activities use the power of media by showing actual examples of prosocial behavior through television. According to the result of an research, media campaigns to promote health-education were successful in terms of its promotion on viewers' awareness of health problems(Solomon, 1982).
To make changes in society, changes in each member of a society is inevitable. Considering this fact, the effect of television on behavioral mechanism is somewhat insufficient . As a breakthrough, psychologists began to study the effect of television on our cognitive mechanism, such as person's attitudes and beliefs. Television influences what we believe and think about the world. As the lecture covered that heavy viewers of television have attitudes about the amount of violence, for example, that reflects more the world of television than the world of reality, this small but significant influence on social trend. As a supportive evidence, a research demonstrated that heavy viewers of televisiona te less trusting and more fearful of crime and violence than light viewers who come from the same social class, and who live in similar neighborhoods so that they have less tendency to get involved with social trend(Gerbner, 1976). Gerbner and his colleagues call this effect mainstreaming. The effect is particularly strong when the world the viewer lives in is similar to that depicted on television. Another effect of heavy viewing that Gerbner found is resonance. Resonance is associated with the fact that the most pronounced effects of heavu viewing should be seen in people who come from the high crime area, so this effect attributes to the concentration of crime in an area, because of people's attitudes and beliefs. As a result, the social trend become concrete that heavy viewers have developed notorious cognitions about certain area and avoided to make some change(Geen & Thomas, 1986). Eventually, it is the result of people's cognitive mechanism that has formulated behavioral and social effects, not the result of mere imitation.
As shown above, there are two crucial factors that make some social effects in a view of psychologist. They are behavioral mechanism and cognitive mechanism. As some of evidences have shown, even insufficiently, there are some correlation between televiaion and our social trend, not necessarily the causation. However, it can be the start point for a better society with desirable influences of television. It would be a hopeful sign for me to discover the power of media on our psychological being.
Psychological Approach to the Effect of Television Advertising
Whether you like them or not, commercials are the whole point of television as it has evolved in the United States, and in many other countries as well. The basic economic structure of the broadcast media, since the early 1920s, involves the gathering of audiences in order to sell them to an advertiser. In this phase, television is the most successful marketing device ever invented. Accordingly, TV-commercials that have been made are innumerable. However, TV-commercials are always felt that they are new and creative that never been done before. Each of them are effective in a way to intrigue our desire to buy product. It is probably because of their simple and ruling mechanism that work beyond our sight and make them to be attractive. It is called the mechanisms of persuasion. By studying the mechanism of persuasion, psychologists focus on the effects of ads: how they influence the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors associated with the product itself. In addition to attitudes and values directly related to the product, other aspects of beliefs, attitudes, and values might be influenced by commercials are also considered. Then, how do commercials actually work and appeal to accomplish what they are designated to accomplish. In other words, the effectiveness of ads refers to the question of whether a person exposed to the ad eventually comes to want the product, buy the product, and consume the product. There are, however, two lending theories of advertising effectiveness that have been established. First, in McGuire's theory, an ad is effective if it passes through several stages of a decision making process and arrives at the end point of the person buying the product. Each stage in the process is a decision that must be made or an event that must take place in order for a commercial to be successful. There are things the advertiser can do at each stage to maximize the likelihood of a successful outcome. These stages in the persuasive process are called: exposure, attention, comprehension, yielding, retention, and decision to buy. Each stages in the sequence must be passed in order to go on to the next. This theory begins with the obvious by saying that only those who are exposed to an ad are likely to be influenced by it. To maximize exposure, the advertiser places an ad so to achieve the widest possible audience. For this reason, we often see ads for the same product at the same time on different television networks. Of those who are exposed, only some will play attention to the ad. Factors that govern attention to the ad involve the "salient perceptual features" (Huston et al, 1981). They are like showing unusual sights and sounds, especially sounds, to grasp attention. After attention, the understanding what the advertiser wants you to understand of the product. Yielding, the next stage in the process, refers to agreement with the message, believing the claim made by the advertiser. The final two stages take place some time after exposure, once the viewer is in the store ready to make a purchase. Once the individual has recalled the product at the proper moment, the final part of the process, the decision to buy is at hand, The decision to buy may also be influenced by factors other than those in the ad, such as comparative price. Second, alternative theory to McGuire's approaches to explaining the effectiveness of ads stress "Psychographics" of the potential customers, regarding the product is used to target the specific message of the ad to psychological characteristics of the audience. Typical of this approach is the set of psychological profile or of traits called "values and lifestyles" or VALS. For example, consumers are described first as falling into one of two large groups (inner vs. outer directed). Eventually, they become one group of subjects who advertisers simply want to manipulate memory and desire for a product. This process is the beginning and end of persuasive process.
