One may ask, how are women's images exposed, exploited and used as commodities? Certain body parts such as the lips, eyes, stomach, butt, or breasts are shown on advertisements, movies, and magazines to convey unrealistic and degrading messages about women. Most messages that advertisers try to inject into consumers have nothing to do with the importance and the functions of women's body parts. Provocative images of women sell and attract consumers to buy products that will probably not result in the same pleasures as advertised. Magazines, movies and billboards, to mention a few, are forms of media that use women's body images to reflect our popular culture.

Britney Spears, for example, is a popular pop star that advertises for Pepsi. Not only is Britney Spears an icon for many young girls, her body image and life style convey messages to the consumer

http://www.mediawatch.ca/research/tweens/Default.asp?pg=2

An in-depth look at Mediawatch's commitment to their goals is shown in their research projects that have been done on various issues to help them and others understand the causes and effects of social differences. One study done by Mediawatch that explores the media influence on body image with "tweens" helps explain the connection between women's body images and it's influences on young girls between 11-14 years old. The goal of this project "is to explore if media affects the self-esteem and body image of 'tweens' and to produce a resource to inform others of the results." http://www.mediawatch.ca.

FAIR encourages the public to view their opinions and concerns. FAIR also specializes in research that work with media professionals on particular issues. For example, "The Women's Desk analyzes the effects of sexism and homophobia in the media and works to get feminist perspectives included in the public debate." http://www.fair.org/whats-fair.html. Another section of FAIR "The Racism Watch Desk monitors and combats the media's marginalization, misrepresentation and exclusion of people of color-both in the news and in the newsroom." http://www.fair.org/whats-fair.html.

The social learning theory is when we learn from the consequences of our actions and observing the consequence of other people's actions. Also, the social learning theory is about imitating behaviours that bring rewards and avoid those that bring punishment. This theory significantly connects to my topic because media uses images of women to portray social lifestyles that many women want. The media present images of the desired appearance. It also offers methods to achieve this appearance in the form of diet products. It is difficult to open a magazine targeted at women without finding ads promoting weight loss products. These ads target young women to form a need for their product, and to profit from this need.

s that have nothing to do with Pepsi. In advertisements for Pepsi, Britney Spears wears a revealing outfit showing her flat stomach, shiny legs, cleavage and her make-up and hair is perfectly made up. She dances, builds up thirst and then drinks Pepsi to satisfy her thirst. This is not to say that the body parts that are shown are incorrect or wrong. However, it is how these body parts are used to convey misleading information about the product being advertised.

The images of women in media can be easily related to many theories of media effects. However, two specific theories show the strongest connection. These include the hypodermic needle theory and the social learning theory. The hypodermic needle theory suggests that mass media are so powerful that they can "inject" their messages into the audience. This lies heavily true for the images of women in media because the popular body type that is presented in the media is that of women with perfect bodies. At times, even these "beautiful" women are not good enough and their pictures are airbrushed or altered in other ways. It is not surprising that young girls are easily influenced

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2085
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)