The Media Literacy Training was instructed by a health educator, Jennifer Kurdyla. We first started by defining media, and identifying different types of marketing methods and materials.The media is the messengers that are delivering messages that can shaping our values and perceptions, and sometimes, it makes us feel that all of us have to behave in certain way. We often find imperfections on ourselves under the influence of media, and afraid of not being socially accepted.
Most medias are making profits through advertising, and women are often been the victims of these advertisements. Females are always been value less than males in advertisements. This makes everyone believes that men are always better than women, even in been a women. Many advertisements made women been perceived as sexual objects, but we see a wild spread of acceptances of women been sexualized. According to investigation, seven out of every ten girls experiencing low self-esteem, and this must have a lot to do with the countless advertisements that are based on making women feeling anxious about themselves by incorporate models into their advertisements so that female audiences get conditioned to think that this is the body that female should possess. More importantly, the girls think that their bodies are the only power that they can have to success. They built the concepts that, for women, it is about been insecure of the way she looks, because the advertisements constantly send out the messages like “you are never beautiful enough”, so that women are constantly been encouraged to adjust their appearance to conform men’s ideals by purchasing products to repair or fix their appearance. On the other hand, the media making men to be anxious about power, and many advertisements make men perceive as the only one in control, which instills a false sense of superiority into men’s minds.
Following the rapid development of technology, media has being increasingly powerful and significantly influences young generation’s future and brain. Girls at their early stage get the message that their values and worth depend on their looks, and boys get the message that this is what most important about girls. Although there are some women in power and woking in authority positions, but the public does not see them being presented by the media. Therefore, women’s achievements are often value less than their bodies, and there is no appreciation for women intellectuals in the society. The media literacy training helped me creates awareness on developing critical analysis of information by media that is necessary for abating negative concepts such as gender stereotypes that set limitations to women’s contribution in professional fields. It is crucial that the young generation, especially the girls, learn how to manipulate the influence of media, because the media has dictated the social norm of our society, and significantly influence the girls who are seeking identities.
Furthermore, the gender construct system values women as child bearers, and it sets restrictions on women’s participation in economic or political spheres. In order to challenge the gender norm that ranking men over women, the girls need to support each other rather than be each other’s opponents. Silence allows violence and injustice to continue. Thus, we must challenge the media to value women more than their beauty and youth so that the public will stop treating the women the way that the media has set them up.