Com 303 Dr. West
Research Paper : The Ideology Bias in "Diet" Products.
A little boy in a television commercial says, "Diet Coke, fancy food," "Diet Coke, fun," and "Diet Coke, women." He and his friends are at a banquet staring at beautiful ladies drinking Diet Cokes. The ladies give somewhat seductive smiles to a boy drinking Diet Coke. He begins to talk about ladies as if he is a popular guy but the ladies were actually looking at Diet Coke. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a fat old lady comes toward him and asks for a dance. This commercial contains some humor about a boy attracting an fat old lady with Diet Coke and mostly tells about the fact that gorgeous ladies drink and enjoy Diet Coke.
Another television commercial is about a bunch of ladies working in an office. Suddenly, a lady begins saying, "it's eleven thirty." Every ladies in the office begin to gather by window side, saying "it's Diet Coke break". At outside a construction worker picks up a can of Diet Coke and takes off his shirt. The ladies in office act as they are thirsty. The man begins to drink Diet Coke as he quenches his thirst. At that moment, a song begins to play. The lyric goes like this, "I want you to be no slave, I want you to work all day but I want you to be true." "I just wanna make love to you, love to you, love to you." After the scene of the man, two ladies dialogue saying, "that was great," "yeah," "see you tomorrow, at eleven thirty." In this commercial, a male super model drinks a Diet Coke in a seducing pose, with focusing on his muscular body. It was like an opposite situation of male gazing. It implies that a bunch of married women in an office release their tensions and imagine about the secret romance as watching a well-shaped male drinking a Diet Coke with passion. This is what the advertisers mean by refreshment but it was merely an example of selling a "Diet" or "Fat-free" product through sex and romance.
To set a start point with my topic, I should start with some of supporting evidence of the ideology in the history of television commercials and also in the trends. At the site of Clio Award, 1994, which is an annual award for television commercial, as the host once said, "sex nourishes our soul, quenching our thirst for love, filling our desire, satisfying our dreams, and it sure does a damn good job with selling cars and beers." I think it tells everything about the history of the ideology and commercials which has been lowering the social status of women as accepted as a wrong stereotype in the trends.
Why some products with word "Diet ..." or "Fat-free..." on their cover always use commercials in sexually appealing ways with little exceptions. I observed numerous television commercials and, eventually, through several series of television commercial analysis, I found a correlation between products with word "Diet..." or "Fat-free" and sexually appealing commercials containing some romantic elements. It was not hard for me to observe "Diet" or "Fat-free" product commercials emphasizing the image of beauty in various ways to associate it with sex and romance.
For example, in the commercial with reduced fat product, named "Skippy peanut butter," two mid-aged men try to hide their guts in front of a skinny lady. As the narrator explains about reduced fat of the product, the scene of two lovers feeding peanut butter each other in bed comes up. And the narrator says, "Cut the fat." "Fat, you can cut it but you can't hide it." There were many advertisements similar to this one, and those "Diet" product advertisements suggest the possibility of a transition from a negative old to a positive new self through the using of particular product. As another example, a well-known "Diet" product is "Slim Fast." The commercial starts with the scene with a beautiful lady walking by the beach. And the narrator says, "Lose 10 pounds in a month." Then, the lady began to talk, as showing off her skinny body, "Summer is just around the corner but don't panic." "You can lose 10 pounds in a month with Ultra Slim Fast Plan." "Start today." "By the time the weather hits up, you can look really hot." "Come on start today, you can lose 10 pounds in a month."
