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No description available.

This study examines how young women are affected by the body ideals on Instagram. Eight women from a university in the south of Sweden are interviewed. The results are discussed in this qualitative study by using the social comparison theory, sociocultural theory, the gender system and postfeminism. Through the interviews about how the body ideals on Instagram work and are created, the study shows a nuanced picture of how young women are affected by the body ideals that are spread. The study shows that Instagram has a significant impact on the respondents, which leads to an increased pressure and stress in connection with striving for the body ideals. Their perceptions of the idealized body ideal are changing, and striving to achieve this ideal creates strains on their standards. By applying chosen theories of social comparison, gender systems, sociocultural factors and postfeminism, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how young women navigate and shape their self-images in a digital context. The findings underscore the importance of recognizing and addressing the challenges young women face in terms of body ideals and self-image formation on social media platforms such as Instagram.

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Master of Science / Department of Apparel, Textiles, and Interior Design / Melody LeHew / The purpose of this study was to explore how African American women think and feel about their bodies. Specifically, this study examined how Black women define beauty by means of variables such as body shape, skin complexion, and hair texture; whether African American women ages 18-30 compared themselves to media images; and if so, did comparison to these media images impact African American women’s body satisfaction. In addition, this study explored if African American women felt pressure to adopt beauty standards attributed to the dominant culture, as well as the role of racial identity in forming beauty standards and social comparison behavior. Twelve African American women were interviewed and findings of this exploratory research illustrated that the Black community has different standards than the traditional beauty standards of the U.S. Even though interviewees articulated standards of beauty for women in the Black community, there was a lack of uniformity in how these women felt about their own attractiveness: some identified with the Black beauty standards, while others did not. In addition, opinions varied regarding Black women’s engagement in social comparison behavior and whether it was related to racial identity or body satisfaction. Limitations of study included: how Black women define social comparison behavior and racial identity, self-identification of participants, and the lack of Caucasian women included in this study. However, this research still provided rich data exploring Black women’s perceptions of beauty among other issues within the Black community. Future research is required to better understand influences shaping standards of beauty within this subculture of the United States and recommendations are provided in the last chapter.

Through continuing technological advancement, increased media exposure occurs as consumers are able to obtain access more easily. Various media formats, including video, are a means whereby consumers gather information about the world around them, and continually make comparisons between that information and themselves. Among the information obtained from media channels is how bodies are portrayed in the media. Comparisons between media images of body and self-perceptions of body are particularly prevalent in women. The current study employs the use of eye-tracking to examine how women view other women's body types and areas of the body in video-based advertising. The study also employs self-report measures to further understand how individual body region satisfaction, drive for thinness, and media influence relate. Findings indicate that women, regardless of personal satisfaction, tend to look longer at thin women than plus-sized or average women. Furthermore, media pressures and internalization were found to play a strong role in women's drive for thinness and personal satisfaction, while media as a source of information played no such role.

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No description available.

Dominerande kroppsideal är föränderliga över tid och kopplas till samhällets normer, attityder och kultur. Det ideal som dominerats längst är det kvinnliga smalhetsidealet och det manliga muskulösa kroppsidealet. Idag sprids bilden av den ”perfekta” kroppen snabbare än någonsin tidigare och genom media nås allt fler. Ungdomar är en särskilt känslig målgrupp för exponeringen av kroppsideal. Det åtråvärda kroppsidealen är idag kopplade till en ökad psykisk ohälsa bland ungdomar där symtomen är bland annat; depression, ångest och ätstörningar. Som ett resultat av en förändrad attityd i samhället har ett nytt fenomen blivit allt vanligare. Fenomenet är bilder som visar upp kroppar som varierar i storlek och utseende. Även några företag har börjat använda sig av denna nya företeelse, för att göra upp med ouppnåeliga kroppsideal. Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka gymnasieelevers åsikter om det nya fenomenet, för att undersöka om det möjligen kan användas som en hälsofrämjande insatts. En nätbaserad enkätstudie genomfördes där 28 gymnasieelever svarade. Resultatet visade att majoriteten av svarspersonerna hade en positiv attityd till bilder av ”vardagliga kroppar”. Studien visade slutligen att media kan användas som arena för att sända ut hälsofrämjande budskap. Resultatet visade även vikten av att avsändarna för budskapet kodar budskapet meningsfullt och presenterar det på ett sådant sätt så att målgruppen kan ta till sig budskapet. / Dominating body ideal is changing over time and are related to community’s norms, attitudes and culture. The ideal that dominated longest for females is slenderness ideal and for the males, the muscular body ideal. Today spreads the image of the "perfect" body faster than ever before and through the media reaches out to more people. Young adolescents are a particularly vulnerable target group for the exposure of dominating body ideal. The normative body ideals is now linked to the increasing of mental illness among young people whose symptoms include; depression, anxiety and eating disorders. As a result of a change of attitude in society, a new phenomenon has become gradually common. The phenomenon is pictures that shows up bodies that varies in size and appearance. Although some companies have begun to make use of this new phenomenon, to make up with unattainable body ideals. The aim of the study was to explore high school students' opinions about the new phenomenon, to investigate whether it can possibly be used as a health-insert. A web-based questionnaire study was conducted in which 28 high school students responded. The results showed that the majority of the respondents had a positive attitude to images of "everyday bodies." The study last showed that the media can be used as an arena to send out health promotion messages. The result also showed the importance of the senders of the message encodes the message meaningful and presents it in a way so that the intended audience can understand the health message.

近年社群網站Facebook成為品牌宣傳的新渠道，不同地域、年齡、社會階層或消費水準的人都可以不受實體店面的侷限，透過朋友的分享輕鬆接觸到各時尚精品品牌的資訊。於是精品品牌如何在社群人際間的傳遞過程掌握其品牌形象，還有後續構成的品牌效果是本研究欲探討的重點。 本研究以自我一致性、社會比較的角度切入，輔以平衡理論的觀點進一步檢視消費者觀看社群媒體中的朋友分享貼文是否受到品牌、朋友時尚形象與理想自我一致性高低程度不同而影響其品牌態度與購買意願。 本研究以實驗法進行，研究結果如下： 一、消費者在Facebook動態中看到時尚品牌的朋友品牌分享貼文後，品牌形象與消費者理想自我一致高會比一致低，產生更正面的品牌態度，但對購買意願無顯著影響。 二、知覺品質中介「品牌形象與理想自我一致性」對品牌態度的影響; 但對購買意願無中介效果。 三、 「朋友時尚形象與理想自我形象一致性」高低並不會影響品牌與消費者理想自我形象一致性高低對品牌態度。