Project Proposal

            How do the media shape the way we view ourselves?  This question will guide my research over the semester.  I’m interested media effects on the micro level.  I feel that the media tell us something about who/what we are in order to get us to do/buy something.  For example, the media send a message through a Rogaine commercial that attractive men aren’t bald.  A bald man may see this, subconsciously decide that he is not attractive, and purchase Rogaine.  Shaping our self-perception is a tactic of the media; it’s a way that they manipulate consumers.

            Some complementary questions to my original research question are as follows:  How effective is manipulating our self-image as an advertising strategy?  In advertising, specifically, are the media ever not sending us a message about ourselves?  How might the media’s ability to influence the way we define ourselves play into concepts such as the cultivation theory?  Where do the media get the power to do so?  Do we, the consumers, give it to them?  How would Raymond Bauer’s findings fit into this discussion, and it what ways do the media have code their messages because of what those findings say?  What power do consumers have when encountering these messages?  How can recognize them?  What about when a message we receive creates cognitive dissonance in our minds?  Can we still be affected by that message?  In what ways might the selective exposure theory explain how we might avoid having our self-perception influenced in certain ways?  How would my research be different from a uses and gratification theory perspective?  Would the media still have all this power?

            I plan to focus my study on theories and concepts concerning media effects, and what perspective they offer in relation to my research question.  Aside from the theories mentioned in the previous paragraph, I plan to look theories and concepts like: the hypodermic needle model, limited effects, media dependency theory, media hegemony, social action theory, agenda setting, etc.

            I’d like to learn about what we already know, so that I can learn more about how I am personally affected (or possibly not affected) by the media.  I think being an informed consumer is incredibly important in such a consumer culture.  Living with four other girls, I can see first hand some of the ways in which these media messages can be a really bad thing.  I’d like to better understand the dynamic between the media and the audience.  Perhaps I’ll stumble upon a question that doesn’t yet have an answer, and it’ll be my job to find one!

That's all...