Media projection of Ideal Male b\Body Image & its Effects on General Perception

 1.      Problem Statement

The average person living on this planet gets exposed to at least a few hundreds of messages delivered from various media platforms every day. Whether someone scrolling down a smart phone screen or reading a magazine, messages are always there in all sizes and shapes and that is designed to arrest the attention of the audience. While the number of media-served messages has increased rapidly over the last couple of decades, the diversity in the constructs and notions presented through such messages is getting decreased, pushed by worldwide cultural assimilation and near-universal access of media. Within the global meta-narrative of media, one recurring and powerful construct is male and female body ideals. Plethora of scholarly studies examined and identified the detrimental impact of ideal body images on women (e.g., Birkeland et al., 2005; Groesz, Levine, & Murnen, 2002; Hawkins, Richards, Granley, & Stein, 2004), suggesting the necessity of understanding various effects of media constructed body images on men as well as on their relationship with other members of the society; especially women, given the relative scarcity of such academic works focused on male. Thus, in this study we want to examine how media objectifying the male body and how it distorts their identity in the eye of opposite sex.

2.      Justification

The theory of objectification was originally posited as most pervasive in Western cultures (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997). Some findings of Agliata & Dunn, (2004) suggested that men who are exposed to objectification become more depressed. According to Barlet, Vowels & Saucier (2008), pressure from the mass media result in psychological disorder and behaviour outcomes like excessive exercising. Furthermore, this idea of objectification may constitute different perception on the mind of people regarding standard of the male body. Due to this idealizing concept and perception, men devote themselves into various activities which may hamper their productivity, physique and psyche. Therefore, it is important to find the impact of media in objectifying the male body image and how that is having an impact on manipulating general perceptions in context of Urban Bangladesh.

Whether there have been a number of studies conducted about the media representation of female body image and related issues, there has been a scarcity of similar studies on male. On top of that, we have found an intellectual void of any such study (male or female) in the context of Bangladesh. Hence, this study might contribute to bring this issue into the scholastic milieu here.

3.      Objective

The objective of the research is to find out how men’s ideology and psychology are getting challenged through media presentation and how it influences both male and female perception to construct a picture of standard male body image in context of Bangladesh.

To summarize, the study will try to find out:

-          The role of media in constructing the ideal body image of male.

-          The effect of media representation of the ideal male body image on general perception.

4.      Research Questions

 4.1   Main Question

How media is projecting ideal male body image and influencing the general perception regarding male body standardization in the context of Bangladesh?

4.2 Sub-Questions

1.      How people’s ideology and psychology are being challenged through media?

2.      What is the definition of an ideal male body according to both the genders?

3.      How male body objectification is creating anxiety, self-dissatisfaction, depression and reducing sexual assertiveness?

4.      What is the perception of women about male body objectification and how much are they negatively affected?

5.      Do the negative effects pose a threat to the society as a whole and what is the extent of the threat of these effects?

5.      Literature Review

In the present era, though men are being objectified frequently, works on male objectification are few compare to female objectification.  Similar to female, males in our society internalize social influences and media messages. And, they try to collaborate with the standard which portraits a model of body image.

So, self-objectification may positively relate with body esteem or self-appearance (Sterlan & Hargreaves, 2015). They refer that objectification results in increased exercising for attaining the ideal body appearance. This may lead to a negative consequence on individual’s self-esteem, mind and body. Though the study focuses on individual’s idea of self-objectification, it might include the conscientiousness of society, culture, and media to objectify individual’s thoughts towards the co-modification. Another study by Schooler & Ward (2006), shows that the media is shaping men’s attitudes towards body modification. Thus, this reduces the comfort with one’s own real body and sexual assertiveness. Although the study discusses the negative impact of media on male objectification, it ignored the class difference, social, cultural diversity, people’s perception towards the idea of body modification.

