RAB Source Entry #2- Sindy J.

Research Question:

  “How does social media affect a young girl’s image of herself?”

Proposal:

My research question is “How does social media affect a young girl’s image of herself?”. This topic interests me because when I got my first phone in middle school, I looked at celebrities and compared myself to them because they were perfect. This made me focus on all my flaws, which created insecurities in me. Social media can make you see all those insecurities just because you don’t look like the people defined as perfect. I already know that social media can be a very negative space for young girls. Cyberbullying can ruin a young girl’s confidence by bringing up new insecurities just because someone mentioned it. Social media is also a deceiving space because many celebrities have had surgeries done or use filters to change their appearances and post it online. Some points that I plan to explore and find out more about are how many young girls started using social media at a young age, and how it affects the way they see themselves.

Part 1: MLA Citation

Foster, Dawn. “We’re Deluged with Images of ‘Beauty’. No Wonder so Many of Us Feel so Bad.” The Guardian, 13 May 2019. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/images-beauty-feel-bad-adverts-social-media

Part 2: Summary

The opinion article “We’re Deluged with Images of ‘Beauty’. No Wonder so Many of Us Feel so Bad, ” Dawn Foster tells us that women’s insecurities are higher due to social media being more popular now. Foster explains how back in the early 2000’s social media wasn’t an issue to them because they only had phones that you could text or call through. This was good because now everyone has social media at their hands at any given moment, so girls now get picture after pictures of what people want them to look like. Foster writes that Mark Rowland, Executive chief of the Mental Health Foundation, conducted a survey and spoke out about how one in eight people want to induce self-harm because of their body image being different than what’s online. Rowland goes on to explain that social media advertises insecurities by focusing on outside appearances and how to get it like getting procedures done and making sure that’s all you see when you’re on the app. Social media shouldn’t advertise getting Botox or surgery to be pretty because that can make someone believe they are ugly. Foster shares her personal experience of how the people on social media are vulgar as one of her friends got bullied online for the way she looked in one of her pictures. Foster ends with how social media should be careful with what they want to advertise as beauty shouldn’t be categorized as a certain look because you are beautiful to somebody even if you don’t look like the pictures, you see online.

Part 3: Reflection

I agree with the points made by Foster in her writing piece because I found what she said true. A specific point Foster talked about at the start of her article was how this wasn’t a problem back then because social media wasn’t as big. This is the problem of girls feeling more conscious about their image nowadays because they’re on the phone 24/7, as technology has improved drastically. Where living in a time where technology is everywhere, and we need to have it. Our phones now have everything we possibly need it’s like our whole life is on it but it wasn’t like that before. I see how my cousins have phones when they’re in elementary school, which is concerning because they don’t need phones at that age. We need to realize that our life is outside our phones, not in it. 

Part 4: Rhetorical Analysis 

In Fosters op-ed her primary audience is the general public and the social media companies. She mentions how the companies should try not to encourage the harmful content it spreads. She wants to attract everyone to make them aware of the problem that harms young girls. Foster’s writing is very definitive and persuasive to make sure you recognize her points. She uses the appeal of pathos by sharing her experiences with social because it shows how she has seen it and she knows how it feels to be targeted into looking a certain way. She uses the appeal of logos by including the Executive Chief of the Mental Health Foundation, Mark Rowland, words on how his research supported her thoughts. Foster is credible as she was a British journalist for The Guardian and New York Times talking about women’s rights and politics. She also has appeared on the radio, podcasts, and television. Publishing her op-ed on The Guardian makes it a credible source because The Guardian has the 4th highest monthly audience reach in the UK with 27 million consumers on average. The Guardian is also recognized as the 8th best-known newspaper and the 5th most popular paper in the UK.

Part 5: Notable Quotables 

“But during the day, we didn’t use the internet: we had clunky phones that could only call and text. So I wasn’t bombarded 24/7 with images of purportedly perfect-looking women. Few of us bothered with teen magazines bar reading the problem pages.” (Foster)

“The foundation’s chief executive, Mark Rowland, said: ‘There has always been idealised body representation across media, but it’s the quantity of those images and the frequency in which we see them – that’s what we’re worried about.’ He also warned that social media platforms were ‘increasingly consumerist, increasingly celebrity-orientated, increasingly focused on external appearances’.” (Foster)

“We all deserve to have confidence in our body image. Social media platforms have to be more responsible over the adverts they carry, especially those targeted at young people; and television and film should show a greater diversity of bodies.” (Foster)

“One company has bombarded me with adverts offering interest-fee credit for several procedures. Young women should not be targeted by these messages, normalising painful procedures by convincing people they are ugly, that they have faults in their face that should be eliminated.” (Foster)

“Teenagers are notoriously image-conscious and also intensely worried about their body as it goes through changes … Ultimately, different people find different people attractive: we should all remember that beauty and attraction are wide-ranging.” (Foster)