Chapter 8 Beauty Body Image and the Media
This chapter considers the role of mass media in people's perceptions of beauty. We sum marize the research literature on the mass media, both traditional media and online social media, and how they interact with psychological factors to impact appearance concerns and body image. There is a strong support for the idea that traditional forms of media affect perceptions of beauty and appearance concerns by leading women to internalize a very slender body type as ideal or beautiful. Rather than simply being passive recipients of unrealistic beauty ideals communicated to them via the media, many individuals actu ally seek out idealized images in the media. Finally, we review what is known about the role of social media in impacting society's perception of beauty and notions of idealized physical forms. Social media are more interactive than traditional media and the effects of self presentation strategies on perceptions of beauty have just begun to be studied. This is an emerging area of research that is of high relevance to researchers and clinicians interested in body image and appearance concerns.