Nevertheless, in some other studies (Agliata & Dunn, 2004; Barlet, Vowels & Saucier 2008; Groesz, Levine & Murnen, 2002; Badero 2011) showed that- media manipulates mind and body of men, which ultimately create mental dissatisfaction. Men are more likely to develop a body shape which is acceptable by every person of the society. This acceptability or rejection of body shaping may have long-lusting impact on their mind. But maybe there are some other reasons other than induced idea of body shaping, which may affect the male’s psychology to improve standard body image which leads to increased anxiety, in self-dissatisfaction towards depression.

However, in another study it was found that there is no significant relationship existing in between media ideals body and drive for muscularity or body shaping (Daniel & Bridges, 2010). Body type ideals may have impact on male body image, though he could mention or be certain about how much this is actually manifested and leads to an increased drive for strong body building.

So far, the studies have shown the impact of media objectification on male’s psychology which may comprise both positive and negative outcome. Whereas most of the studies focused on the impact of objectification in the thought process of either male or female, none has showed the impact of the perception of opposite sex about one another to build sensitivity about standard body illustration. Therefore, we want to conduct our study in the context of Bangladesh about media’s active role in constructing a desirable image of male physique through frequent and repeated representation of specific ideals and how does it influence the self-perception of an urban Bangladeshi male as well as the perspective of his female counterpart.

6.      Theoretical Framework

Objectification

Objectification theory basically explores exercise of evaluating an individual as an object, whose valuation is grounded on his/her her physical and sexual allurement. According to philosopher Martha Nussbaum there are seven specific qualities that represent common attitudes and treatment toward objects and things, which attitudes are when applied to a person constitutes objectification.

Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts originally proposed objectification theory, which states essentially systematic formalization and a synthesis of the many disparate lines of scholarship on the sexual objectification of women.

Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T.-A. (1997)( psychology of women quarterly ) in article “objectification theory: toward understanding women's lived experiences and mental health risks “  offers  objectification theory as a framework for understanding the experiential  learning from the consequences of being female in a culture which also states that women’s bodies are looked at , always objectified and evaluated .Although objectification theory was originally developed to explain women’s body image concerns, researchers contend that males are subject to the same overarching cultural system and restrictive body ideals promoted in the media (Hebl, King, & Lin,2004; Martins, Tiggemann, &Kirkbride, 2007; Morry&Staska,2001).

The role of mass media in co-modifying the male body image is one of the most powerful conveyer in the development of negative outcomes, such as body dissatisfaction towards depression and eating pathology even in individuals self-esteem and mind also results in increased exercising for attaining the ideal body appearance leading to reduction in the comfort with one’s own real body and sexual assertiveness. Thus, to some very extent the role of media is also responsible to influence the perception of female’s to construct a picture about body standardization of male.

Manufacturing Consent

Media has an important role in terms of constructing and establishing specific agendas, given the power of audio-visual contents and the overwhelming presence of media in modern urban life. In “The Political Economy of the Mass Media” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988) the authors argued that the mass communication media are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, with the support of market forces and by means of the marketing model of communication. Furthermore, they showed that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as difficult, inflexible, and omnipresent in their search for truth and defence of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order. Hence, the media acts as a propaganda machine, that not only broadcasts filtered news that fits certain political dogma, it also filters out stories with objectives in terms of ownership, profit orientation, advertising license to do business, size and so on.

Ensuing the writing, we can say today we have so much access to information that we are on an impact with the information that people are not interested in what does not serve immediately their interest. Media here is aiming at people’s developed interest and taking the advantage of it. It is easy to say that people believe what they believe because their consent has been manufactured. But, what if people know exactly what's going on? Hence, the mass media is manipulating the belief, faith, emotions of people and trying to portray what people like to see, believe as a granted consent. Body objectification or more precisely male body objectification is propaganda strongly created by the media force to establish a granted perception of other male and female and execute the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups as well as the interest of different business organizations offering products such as gym instruments, beauty and skincare items, muscle enhancement pills etc.

