Obasan, by Joy Kogawa, enlightens readers of her own childhood experiences and all of the injustices done towards Japanese Canadians during the time of World War II. Set in 1972, a school teacher named Naomi Nakane receives word that her Uncle has died, so she visits his home where her Aunt Obasan lives. While searching through old letters and documents, Naomi is taken back to her childhood and the suffering her family endured. After the release of the novel, Kogawa received mass amounts of letters from readers who had been touched by her words throughout Canada and the United States. Some of these readers expressed feelings of sympathy, which, Kimberly Chabot Davis defines as “the act of sharing the feelings or interests of another, or feeling concern for another’s suffering” (Oprah’s Book Club and the politics of cross-racial empathy, 403). The Majority of Kogawa’s fan letters consisted of readers feeling sympathetic towards the characters in the novel, even though they had no personal connection to them. Davis views those readers who have no connection to the content of the novel, meaning they have not experienced the historical content of the novel themselves or through others, as feeling and expressing pity and sympathy. This is an expression of self-congratulatory behaviour that allows one to force identification. Other readers related to the content of the story and had an empathetic reaction to the novel. Her story affected everyone, and in the letters she received, that impact is shown. The letters show many examples of identification and the different types of responses based on nationality, race or ethnicity. To explore this I examined, how the responses differed based on where the reader was from? How did the readers identify with the story if they were not of Japanese Canadian or American descent? And was the knowledge level of this history equal in Canada and the U.S? To answer these questions, I researched the fan letters sent to Kogawa from both American and Canadian citizens. Through the letters I found examples of Canadian citizens who felt sympathy towards the novel and Americans who were empathetic of it. However both groups felt a strong everlasting connection with Kogawa’s words in Obasan.
In response to the novel, fans from all over the world, sent Joy Kogawa letters to express their gratitude and satisfaction with the novel. To them it was an eye opening historical text that revealed the truths of an unforgettable horror that many Japanese Canadians faced. A fan of the novel, Vivien Tarkirk, who had not personally experienced the events, but, felt very offended and hurt by them, wrote Kogawa to express her sympathy and anger. She wrote, “I was born in 1943 in England, and yet, it was my fault. I wish I knew if any of those responsible are still around, I would dearly love to go and do some violence to them” (Tarkirk). This example expresses a kind of sympathy where the sympathizer wants to provide a solution for those with whom they are sympathizing with. Tarkirk continued on to share her compassion for the Japanese Canadians. She then shared a personal example of how this kind of racism still exists in their present day, saying that, “When I went to Japan, my father told me that if I married a Japanese he would never speak to me again. In the end, I married an eskimo […], and for some months in face he did not speak to me.” (Tarkirk) Her sympathy towards the Japanese drove her to fix the situation and remove the racism from her life. She explains that, “I have, during the previous fifteen years, so well educated him about the Japanese that I think he would have welcomed as a son-in-law one of the well-mannered educated and charming Japanese friends that he has met over the years.” (Tarkirk) Especially with people who have not experienced horrors to this degree in their life before, they express feelings or actions of sympathy meant to convey an apology and help to provide a solution to the situation.
However to others, it was more than a story. It was a physical representation of experiences similar to their own. It was something they could relate and connect too. The letters Kogawa received had expressions of identification and in some cases, expressions of empathy. Scholar, Heidi L. Maibom states that, “Empathy is usually understood as the capacity to experience emotions homologous to someone else’s emotions and experience them for that other person, and sympathy as the capacity to experience concern (compassion, pity, warm-heartedness) in response to negative impacts on others’ wellbeing” (Maibom, 483). Throughout the letters, majority of the Canadian fans were expressing sympathy as opposed to empathy. Even though the novel was about the discrimination against the Japanese-Canadians, Canadian readers did not seem to vocalize their empathetic feelings. So I continued to research how these kinds of reactions differ based on location? How did American citizens respond to the book, and are they exposed to any connections to the content of the novel through the people surrounding them in their country?
