Jamie Bushell

Jean Kilbourne- Helping Women Live with the Mass Media

            Today, the media has more of an influence on women than most people believe. Just as one cannot escape pollution, women, today, cannot flee from the toxic world that is created by advertising. For instance, in teenage girl magazines such as Seventeen and YM, there is a fine line between advertising and editorial content; therefore, the number of women with eating disorders have risen exponentially, as the standard of beauty has soared to an extreme level. To bring an end to these issues, people must take a stand and make others more aware. Jean Kilbourne, a widely published writer and speaker, is a perfect example of one of these women. In her book, The Deadly Persuasion, she expresses the manipulative advertising strategies used by alcohol, tobacco, and many other industries. Only with this type of research and awareness, can the influence of the media diminish.

            In The Deadly Persuasion, Kilbourne effectively illustrates through examples of ads and specific examples how women are objectified in ads. She states, our body is simply an “object among other objects in the world.” Too often she claims women’s bodies in alcohol ads are turned into bottles of alcohol. This forces women to create a false self, which is detached and disembodied from the “inner” and “true” self.        Additionally, Kilbourne successfully exemplifies how the rising use of technology is increasing the negative influence of the media on society. Not to say that erotic images of women have not existed in the art world for centuries, however, mass media and technology, including the computer, have made it possible for these destructive images to constantly surround us. Advertising on computers is especially a problem today because there are no laws in the United States that prohibit inappropriate advertising to children online. This is especially dangerous because children are the primary targets for advertising agencies.

            One solution that would help decrease the negative impact that the media has, would be to teach media literacy in schools starting at a younger age. Today, most schools don’t teach media literacy until middle school or high school; however, younger kids are the main targets for advertising and should be made more aware of the situation prior to when thy start becoming directly affected by it. A second solution that Kilbourne suggests is to put labels on ads for diets that illustrate their success rates, so that people are made fully aware of what they are about to get themselves into.

            Thus, if only society’s women were all like Jean Kilbourne, then maybe the media’s influence on self-image would become less destructive.