Perception

On the backdrop of such a society where male body objectification is a media mandate, the question remains how the media driven presentation of an ideal body image is widely accepted as desirable for the male population for his own embodiment and for the female population as a qualifying standard for her partner. Perception theory offers an explanation here.

There are different theories defining the perception in different ways. In 'The Critique of Pure Reason' by Kant, I (1998) stated that our cognition process helps to analyze an image and interpret it accordingly. The concept helps us to make intuitions about things. We can portrait a picture of this situation which builds our perception.

According to the Gregory, R. L. (1990), experience is more important in shaping an image. He emphasized on motivation, expectation and evaluation process which indulge our stimuli. And, that lead to construct a view in the way we want to see it. Therefore, experience and expectation provides a basis to shape our perception.

Moreover, processing of data do not limit to our visual content only. All sensory system may work to postulates different thoughts about a situation or a thing (Wilson, E. O. 1990).  This theory falls under the computational thoughts which describes about the analytical ability of human to interpret information or data.  As a result, human mind develops some process to reach to certain conclusion about a matter. Both the analytical and cognition process helps thereby to reach that vary end result.

So far, all these perception theories focus on human psychology, expectation, experience, and motivation through which perception being shaped. Sometimes motivation and emotions helps us to perceive things in certain ways. Thereby, each individual perceives things in inimitable ways. And, individual always act in a way they perceive the things. In day to day life when people interact with one another, they exchange their views, opinions, expectations on different matters. Hence, this exchange of views may affect the cognitive process of other people. In that way, individual may get influenced to act in certain way that may please the other people. Sometimes, those attempts to increase the likeability may have negative consequences on one’s body and mind.  For example- a female thinks that the definition of a handsome boy is having a fair skin and muscle body.  So whenever a new TV commercial on male product is on air, before even seeing the face of the model she perceives that the boy must have white skin and a muscle body. If the advertisement shows otherwise, she may interpret it differently. Subsequently, her interpretation about the situation affects her cognitive process through which she may act in future in different ways. Hence, this cognition process may impact her as well as other’s mind. in our research paper, we want to show that how this perception of an individual(female) affect the psychology of another individual (male) and the impact of those acts on individuals (male’s) body and mind.

Mirror Image theory of the body

Today, we observe that media targets men which actually attempts to foster social comparison with idealized images thus men who cannot conform to the so called ideal physique of the media suffer from the identity crisis or his sense of self is being distorted.  Owen Hewitson(Julien, Jacques Lacan’s Return to Freud, p.34) in his paper asserts that “the image of one’s own body is sustained by the image of the other, in fact introduces a tension: the other in his image both attracts and rejects me”. Sometimes mass media is considered as a mirror which determines one’s identity and it also creates anxiety in the mind. This tension often affects the individuals who cannot conform to the ideal physique of the media and makes them suffer from “unrealistic anxiety”. After watching the projected images of the media, one always tries to play the role of the protagonist or more vividly the images which are being projected by the media seem to us ideal and realistic and thus we want to become like those images of the media, which sometimes is not attainable and unrealistic and thus who cannot be like the projected images of the media suffers from psychological complexity. In the name of ideal physique, media subjugates not only the male body but also their minds. Thus, the male in the society becomes an object of media’s manipulation. The male willingly or unwillingly forced to subscribe to the manipulative ideologies of the media. Many male who can fail to conform to the ideal images of the media suffer from different conflicts pertaining not only to physical attributes but also mental, emotional, and even spiritual factors as well.