I continued to search through the fonds and solely focused on letters coming from American residents. The character, Aunt Emily in Obasan claims that Japanese Canadians were discriminated against worse than the Japanese Americans. Readers from the United States, especially Japanese Americans, had their eyes opened to the true horrors that the Japanese Canadians faced. I found the letters from the Japanese Americans to have more examples of empathy and identification. Gavin J Fairbairn notes the difference of sympathy and empathy and how society uses them, stating that, “talk of empathy has become common even among […] people, who often talk about ‘‘empathizing’’ in situations in which they might, in the past, have said that they ‘‘understood’’ or ‘‘cared’’ about another person” (Fairbairn, 192). A letter, sent by David Herreshoff, residing in Detroit, Michigan, to Joy Kogawa, also contained a poem he had written about his experience with the discrimination against Japanese Americans. This was the first letter I came across where someone actually remembered and had memories to share about the discrimination, which was especially interesting because he was American. In sharing his own memories, he feared Kogawa might think his words to be arrogant but his intentions were respectful and much like Kogawa, he wanted to share his memories of those events. He wrote, “I was a child and adolescent in San Diego in the 1930s, so I have my own memories. I am sending you a poem about that. I fear that you may find the title arrogant; I hope not. The reference at the poem’s start is to a Hiroshige print which has been in my family for eighty years and which I have been looking at for sixty. With deep respect and gratitude for your book, David.” (Herreshoff). David’s poem expresses similar emotions about the Japanese discrimination as those from the other letters, however his contains more real context. He does not say how sorry he feels for the Japanese or how he wish he could make it right. He just notes that it happened, and he remembers it from a Japanese American’s point of view. He simply thanks Kogawa for writing Obasan through an expression of empathy, not sympathy.
It is impossible to determine the reactions of every reader based on a few letters. Perhaps there were thousands of Canadian readers who felt empathetic and Americans who were sympathetic but did not write to Kogawa. Nonetheless, based on what I found, it appears that American readers, being isolated from the content of the novel due to their location, were more likely to share their feelings of relation in order to connect to the novel. Where as Canadian readers, were already so connected to the novel as it was set in their country, so instead they chose to write to Kogawa to express their sympathy. Another factor is a lack of knowledge. While most Canadians knew about the Japanese-Canadian internment, not all American readers did. Even though a very similar thing happened to the Japanese-Americans, a lot of American readers were unaware of what had happened in Canada before reading the novel. Solely based on the fonds and the letters I studied, it is clear that Canadian readers expressed sympathetic emotions and American readers expressed empathetic emotions. Nonetheless, Obasan is a novel that connects with its readers and truly enlightens them to the historical context within. Kogawa maintains beautiful characters that experience such hardship, that it is impossible for readers not to sympathize. Though, where we truly see the importance of her novel is the ways in which so many readers felt empathy and found a novel that expressed emotions they had within. Wether one lives in Canada or the United States, Obasan sparks a deep emotion within all.
Works Cited
Davis, Kimberly Chabot. "Oprah's Book Club and the Politics of Cross-Racial Empathy." International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.4 (2004): 399-419.
Dyck, Betty. Letter from Betty Dyck to Joy Kogawa. 24. Nov. 1982. Box 13 File 4. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver Canada.
Fairbairn, Gavin J. “Empathy, Sympathy, and the Image of the Other” , Peace Review, 21:2, (2009) 188-197.
Herreshoff, David. Letter from David Herreshoff to Joy Kogawa. 10 Mar. 1983. Box 13 File 4. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver Canada.
Maibom, Heidi L. “Feeling for Others: Empathy, Sympathy, and Morality” , Inquiry, 52:5, (2009) 483-499.
Tarkirk, Vivien. Letter from Vivien Tarkirk to Joy Kogawa. 10 May. 1983. Box 13 File 4. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver Canada.
An Emotional divide between Countries
Selling Masculinity
Within the media, images and representations of gender and behaviour are articulated and directed towards the younger generations. As they are the most influential age group, the media is able to create idealistic images for them to aspire towards. Majority of attention is focused on how the media creates unattainable beauty standards for women but in reality, the male population is equally exposed to unrealistic standards and expectations created by the media.
