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Sex Roles (2014) 71:407413 DOI 10.1007/s11199-014-0430-4
FEMINIST FORUM COMMENTARY
Research Directions in Social Media and Body Image
Julie L. Andsager
Published online: 2 November 2014# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract This commentary in response to Perloff (2014) suggests considerations for studying social medias potential influence on body image. These are derived from Perloffs transactional model of social media and body image. In investigating how social media use may influence body dissatisfaction in the United States, scholars should consider how the purposes and functions of social media differentiate them from traditional media effects theories. Individuals may be more likely to encounter unsought messages in social media than in traditional media. Social media messages have the potential to present much more diverse representations of female and male bodies because they are mostly produced and disseminated by individuals. Finally, social media offer the ability to reach a variety of at-risk groups with media literacy training. Media literacy training educates audiences about the purposes of messages, which can increase skepticism and possibly reduce message effects. Thus, media literacy training may address the media-related aspect of body dissatisfaction because it teaches critical and analytical skills. Theoretically driven models such as Perloffs transactional model of social media and body image provide a fruitful basis of research.
Keywords Social media . Body image . Media literacy . Sexual orientation . Uses and gratifications
Introduction
Scholars in gender studies and mass-mediated communication have long attempted to explain the complex relationships
among gender, race, class, media construction of idealized female and male bodies, and the internal psychosocial factors that mediate these connections (Brumberg 1997; Davison and McCabe 2005; Grogan 2008). How U.S. media images portray the ideal is of no small import because though there is no direct causal linkage traditional mass media ideals are associated with unhealthy negative body image (Cash 2002; Wykes and Gunter 2005). For some girls and young women, the internalization of a thin ideal long presented as the standard of beauty in the United States can result in disordered eating or over-exercising (see review in Levine and Harrison 2009). Mediated images of female and male bodies differ around the globe, as does the degree to which these influence cultures because social pressure and norms associated with...