Daryl J.Bem in his perception theory proclaims that “Individuals come to “know” their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behaviour and/ or the circumstances in which this behaviour occurs (Bem,1972, p.2),” and “we interpret our own actions the way we interpret others’ actions, and our actions are often socially influenced and not produced out of our own free will, as we might expect (Bem,1972, p.1).” Thus, we can say that sometimes the so called ideal images in the media creates a perception to determine whether the male possess the ideal physique or not and thus it may create positive or negative about ourselves since behaviour and mental process are influenced by how we see / think perceive who is our self as well as the media images influence third persons (both male and female) to justify whether other males possess the so called ideal physique or not. Apart from being directly affected by media representation, an individual also tends to think or behave in accordance with other people’s perception who are affected by the media (Milkie 1999 in Stella C. Chia & Nainan Wen). Thus, the individual may respond to his or her perception of media effects on others by struggling to acclimatize to perceived changes in others which may create negative perception about the self and this leads to maladjusted behaviours and actions.

7.      Methodology
Research Approach – Qualitative

The research will be conducted by using the qualitative research approach. This research approach began to gain recognition in the 1970s. The study usually relies on reasons behind various aspects of behaviour. Bhattacherjee (2012) describes, “qualitative analysis is heavily dependent on the researcher’s analytical and integrative skills and personal knowledge of the social context from where the data is collected”. In the case of quantitative analysis, it is statistically driven and largely free of the researcher. However, to understand the experience in qualitative analysis, sense-making must be given emphasis rather than explaining or predicting. Moreover, in qualitative analysis, it is imperative to have a creative, ethical, investigative and participant-in-context attitude (Miles and Huberman, 1984).

This study is designed to gain an understanding of media manipulation creating perception to idealize the male body.Semi-structured, in-depth interviews will be conducted with both females and males as well as with a psychiatrist and a sociologist to elicit people’s view and perspectives in a detailed and comprehensive manner.The participants are anticipated to form their own answers while filling the questionnaire or answering questions during interviews. In effect, each answer reflects the thinking process of a particular individual and divulges their precise way of conceptualising the body after being influenced by the media.

Theoretical studies have been conducted in order to describe the subjective realityof the causes and impact of media manipulation.

7.1 Research Process

The research will start with a review of available literature relevant to this study. The review will conceptualize the relevant theories to construct a framework for the analysis of the subject matter. Thus, questionnaires reflecting the theoretical framework will be used to conduct interviews and discussion sessions, where individuals representing the population will take part. It will be followed by an analysis where the accumulated information will be examined with an objective to address the research question. The diagram below depicts the proposed research process:

7.2 Research Area:

Since the research focuses on both general perceptions, the study will be in the urban area (Dhaka city) on both male and female, divided in three age groups; for the ease of analysis.

7.3 Data Collection Method

Primary data is to be collected from a range of respondents which includes:

Sex	Age	Place and Reason	Sample Size	Data Collection method
Female	18-22	University (Public/Private).	3	In Depth Interview
	23-26	University; Minimum groomed and in contact with opposite sex.	3
	26-30	University; More matured people.	3
Male	18-22	University (Public/Private).	3	In Depth Interview
	23-25	University; Minimum groomed and in contact with opposite sex.	3
	26-30	University; More matured people.	3
Male  & Female	Mix	University	10	FGD
Psychologist	N/A	Hospital(s)	2	Face to face interview

Note:

·         All the in –depth interviews will have semi-structured questionnaires with a qualifying question with the scope for probing.

Qualification question- Do you use media (TV, internet, radio) more than three hours per day on average?

·         There will be a discussion guideline for the FGD.

a.       One moderator and one interpreter.

b.      Date, time and place will be fixed and respondents will be well notified. Meeting should be conducted in a safe, comfortable place.

c.       An introduction will be given by explaining the reason for the meeting and throughout the session notes will be taken by interpreter.

d.      Encourage every person to participate and use neutral comments during the session.

·         Face to face interview will be conducted in order to have a better understanding of the subject matter from a practitioner’s perspective.

7.4 Ethical Considerations   

Ethical consideration is going to be one of integral elements while doing research as a result putting emphasize on this issue will seriously be considered.  There will be multifarious ethical issues, which will have to be taken into consideration while doing the research.