Society and media create ideologies on how people are supposed to think and act. In The Whites of Their Eyes, Stuart Hall defines ideologies as “those images, concepts and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence.” (81) Teenagers are constantly being exposed to forms of media that tell them how to behave in order to define their ‘gender’ and who they are. Within an article written by Jane E K Hartley, Daniel Wight and Kate Hunt, they state that “The evidence that media are powerful, and that they contribute to teenagers’ behaviour, is substantial.” (773) Young men, or teenage boys, are told that they must ‘be a man’ which apparently entails strength, violence, and aggression. Every teenager deals with the struggle to identify who they are wether or not that includes their sexual orientation or gender. Young males face the most backlash when it comes to self-identification. If they are not the perfect image of ‘masculinity’ they face challenges within the social aspect of their life. In a work written by Brad Millington and Brian Wilson they argue that “Hegemonic masculinity is commonly equated to a static masculine form that is reliant on stereotypical traits (e.g. physical strength and heterosexuality)” (1672) Men of all ages can be tormented by the pressure the media creates, to be a ‘manly man’.
Hall argues that “ideologies ‘work’ by constructing for their subjects (individual and collective) positions of identification and knowledge which allow them to ‘utter’ ideological truths.” (82) In relation, Millington and Wilson state that “portrayals of strong, explicitly heterosexual, and seemingly empowered masculinities are complex, they share the quality of potentially contributing to processes whereby these attributes are normalized for, among others, young male consumers.” (1673) As well, Hartley, Wight, and Hunt, note that “Individuals become aware of their identities through their relationships with some external factor.” (774) All three groups of scholars note that the media works to form identification within the minds of teenagers. Especially with males, societies social unconsciousness creates ideologies where a man must be overly heterosexual in order to be the ‘correct’ version of a male.
The three groups of scholars are in agreement that through many forms, media creates a challenge for people (in this case, males) to live up to stereotypes and expectations created through society. Hartley, Wright and Hunt look at the ways in which teenage boys claim their ‘masculinity’ by alcohol consumption and sexual activity. From forms of media like advertising and cinema, young men are shown these ‘ideal’ images of men who can consume mass amounts of alcohol and still be in control, and images of very fit, and attractive men who can have any sexual partner they wish. Where as Millington and Wilson focus on how physical education and sports media create ideologies of masculinity for teenage boys to idealize. The media is constantly showing male athletes who are in perfect shape and are extremely masculine, but for a teenage boy that is not a reality that they will have at such a young age.
As a result, we see examples of men acting out or behaving overly aggressive in or outside of school in order to prove their masculinity and dominance. However, if they fail to prove so, they are labelled as ‘weak’ or ‘feminine’. For men in the media, there are two options for identity. You can prove yourself to be the heterosexual ‘hard-bodied’ man or the weak, comic relief sidekick. Each scholar recognizes the influential and harmful effect the media has over men. They take notice that society and the media can create unrealistic ideologies or standards for young men. While majority of attention goes towards protecting young women from negative image persuasion, these scholars recognize that young men are being exposed to this kind of imagery as well and it can negatively impact their mental health.
Works Cited
Hall, Stuart. “The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media." Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2011. 81-84. Print.
Hartley, Jane E K, Hunt, Kate, Wight, Daniel. “Presuming the influence of the media: teenagers' constructions of gender identity through sexual/romantic relationships and alcohol consumption.” Sociology of Health & Illness. vol. 6, no. 5, 2014, pp. 772-786,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.12107/full Accessed November 16th, 2016
Millington, Brad, Wilson, Brad. “Context Masculinities: Media Consumption, Physical Education, and Youth Identities.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 1669-1688,
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/53/11/1669.full.pdf+html Accessed November 16th, 2016
The Key to Civilization
Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore’s “The Medium is the Massage” challenges the way we think of media and forces us to notice the way it influences society. While using images and quotes pulled from popular culture, McLuhan and Fiore, open our eyes to the world of media. McLuhan focuses on the massive effects and importance of media and how, without us even knowing, media has taken control. It is true that man kind invented the tools that made way for the media, but now, the media is the one controlling us. “All media work us over completely” (26). This idea suggests that media has taken over, and that in its efforts to influence and inform, we are worked over to only be on the receiving end.
While conducting a close reading to a passage on page 48, I was able to uncover an important detail about what McLuhan is trying to convey. My interpretation of this part of the text is the idea that the world was built off of the simplistic act of creating the alphabet. That, without the invention of writing, the world we know today, would not have been created. This passage, unlike majority of the book, is written in a formal style that we are familiar with. McLuhan uses proper sentences and grammar in the first two paragraphs which is unusual for the style of this book. His language, while complicated has a simplistic tone that allows the reader to feel comprehensive even though his ideas are well over our heads.
