Written by Argnesa Haxhiaj
The beginning of the warm seasons marks again that part of the year where the media is even more filled with advertisements for weight gain/loss or the 'ideal body'.
All it takes is a search for a diet product, and thanks to algorithms and databases, the entire digital world is filled with such products. On the other hand, the 'ideal weight' is part of the media content, which is promoted by presenters through products. Products that are offered as 'solutions' by the media are often unverified by professionals, usually with side effects, harmful to users, and which do not guarantee success, which are not presented in the overall image. Such products offer immediate and effortless choices.
The ideal body shapes presented through models to promote a dietary product are, in most cases, manipulative, as the resulting images are of people who have not necessarily used the product, but are individuals contracted by the company to establish these 'beauty standards'.
This misleading advertising is everywhere, targeting potential consumers who want instant solutions. However, when it comes to weight loss/gain or health, there is no 'magic wand' to achieve goals. Consumers desperate to achieve the 'ideal look' forget this fact and fall prey to these products. Consequently, the media has a significant influence on the behavior of consumers, especially young people, regarding food, diet, eating disorders, body image, underweight and overweight.
Over the years, many strategies have been used to address the effects of media on health, such as regulating media content, limiting children's use of media, and implementing social marketing approaches. However, in the last 10-15 years, media and information education has been considered the most effective approach.
Media education teaches us whether we can believe everything we see and hear in advertisements or whether we should look at it with a critical eye.
Thus, through him, exposure to such images causes the filters of critical thinking/criticism/ to be turned on and the following questions naturally arise:
- Who created this advertisement?
- Why am I seeing this ad? Am I a product/or a consumer?
- What is the purpose of the advertisement? (For example, is it intended to educate, entertain, or inform, or does it sell?)
- What audience is intended; what clues are presented?
- What is left out/ Which side is not promoted/presented and why? And, where can the answers to what is missing be found?
- Is it realistic/Does the advertisement come close to reality?
Fantastic promises of advertising are not hard to find, but how realistic are they? Thus, Potter's definition that ''Media literacy is the perspective that we actively use when we expose ourselves to the media in order to interpret the meaning of the messages we encounter,'' shows how through it we can analyze different contents. Since the connotative language which is accompanied by connotative images used in advertising are extremely persuasive and the audience often has the tendency to be influenced by the image or words. Applying the standards of argumentation to diet advertising, or critical thinking device/ or EMI device reveals the differences between persuasive and argumentative discourse used by marketing managers to have influence and success in selling the product.
Visual education is also one of the skills that must be developed by young people/students. Examples of advertising images can be used as opportunities to develop critical thinking skills. But how? Start by looking for weight gain/loss ads.
- Use that content to teach students not only about persuasive techniques, but also about argumentative writing,
- Ask students to identify the audience, purpose, wording, and audio-visual techniques.
In addition to these, before any advertising, the audience should also keep in mind the following points in order not to fall prey to the profit motives of various companies and to preserve their health:
- What advertising techniques are used to grab a viewer's attention and make the ad credible?
- What does the advertisement say to the viewer? What lifestyles, values, opinions, and perspectives are represented?
- Who makes money or benefits from advertising?
- What makes advertising biased in some way? How is this bias demonstrated?
- How might some people understand this ad differently than others?
- Would all viewers agree on what was being advertised and the purpose of the ad?
- Would anyone believe this ad? Why or why not?
- Do you agree with the advertisement? Why or why not?
Technological developments have created amazing opportunities for business development, but they have also increased the amount of misleading advertising and made all ages more vulnerable to this phenomenon. Therefore, in addition to censorship, countries must find methods such as equipping society with EMI to protect it from profiteering or market-driven intentions.