-          Age will be one of the determining factors during research. The researcher will confirm that all the participants are above the age of 18.

-           There will be another ethical issue that is the aspect of the study may create a negative impact on the lives of the participants.  To certify this unease, the researcher will not leave any participant disappointed.

-           The issue of confidentiality must be taken into consideration. With a view to ensuring anonymity of participants, majority of the questionnaires will be completed by replacing the names of the participants with codes. The researcher will also clarify that all information will remain anonymous.

-           The researcher will have to explain the topic clearly with a short summary and collect written and verbal consent from the participants beforehand. This will be applicable for the audio-taping of the interviews, transcription and analysis of the interview transcripts and presentation of the results.

-          Participants will need to be made aware that answering the questions will be optional- they may avoid any question and has the right to walk out of the interview if they start feeling uncomfortable.

-          The creation of rules to ensure that the researcher does not personally gain in a commercial context by using the data collected.

-          Last but not least, before the publication of the research the participants will have the absolute right to withdraw their responses from the research process or discard or modify any information which they are going to provide.

7.5 Reliability and Validity

The popularity of the usage of qualitative data collection has made it a subject of the judgement of reliability and validity of the research findings. In order to enhance the reliability of the study, it is very important to focus on the four aspects called credibility, dependability, transferability and conformability.

- Credibility: Triangulation of cross-checking data from numerous perspectives can only strengthened the understanding of the findings. Triangulation in data collection methods, theory perspectives, analysis of results and sources will be maintained. 

- Dependability: the researcher will document all aspects of any unexpected changes or incidents to further explain the results.

- Transferability: although generalization is difficult to do in the case of qualitative research but using theories from grounded theory work can help to link the abstract, the external generalizability part with the internal generalizability part which is specific to the situation.

- Conformability: peer-reviewed journals will be used to construct the theoretical framework. The participants will be selected in a way so that they represent the population properly. Lastly, the process of collection, extraction and analysis of data will have as little bias as possible.

7.6 Work Plan

The table below outlines the proposed work plan:

Activities	Time  required
Literature review	5 days
Preparing methods and tools for primary data collection	3 days
Field Work	20 days
Processing and analysis of data	10 days
Submission of first draft of research paper	7 days
Submission of final version of research paper	7 days
Presentation of major findings	2 days

  

References

1.      Agliata, D & Dunn, S. T (2004). The impact of media exposure on male’s body image. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23(1), 7-22.

2.      Badero, O. A. (2011). Effects of media on body image. Media and Body Image, 1-44.

3.      Barlet, C. P., Vowels, C. L. & Saucier, D. A. (2008). Meta analysis of the effects of media on men’s body image concerns. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 27(3), 279-310.

4.      Birkeland, R., Thompson, J. K., Herbozo, S., Roehrig, M., Cafri, G., & Van Den Berg, P. (2005). Media exposure, mood, and body image dissatisfaction: An experimental test of person versus product priming. Body Image, 2, 53– 61.

5.      Daniel, S. & Bridges, S. K. (2010). The drive for muscularity in men: Media influences and objectification theory. Body Image, 7, 32-38.

6.      Fredrickson, B. and Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward Understanding Women's Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173-206.

7.      Groesz, L. M., Levine, M. P., &Murnen, S. K., (2002). The effect of experimental presentation of thin media image on body satisfaction. A Meta analysis review. International Journal of Eating Disorder, 21, 1-16.

8.      Hawkins, J., Richards, P., Granley, H. M., & Hagan, A. L. (2004). The impact of exposure to the thin ideal image on women. Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 12, 35–50.

9.      Sterlan, P. & Hargreaves, D. (2015). Reasons for exercising and body esteem: Men’s response to self-objectification. Sex Roles, 53.

10.  Schooler, D. & Ward, L. M. (2006). Average Joes: Men’s relationships with media, real bodies, and sexuality. Psychology of Men and Masculinity, 7(1), 27-41.