McLuhan writes “Until writing was invented, men lived in acoustic space.” (48) Saying, that before physical text, all we knew was sound. With sound being boundless, directionless, and horizonless, the world had endless possibilities. You could say the Earth was flat and you would be right because there was no textual evidence to contradict you. Just your word against someone else’s. Before writing, humanity was trapped in “the dark of the mind” (48) where speech was our only way of sharing knowledge and communicating. However, then came writing which eventually made way for the enlightenment, so that we could dig into the “light of the mind” (48) and create the wondrous and technologically advanced world we now live in. McLuhan talks about the quill giving architecture, which gave roads which gave armies, which gave bureaucracy. In his words, writing began “the cycle of civilization”. Meaning, that the creation of text and writing, allowed for invention and discovery that made society more sustainable and functional. “The hand that filled the parchment page built a city” (48).
At the bottom of the page is an illustration of someone writing on a blank piece of paper. This could easily just be a visual representation of someone writing or it could be symbolizing the world as this blank page and how writing began to paint todays world. In the grand scheme of the book, this idea that writing began the cycle that led us to todays society supports McLuhan’s thoughts around the control of media. That if something so simplistic as writing created our world, what power could other forms of media have over us? Perhaps in another century one small idea created today will have shaped their world entirely.
Works Cited
McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. The Medium Is the Massage. New York: Bantam, 1967. Print.
The Mind Inside the Model: The effects mass media has on body satisfaction
The mass media is arguably the most influential factor impacting viewers body satisfaction. High levels of body dissatisfaction can lead to life threatening illnesses such as anorexia. Scholars Lisa Groesz, Michael Levine and Sarah Murnen state that, “The mass media has been argued to be the most powerful and influential sociocultural factor contributing to body dissatisfaction in Western society by being the strongest proponent of the thin standard of beauty” (Groesz, Levine, Murnen). The models and images within the advertisements create an unrealistic achievement for the viewers. These models, in their photoshop and edited beauty, taunt the public, saying “you must buy all these products in order to look as good as this”. Groesz, Levine and Murnen state that, “In one study, adolescent girls described the ideal girl as 5 ft 7 in, 100lb, size 5, with long blond hair and blue eyes.” (as cited in Groesz, Levine, Murnen). So, advertising companies use this ‘perfect’ woman to help sell their brand. Scholars Mitchell and Hansen note that “The human body itself is an advertisement, for whatever we put or do to it, “[…] one of the earliest media of human expression is the malleable physical body itself.” (Mitchell and Hansen).
Body dissatisfaction occurs mainly in women, as stated by scholars Anna Bardone-Cone and Kamila Cass, “Females have a much greater rate of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating than males” (as cited in Bardone-Cone, Cass). In their study called Investigating the Impact of Pro-Anorexia Websites they found that “Body satisfaction for women is significantly lower after viewing thin media images than after viewing media images of average size models […] or of overweight models.” (Bardone-Cone, Cass). However, this emotional response is not guaranteed. Many women are able to view these images without having feelings of body dissatisfaction, so as scholar Alyssa Pitura states, “There have been no explanations for why some people develop an “unhealthy” body image and others do not, even though they are exposed to the same mediums.” (Pitura). Pitura also states that “The current cultural models fail to explain why so many individuals do not develop the disease even though they have been exposed to the same cultural environment.” (as cited in Pitura). Perhaps other things in ones daily life contributes to the way in which they perceive this media. Groesz, Levine and Murnen note that, “The thin ideal is conveyed and reinforced by many social influences, including family, peers, school, athletics, business, and health care professionals.” (as cited in Groesz, Levine, Murnen).
From these gaps within the scholar’s knowledge, I wonder, why are some women affected by the images within the media and why are the others not? Who creates these ideas of what the “perfect” woman is and why does society listen? And, is media the only contributing factor to body dissatisfaction or do other factors play a key part? To determine the answers to these questions I will conduct research on myproanna.com. This is a website where girls help each other become anorexic and motivate them to continue. Through the sites blogs, chatrooms and forums I will have insight to how their minds work and what triggers them to have such body dissatisfaction. This website will provide a basis of understanding to the ways in which women are negatively impacted by images of the “perfect” woman. It will also create a strong base in order to further examine the ways in which the media damages viewers body satisfaction and creates illnesses like anorexia.
