For this research project I asked the question “How can the media change the way it influences its audience (both men and women) by introducing new ways to look at body image?”. Some of my main objectives were to look at:
- How much time people spent on social media.
- How much of an effect that these images have on their perceptions of their own body image.
- The kind of social media platforms individuals used everyday
- The tendencies that individuals had to follow ‘fit inspo’ pages, models and other similar pages
- Whether the images have a positive or negative effect on themselves
- How individuals can combat the negative impacts
- How people felt about slim/muscular men and women being slammed and bigger individuals being praised
It’s been a long and frustrating process if I’m going to be completely honest. Using every minute right up until the time this task is due to make sure that I have even slightly come close to touching on every aspect of the task as well as I possibly can. Was this project successful? I believe to some extent that it has been, essentially to my own wellbeing.
What have I learnt from doing this project?
This research project was a rather difficult task. Trying to find a topic that is interesting but will have some beneficial value to my own learning as well as others is difficult. When I first began my research I didn’t realise that this topic wouldn’t be easy to narrow down. The very first few weeks of the semester my tutor and lecturer were always saying to “narrow it down”, “make it smaller”, because if the question was too big we were just going to make this task even harder on ourselves.
The main reason why I picked this topic, is because I think it applies to so many people including myself, where we constantly question our looks, how we feel and compare ourselves to others on a daily basis. I believe that the information surrounding body image and the media is very murky and unclear, so I was hoping to create a clearer understanding about it in a small area of it.
For myself, I have come to accept my body for what it is, knowing that I am healthy and happy. I had realised there are bigger, more important issues in the world that need to be taken into account than what we look like. Which if others in society come to understand this too, then maybe the issues surrounding body image wouldn’t be so sensitive.
How did i engage and represent others as an ethical researcher ?
I engaged an audience through a survey, using social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to gather individuals to answer my questions. This gave individuals the opportunity to decide for themselves as to whether they wanted to engage and allow me to use the information they gave me to further my research. When I created the survey, I also created a section that all respondents had to tick, this meant that they gave me consent to use the information they provided within the survey. All answers that respondents provided remained anonymous and I also provided a small piece of information at the beginning of the survey to explain what the information was actually going to be used for.
My curiosity led to the position I am now with this research project. I’m happy with where I have come and I’m still curious to learn more. My use of flexibility allowed to me to complete this task when I have, I work a lot on top of having a busy schedule with uni and other commitments, so many sacrifices had to be made for me to be able to gather and put together the information for my research project. Many of the sacrifices that had to be made were turning down shifts to provide extra research time. Some of my survey questions needed a little more, so speaking with individuals in person in a more interview type of situation allowed me to get the information that I needed.
Critical judgement was key for me to be able to make sure that the sources I was using for this task were appropriate and provided the right information I needed at a high level of quality. Fact checking across multiple sources to make sure that information wasn’t distorted, and making sure that the authors were legitimate and from a qualified and educated background, not just another ‘blogger’ with their own opinions.
Therese Michelle Bridge 