1. Hillary Richmond
December 19th, 2016
Media Ethics
Final Project + Paper
Body Dysmorphia, Body Image, + Social Media
In the age of social media, a young woman’s perspective of herself may be effected as
the ongoing changes of technology develop rapidly. The big question is - how is one’s self
esteem effected in response? In this mixed media project, I will analyze the intricacy of the
psyche in relation to social media, and why this could be a problem down the road. Through a
survey from peers, I was able to come to a conclusion that women are very much affected by
their exposure to social media platforms - more specifically Instagram. Body Dysmorphic
Disorder is defined by the (blah blah, source). But how does this definition vary, and/or change
when applied to social media? This is where the problem lies.
Instagram is a tool used by many businesses to promote and expose a life that may be
not-so-accurate in comparison to their real-life experience. Centuries of studies prove self-
esteem is directly connected to one’s psyche and the experiences that are entailed within ones
life. But with social media, where is the line drawn? What are the key ethical dilemmas?
I believe that the problem lies in the need to be liked, which is rooted For centuries, as a
society, we have referred to money being the main indicator of success and power. Judging
from someone’s Instagram account, one might be able to measure these things - if only
inaccurately. Another dilemma might be that it effects one’s ability to create, and may slow the

2. process; thus, if self-esteem is a factor in effecting a creative stream of consciousness, then that
might be an element of a key ethical dilemma.
Another key ethical dilemma is the mergence and induction of the term, “selfie,” into our
everyday lives. In an article written by Jamie Silverman for Huffington Post this past May, she
states, “Our culture focuses so much on appearance, we’ve entered into a time where it’s kind
of acceptable to say ‘look at me, look at me.’ So we send pics in the hopes that our love
interests, friends, and admirers will agree.”
Understanding Media Studies brushes on many topics in relation to this, but in a chapter
pertaining to Digital Media, _ states, “Borrowing a phrase from James Moor, Ess believes that a
distinctive feature of the ‘new’ digital media is that the information they capture, record and
transmit is ‘greased’.” It’s that same “greased”-ness in which our survey subjects may be
effected on a larger scale.
Some of the conclusions drawn from my self-composed survey gear towards honest
results and a true perceived effect and connection between self-esteem and social media posts.
If you analyze the individual results, you might find different patterns than the graphs provided.
When asked how much one’s peer’s posts on Facebook effect their confidence in respect to
career endeavors, the survey respondents answered predominantly “moderately.” The
competition of others may come to the forefront specifically on Facebook as a platform in which
one’s successes and major life events are documented, as opposed to Instagram being more
“in the moment” with content. The survey focused on both Instagram and Facebook. One might
draw conclusions from the results of the poll involving personal body image and Facebook
differing from poll results involving body image and Instagram, in that Instagram is more “body
centric.” Participants were more influenced on a competitive level when pertaining to Facebook.

3. When asked, “on a scale of 1-10, how much do your peers' Instagram posts effect the
way you look at your social media presence?” more than half of the respondents scored highly,
in the 8-10 range. Overall, results revealed a true insecurity and transparency.
So what steps do we need to take as a society in order to come back to our more
wholesome roots? If we root to feel better about ourselves, that might include approaching
social media with our day-to-day lives. There may be a lack of authenticity that masks us, if our
expectations exceed reality - and a “new” reality is formed based on the representations of
ourselves we chose to portray on our social media accounts. If the problem lies in advertising
and a “sexy” approach to social media, then the main demographic that will be affected in a
“body dysmorphic” approach are young girls.
When researching for this project, I was intrigued by a term penned by the late
philosopher Carl Jung, called “the subtle body.” Defined by himself as, “the somatic
unconscious, a transcendental concept involving the relationship between mind and body.” It is
the part of the unconscious which is designated as the subtle body becomes more and more
identical with the functioning of the body, and therefore it grows darker and darker and ends in
the utter darkness of matter. Somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body
is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: they contact the
body. Somewhere there is a place where the two ends meet and become interlocked. And that
is the [subtle body] where one cannot say whether it is matter, or what one calls
"psyche."["Nietzsche's Zarathustra," vol. 1, p. 441.] This quote really hit home when personally
applying it to social media and body image.
The concept of the selfie and a social media persona creates almost a third dimension of
self-perception, as opposed to looking in the mirror and perceiving oneself and the image in
front of them. The lines become blurred between an online persona - and a real-life perception

4. of the young woman’s self. Moving forward, one can only hope that we chose to be defined not
by what’s on the screen - but what we feel inside.