Annotated Works Cited
Bardone-Cone, A. M., & Cass, K. M. “Investigating the impact of pro-anorexia websites: A pilot study”. European Eating Disorders Review, 14 (4), p. 256-262. October 5, 2008.
Groesz, L. M., Levine, M. P., & Murnen, S. K. “The effect of experimental presentation of thin media images on body satisfaction: A meta-analytic review”. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 31, 1–16. (2002)
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Kilbourne, Jean. Killing us Softly. Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc. (2010).
Mitchell, W.J.T.; Hansen, Mark B.N. “Introduction (excerpt).” Critical Terms for Media Studies. (2010): vii-xiv.
Pitura, Alyssa. “Idealism: Factors Affecting the Body Image of College Students”. Journal of the Communication, Speech & Theatre Association of North Dakota. 2010, Vol. 23, p62-68.
Research Site: http://www.myproana.com/
The Ethics of Researching Body Dissatisfaction
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Mass media is arguably the most influential factor on societies perception of beauty. Scholars Lisa Groesz, Michael Levine and Sarah Murnen state that, “The mass media has been argued to be the most powerful and influential sociocultural factor contributing to body dissatisfaction in Western society by being the strongest proponent of the thin standard of beauty”. The models and images within advertisements create an unrealistic beauty standard for the viewers. Groesz, Levine and Murnen state that, “In one study, adolescent girls described the ideal girl as 5 ft 7 in, 100lb, size 5, with long blond hair and blue eyes.” Thus, advertising companies use this ‘perfect’ woman to help sell their brand. Scholars Mitchell and Hansen note that “The human body itself is an advertisement, for whatever we put or do to it, “[…] one of the earliest media of human expression is the malleable physical body itself.”
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Body dissatisfaction occurs mainly in women, and in severe cases can lead to different mental health problems such as anorexia. As stated by scholars Anna Bardone-Cone and Kamila Cass, “Females have a much greater rate of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating than males” (Bardone-Cone, Cass). In their study called Investigating the Impact of Pro-Anorexia Websites they found that “Body satisfaction for women is significantly lower after viewing thin media images than after viewing media images of average size models […] or of overweight models.” (Bardone-Cone, Cass). However, this emotional response is not guaranteed. Many women are able to view these images without having feelings of body dissatisfaction and as scholar Alyssa Pitura states, “There have been no explanations for why some people develop an “unhealthy” body image and others do not, even though they are exposed to the same mediums.” Pitura also states that “The current cultural models fail to explain why so many individuals do not develop the disease even though they have been exposed to the same cultural environment.” Perhaps other things in ones daily life contributes to the way in which they perceive this media. Groesz, Levine and Murnen note that, “The thin ideal is conveyed and reinforced by many social influences, including family, peers, school, athletics, business, and health care professionals.”
From these gaps within the scholar’s knowledge, I wonder, why are some women affected by the images within the media and why are the others not? Furthermore, is media the only contributing factor to body dissatisfaction or do other factors play a key part? To determine the answers to these questions I had planned to conduct research on myproanna.com, a website where girls and women promote anorexia. Through the sites blogs, chatrooms and forums I would gain insight to why these thoughts occur and what triggers their body dissatisfaction. However, although this was my initial intention, I faced ethical problems while doing so and was conflicted with feelings of being intrusive. After this I decided to conduct a survey to gather primary data of my own, however after doing said research I discovered that due to the ethics law of the University of British Columbia, it was not allowed and it was not ethical either. Through this experience I was constantly conflicted with my own and societies ethics. Furthermore, I ask, why are the benefits of ethics laws? And, how could my research have affected those on the other end of it while proper ethical restrictions were not in place? To answer these questions I have conducted an auto-ethnography on my experience with the pro-ana website, my survey and additional research conducted through the process of doing online ethics training through the Government of Canada website.
