The Media Is A Mirror Of Society, And If That Society Is

The media is a mirror of society, and if that society is by any means influenced by stereotypes, the media will reflect it. Advertising, according to Erving Goffman, author of the book Gender Advertising, depicts how men and women behave as a social purpose and how today’s social purpose is highly unbalanced in men’s favor. Some people say that advertisers should be held accountable for the unethical images they present. Others, however, say that consumers should be to blame because by buying the products being advertised they are, in fact, supporting the advertisers and the images they set forth. The solution to this issue is simple: If these gender messages are ever expected to change, consumers should stop supporting advertising†¦show more content†¦Meanwhile, the bank accounts of these industries continue to multiply. The first reason consumers should stop supporting advertising agencies that portray women as sex objects rather than subjects is that these unequal advertisements, in fact, do create a negative effect on society and gender relationships, especially at the subconscious level. Katherine Toland Frith, author of the essay, â€Å"Advertising and Mother Nature,† published in the book Feminism, Multiculturalism, and the Media: Global Diversities, addresses this issue by saying that advertisements shape the human consciousness and reflect the values and morals of the underlying ethical system. She states that media advertising is a â€Å". . .strong marketing tool and cultural artifact. We must move beyond the surface message of the products and services for sale and explore the deeper, underlying meanings of advertisers. . .† (185). In other words, buyers and consumers in the market must be aware of inequality in the media. Vivian Gornick agrees with Toland Frith in her intro to Erving Goffman’s Gender Advertisements. She explains how advertisements are merely a creative documentation of a highly-manipulated representation of â€Å"real life† for the viewer (xii). Consumers must live and construct their own sense of reality consciously and cannot depend on what the media feeds them as the truth. Another reason that it is necessary to stop support of these industries is because stereotyped imagesShow MoreRelatedThe Media Machine Is A Delusion1331 Words   |  6 Pagesin The Influencing Machine, â€Å"The media machine is a delusion. What we’re really dealing with is a mirror: an exalting, degrading, tedious, and transcendent funhouse mirror of America† (Gladstone xxi). It often goes unnoticed how frequently the media reflects America as if it were a mirror. Popular culture, television, and nearly every social media platform essentially showcases a mirror of American society as a whole. 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