To help understand what kind of influence product like "Slim Fast" might have on girls, I quote the following from an article, "The ideology that promotes dieting as a way of life, accompanies technical fix diet products, fosters self-dissatisfaction of self. Focusing on teenage girls, it is argued that the pursuit of beauty, inclusive of a desire for thinness, plays an important role. The importance of advertising in the socialization of adolescents into a thin body ideal is noted. Moving from the physical to the social body, it is emphasized that at least as important as the number of girls who have eating disorders are the negative social relations and self-doubts most girls are subjected to during the formative years of their development. Self criticism and dissatisfaction of one" (Nichter,1991,p.267).
Another way to associate the ideology of beauty to sex and romance is to comprise dominate stereotypes of women and their beauty. Advertisements evoke images and inspire the imagination of consumers. As with the psychologists' TAT test, where intriguing pictures are used as the basis of subjects' stories, here the advertisement inspires the women to dream her own story. One of the stereotypes has a closed-ended format with a familiar ending- "And they lived happily ever after." This is the land of fairy tales; this is the magical world of romance of fair lady (Barthel,1988,p.71). The fair ladies are young , innocent, fair, pure and, of course, skinny. they rise with their lover to a higher state. They become happy like in a fairy tale when they are loved by their lover because the fact that they care about their skinny body.
Actually, I found a perfect example for this format. In this particular "I can't believe it is not butter" commercial, advertisers casted the actor named, "Fabio," who is a well known sex symbol acting as a lover in a fairly tale, in order to get attention from women viewer. He has nice body and curly long hair. Meanwhile, the actress was common looking skinny women within the age of 25-30. With the explanation of the product, they emphasized the fact that the product has no cholesterol nor fat. Obviously, what they did was to relate it with stereotype of women who is just common and gets to a higher state by a magical lover. In addition, the opposite form of advertisement is provided by tales in which women does not rise to a higher state but rather descends into the dark, the sensual, the dark lady. The dark lady is erotic and exotic.
For sure, they have a common factor that I focus on, the beauty of being skinny. However, being skinny as beauty of women, whether they use the stereotype of fair lady or dark lady, has been being used in numerous advertisements for centuries. This image of beauty characterizing being skinny becomes a winning image of what women strive for; feminity, beauty, popularity through manipulated image in advertisements, they emphasize being skinny as the essence of beauty. Advertisements communicate clearly that only the skinny women attract the good looking men through their reproduced image of beauty.
As the background of analysis of the ideology of beauty, it is worthwhile to notice that the image of beauty has traditionally been one route to achieving social status for women. A women's appearance communicates her presence, how she takes herself. what it means is more than just achieving men. By satisfying socially accepted image of beauty, women achieve a social status, in which, in this case, using of certain product bring women up to the value people place on the product. In other word, women who use this product are in this social status or something. Often a women is judged by her possessions. Of course, the appearance of women is one of the possessions. So, pursuing the socially accepted image of beauty has a clear reason.
Advertisers manipulate the image of beauty to sell product. They make lots of commercials and air them to create an image of beauty or ideology that goes along with certain product. They imply that this product can bring women up to certain social status and, at the same time, satisfy the image of beauty. Actually, any new ideology or new image of beauty is being created by advertisers who need to sell product which helps with fulfilling that specific new image of beauty.
In this case, numerous "Diet" or "Fat-free" products also have created an ideology that characterizes the image of beauty as being skinny. And, those products brainwash women to participate in this ideology to recruit more women to believe being skinny as one of most crucial concept of beauty.
How these narratives in commercials are caught up in a set of ideologies being reproduced? How do they do that? What is the ideology behind that the advertisers reproduced to make it possible? As I stated earlier, my thesis about these questions is that it was obvious that the advertisers use the reproduced ideology of beauty that bring women love and romance. In other words, there is a power triangle of "Diet" or "Fat-free" products, the ideology of media reproduced beauty, and sex and romance. The mass media utilizes the power triangle and this reproduced ideology of beauty being used in almost every commercials selling "Diet" or "Fat-free" products. Mass media's narrative about beauty, creating a stereotyped image, was so successful with cultivating women to be little tolerant to fat-looking women. Women, themselves have become strong believers of beauty that characterizes skinny-look.
