Kluender 1

WR 13300
Dr. McLaughlin
Anna Kluender
March 30, 2017

Annotated Bibliography

In the modern era of instantaneous access to all kinds of media, most of which feature highly
inaccurate depictions of an idealized body, adolescents struggle with confidence and happiness
issues that come from the body-shaming featured in media. This creates a high likelihood of
disorders stemming from low self-esteem: eating disorders, depression, and self-harm. While
music videos in recent years have attempted to negate these effects by promoting more healthy
bodies, I propose that these attempts utilize the same types of techniques found in standard music
videos and ultimately create similar instances of body-shaming. I plan to study the body-shaming
created by the music industry because I want to critique attempts to counteract traditional body
shaming practices in order to call attention to the nature of modern media to create negative
influences on the self-esteem of adolescents. I plan to focus on elements of music videos that
promote the classic hyper-sexualized body image and compare their tactics and effects to those
found in music videos promoting curvier bodies.

Bell, Beth T., Lawton, Rebecca, and Dittmar, Helga. The impact of thin models in music videos
on adolescent girls body dissatisfaction. Body Image, vol. 4, no. 2, 2007, pp. 115-226.

This article discusses the ultra-thin sociocultural ideal for young women prevalent in modern
music videos and the effect of its exposure on young women. Its focus is the description and
quantification of a decrease in self-esteem of young women who view these music videos. The
purpose of this paper is to call awareness to the power that music videos hold over the self-
esteem and body image of adolescents who view them and to provide data that supports the
claims of the authors. The authors also attempt to prove that music videos present the idealized
women (who star in them) in a way that focuses on their bodies by using techniques such as
close ups or sequences of sexualized dancing. The authors put their paper in the pool with other
research done on the topic of music videos and body image, but work to put those other papers in
context by using their research to prove the cause-effect relationship of music videos and self-
esteem. I plan to use this paper as a template to which I will compare more recent music videos
attempts to promote curvier figures. I will compare the techniques found in recent music videos
with the information discussed in this paper and then predict how those videos would influence
young girls who watch them, based on the material and research found in this source.

Bender, Keont. Music Videos Raise New Body Image Debate. Point Park News Service
[Pittsburgh, PA] 288, 12 November 2014.

Bender, a writer for a University News Service, wrote an article in 2014 that describes the basis
of my argument. In her piece, Bender plays at the idea that new music videos which promote
curvier, less-sexualized body types can have as much of a detrimental role as those which only
feature the idealized womans body. Bender herself is not incredible credible, but the research
professor she interviewsand the students who give their personal experiences with the music
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videosmake the source a primary one. Bender seeks to inform her peers about the new trend in
music videos and to expose to them the two sides of the argument surrounding the body image
debate. While Benders article contains professionals and credible scientists, her information
must be taken with a bit of consideration to her status as a student reporter. This article will be a
reference point from which I can mention key music videos or artists and their role in
perpetuating or counteracting body shaming in adolescents.

Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. University of
California Press, 1993.

Susan Bordos book contains many different pieces of the discussion of the evolution
of conceptions of the body, ideas about body size, and postmodern tendencies in regard to the
feminine body in Western culture. I am choosing to focus on her description of how ideals about
the female body have changed in recent times. Her book is targeted at an audience of mostly
women, with a purpose of demonstrat(ing) the continuing historical power and pervasiveness of
certain cultural images and ideology to with not just men but also women are vulnerable (p. 8),
referencing the effects of hypersexualized women on the rest of culture. I plan to use this source
chiefly to describe the evolution of the idealized body type, which gives a background for the
themes and images found in modern music videos. This source will set the scene for the
idealization of female bodies in contemporary media, such as music lyrics or music videos. I will
use Bordos work as an explanation of the changes found in the music videos mentioned in other
sources.

Convertino, Alexandra D., Rodgers, Rachel F., Franko, Debra L., and Jodoin, Adriana. An
evaluation of the Aerie Real campaign: Potential for promoting positive body image?
Journal of Health Psychology, 2016, pp. 1-12.

Convertino et al. discuss a recent Aerie campaign that involved zero retouching of models with a
goal of promoting positive body image. Convertino and her fellow researchers tested various
factors relating to the self-esteem of college-aged women after being exposed to the older,
retouched Aerie ads as well as the new ones, some of which were marked as non-retouched and
others were not. They mainly speak to other researchers, based on the technical language found
in the article, and they support their work with extensive data and explicit descriptions of testing
procedures. The researchers found that womens self-esteem still went down even after being
exposed to the non-retouched ads, partially because the ads still displayed fairly thin women.
However, those women who identified most with the women pictured in the ads did experience
less severe drops in their self-esteem levels. These findings are similar to those found when
adolescents were exposed to normal modern images of idealized women, which supports my
claim that efforts to reduce effects of media on self-esteem are not as effective as desired. I plan
to apply this source as a lens to my argument that even music videos meant to promote healthy
bodies have detrimental effects on the self-esteem of those who watch them.

Lancioni, Judith. The Rhetoric of the Frame: Revisioning Archival Photographs in the Civil
War. Western Journal of Communication, vol. 60, no. 4, 1996, pp. 105-117.
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In her piece, Lancioni discusses the key visual elements present in films, especially
documentaries. She highlights how film techniques such as mobile framing and slow panning
influence the attitudes of viewers toward the film or image. Despite Lancionis discussion being
based on a documentary, I believe I can apply her findings and ideas to the cinematic techniques
found in music videos. Women and other images in music videos are presented in certain ways
with a goal of influencing the audience to believe a certain way about the images presented to
them, and Lancionis work can help me highlight those techniques in my paper. I plan to use
Landionis ideas to highlight the ways in which attention is drawn to womens bodies in music
videos, which is where the effects on viewers senses of self-esteem begin. In using Lancionis
source, I will have to be mindful of how her analysis of camerawork might be specific to the
information found in documentaries and will have to find instances in overlap in the music
videos I plan to analyze.

Mulgrew, K. E. and Volcevski-Kostas, D. Short term exposure to attractive and muscular

singers in music video clips negatively affects mens body image and mood. Body
Image, vol. 9, no. 3, 2012, pp. 311-430.

This source is an academic article found in a journal whose focus is body image and its many
interpretations, influences, and effects. Scientists Mulgrew and Volcevski-Kostas completed a
study on the effects of music video clips on men and their body perception with the goal of
exposing the great influence of idealized images found in prevalent sources of media on body
perception. They found that males exposed to ideal bodies in music videos experienced lower
levels of self-confidence than those who did not. Mulgrew and Volcevski seek to convince fellow
scientists and readers of the journal of the dangers of exposure to unrealistic body types and their
detrimental effects on ones self-esteem, and their claims are credible and supported by
quantitative research. I plan to use this source to expand my argument to include the effects of
viewing idealized body types on men and not just women. This connects to Bell, Lawton, and
Dittmars article because it discusses the same phenomenon they discuss, except Mulgrew and
Volcevski-Kostas study men instead of adolescent girls.