First, my intention was to use the website myproana.com as my research site. Initially it seemed beneficial due to its first hand insight on women with anorexia. However, once I began searching through the sites blogs, galleries, forums and chatrooms, I began to feel extremely intrusive. The content of the website was extremely graphic and eye opening. The main focus of pro anorexia websites is to display content that encourage anorexia. As stated by Bardone-Cone and Cass, “A ‘thinspirations’ photo gallery including photos of thin models and celebrities, severely emaciated women, and morbidly obese women; quotations meant to inspire weight loss; a forum including posts about binge eating, vomiting, and signing-up to have a ‘fasting buddy’.” (258). I do not suffer from anorexia, this website was not made for people like myself. As a result, I felt like I was reading someone’s diary, these girls posted such personal information expecting it to be only read by women who can relate to them. In addition, viewing this content was also dangerous to my own mental health, as Bardone-Cone and Cass found in their case study, “While recurring exposure to these messages would seem to assuredly have an effect, it is notable that a single viewing of such a website produced the trends found”. (260) Those trends being, “Preliminary data suggest that viewing pro-anorexia websites has negative affective and cognitive effects on women, even when compared to viewing a website focused on the female figure.” (259). As a result of fearing for the women’s privacy and my own mental health, analyzing this website felt extremely wrong. Eventually it became overwhelming and I felt so secretive and intrusive that I decided to abandon this research site altogether. Abandoning my own ethics just to gather research was not worth endangering myself or risking the privacy and safety of other women. At this time I was unaware of the ethics laws of Canada but I had my own internal laws that I couldn’t break. The participants that would have been used for this research did not give their knowing consent and were not aware of the study I was conducting.
After I had decided to abandon my initial approach, I decided to conduct my own survey. At no point did I think I would run into any conflicting factors with this idea. I figured there was no better way to gather primary data then to get it for myself. In this technology and social media reliant society, I knew I could gather tons of responses by posting and sending my survey through multiple online platforms. I created the survey using google forms, then I posted the survey on InPower, a private Facebook group for young women living in and around Vancouver. In addition I emailed and texted the survey to my friends and family asking them to forward it and to post it on social media. In the end I received 491 responses from women ages 15-60. The research I had was so detailed and I was very confident in the paper I was about to write. However, yet another problem presented itself. Due to the ethics law of The University of British Columbia, where I am a first-year student at, I was unable to conduct human based research without the permission of the ethics board and after completing their online training modules. In the survey I asked ten questions. Them being, On a scale from 1 - 10, how happy are you with your body? How old are you? Do you suffer from anorexia, bulimia, depression or any other form of mental illness? Do you experience feelings of body dissatisfaction? Which factors contribute to your body dissatisfaction most? At what age did you start experiencing feelings of body dissatisfaction? What do you think society believes beauty is? Do you feel influenced by images of women in the mass media? Have you ever visited a pro-ana website (pro anorexia) or participated in pro-ana chatrooms or used thinspiration? Do you agree with this statement: The mass media is arguably the most influential factor on body dissatisfaction? After already conducting this survey and receiving massive amounts of data, I learned that I was unable to use it because it was unethical. However when I posted the survey I also wrote a statement saying, “Hello everyone, this is a survey for my research paper for one of my classes at The University of British Columbia. The survey is completely anonymous and will only take a couple of minutes. Thank you!” I figured that everything would be okay because the women could not be identified and they knew exactly what they were participating in. However, after completing the Government of Canada Research Ethics Training Modules, I realized that I was in violation of their requirements.
I continued my research by completing the first five training modules from the interactive TPCS 2 Tutorial. While reading the rules and statements, I had my two previous research methods in mind and how the topic of body dissatisfaction and mental health related to the issues covered in the modules. I didn’t realize that while conducting my research, I was at risk of harming my participants, as stated in the first module, “No researcher sets out to deliberately harm the people who agree to participate in a research project. The intent to do no harm, however, is not a guarantee that no harm will occur.” While most of the modules were talking about the ways in which physical harm can be an extreme risk. I was more focused on learning about the phycological harm as it was more relevant to my study, and I found that, “Although sometimes less obvious than physical harms, the risk of psychological harms to participants should not be treated lightly. Some of the types of psychological harms that can occur are [Ex. activation of PTSD from answering questions that trigger memories of a traumatic event]” This quote really stuck out to me as it became apparent that I did not know the current mental state of my participants. There could have been women answering who suffered from body dissatisfaction or anorexia and my questions could have been harmful or problematic for them. Asking women to talk about how they feel about their bodies can bring up a lot of emotional issues and that certainly was not my intention. However, it was reassuring to learn that by posting the message along with the survey, I was following the tutorials rule that, “The decision to participate must be based on an understanding of the purpose of the research, its foreseeable risks and potential benefits. Prospective participants must be given full disclosure of all information relevant to their decision, sufficient time to consider it, and the opportunity to ask questions or seek clarification about the study.” (Government of Canada, Panel on Research Ethics). However, then it occurred to me that because I had asked my friends and family to post and share my survey through their social media accounts, they may not have posted a message along with it stating as much as I had originally. Thus, violating this module rule. These training modules were extremely helpful and while I understand why it is required to receive permission from the board to conduct human research, I don’t understand why ethically, I was allowed to conduct research on the pro-ana website.