In my ideology analysis, all these narratives in a set of ideologies were in support of ideology of beauty being reproduced. The ideology of beauty, especially in association with sociocultural norm promoting thinness, was just like other reproduction of ideology. The ideology was based on the institutional practice of "Diet" or "Fat-Free" product companies and continued in relations of power. As we all know money gives power to many companies and they prosper the business and it brings more money. In depth, they lead the society moving in favor of slimness. Their historical context was the ideology of beauty with narratives about thinness of body. With narratives they reproduced image of how world should think what a beautiful women are like. They gained up power through reproduction of image of beauty. They also might have hailed many groups of skinny and pretty models on their commercials. It is natural for people to normalize those who are skinny. People slowly become unconscious about the fact that the advertisers did normalization about people with slim body and just don't even think about it. Finally, it has become a sociocultural norm that affects the society. It has become a common sense that people think that the ideology of beauty is related to love and romance and, of course, "Diet" or "Fat-free" product.
Do advertisers just think of women as a group of people consuming "Diet" or "Fat-Free" product to fulfill the media created ideology of beauty and only to seek love and romance. I personally don't have any bad feeling about "Diet" product nor think of using it as wrongdoing. But, although deception of consumer and disregard of the truth, they just look for selling. What the ideology of beauty does is to impose an undesirable and simple stereotype about women and to underrepresent women's social role and status. I think they manipulate this triangle of power, in which each factors under the ideology of beauty interact each other in the practice of institute and relation of power, only to increase women's consumption of product.
In an analysis of trends, the result was that weight and diet-related content in 5 American women's magazines was changing in a way, during 1950 to 1983. Significant changes were found, including an increase of diet product advertisements and articles on weight loss. Findings suggest an increasing emphasis on slimness and imply that dieting may have replaced corsetry as a major way of changing and controlling the female figure (Harris,1986,p.196). What I discovered that was strange, unusual or struck me as very powerful was the mass media's power that moves the society as they wish even if it is for selling product. It is obvious that the mass media's stereotype about women is wrong because it describes women only seeking for beauty of skin deep and leads people, including women, themselves, as a strong believer of this ideology. It was absolutely shocking for me and struck me as very powerful to see the mass media doing this only to sell products. As shown in an article, exposure to advertising with highly attractive models raised comparison standards for physical attractiveness, but did not affect self-perceptions of physical attractiveness. And findings suggest that the tendency of female preadolescents and adolescents to compare themselves to models in advertisement increases with age, and this tendency is greater for those with lower self-perceptions of physical attractiveness or self esteem (Martin,1993,p.516). I guess this is what the advertisers exactly expected when they began to brainwash women more successfully. Also, it tells more about why the women's magazines contained 10.5 times as many advertisements and articles promoting weight loss as the men's magazines (Anderson,1992,p.285). Then, What good is there about this ideology, this crooked reproduction of selling products, in this society? What does this ideology attribute to the society? Is this irony of society going to last to blind women?
In my optimistic point of view, The answer is "No," and what I believe will happen next with the ideology of beauty and with other related factors I mentioned above in this struggle for power, regardless of innumerable growing number of "Diet" or "Fat-Free" companies. I guess the advertisers and companies should be changed to survive and sell and to fulfill the need of women who would not be following this ideology blindly any more. There is a strong trend in many societies with the movement of women who had been an object of wrongly manipulated ideology and its various reproduced stereotypes that I mentioned earlier. The trend is the movement for stopping this one way injection of ideology of beauty. Women take stand for wrong stereotype that had been established by advertisers to sell product.
Women began to monitor and to give feed-back to advertisers. They have become a social power to interact and lead advertisers to appeal in a different and more constructive way. As stated in a reference about marketing, "The advertisers should understand that the only way to achieve a greater measure of fair treatment for women in advertising is to understand that abolishing stereotypes really is an intelligent marketing decision" (Bartos,1982,p.243). I hope advertisers develop many better ideologies of women so that women can do their best job as great human resources for the development of society.