Considering the modules sole purpose was to confirm researchers were ethical and respectful to their participants, the fact that I was allowed to conduct research on the pro-ana website didn’t make sense to me. The modules state that, “The essence of this principle is that it is unacceptable to treat individuals solely as means (mere objects or things) to an end (a research goal). The welfare and integrity of the participant must take priority over all else in human research.” (Government of Canada, Panel on Research Ethics). Yet, while researching the pro-ana website, in my opinion, I was surely in violation of this rule. I understand that this website is on the Internet and is available to anyone, however so are most people’s Facebook pages or Instagram accounts and yet conducting research on someones personal behaviours and online activity without them knowing, seems extremely unethical in my opinion. Even though the information is technically available to everyone, those posting it never gave any form of documented consent that someone can analyze and write research about it. After conducting this auto ethnography, I see that ethic laws are put in place to protect participants. They are there to ensure the safety and awareness of a research project and those associated with it, and although someone like myself may think that they have taken all the proper precautions, it is truly important that a third party, in this case the ethics board, can confirm that a study is 100 percent ethical. If I had continued with either of my first two options, I could have been at risk of harming my participants or even myself by not being fully aware of the ethics laws put in place in Canada. The purpose of this project was not worth risking the mental health or increasing the levels of body dissatisfaction within the participants. Considering all the contributing factors to body dissatisfaction in the media, reviewing my own and the governments ethics on research, allowed my project to not be one of those contributing factors.
Works Cited:
Bardone-Cone, A. M., & Cass, K. M. “Investigating the impact of pro-anorexia websites: A pilot study”. European Eating Disorders Review, 14 (4), p. 256-262. October 5, 2008.
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"Forum and Community." Forums and Community. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.
Government of Canada, Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics. "Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics." Pre.ethics.gc.ca. Government of Canada, 27 Feb. 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.
Groesz, L. M., Levine, M. P., & Murnen, S. K. “The effect of experimental presentation of thin media images on body satisfaction: A meta-analytic review”. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 31, 1–16. (2002)
Kilbourne, Jean. Killing us Softly. Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc. (2010).
Mitchell, W.J.T.; Hansen, Mark B.N. “Introduction (excerpt).” Critical Terms for Media Studies. (2010): vii-xiv.
Pitura, Alyssa. “Idealism: Factors Affecting the Body Image of College Students”. Journal of the Communication, Speech & Theatre Association of North Dakota. 2010, Vol. 23, p62-68.
The Racist Ideologies That Created Society
In Stuart Hall’s article “The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media” Hall explores the ways in which media creates and portrays ideologies. He defines ideologies as “Those images, concepts and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence” (Hall, 81) In other words, ideologies are the ideas that are not forced but are formed through repetition and help us to understand our place in society. Hall emphasizes that ideologies are a “chain of meanings” (81) that are the product of an unconscious process.
Following Hall’s explanation of ideologies, he shifts into how ideologies circulate through media. Hall states that “In modern societies, the different media are especially important sites for the production, reproduction and transformation of ideologies.” (82), which puts media in a constructive position. He describes how media constructs meaning that we begin to ‘make sense’ of and, without noticing, shape our lives around, otherwise known as, “ideological production” (82) While describing this process, Hall brings attention to how racism is shaped through media. Stating that the media produces ideas about race as well as transforming and articulating on those ideas. Through his definitions of ‘overt’ and ‘inferential’ racism, Hall shows the readers examples of how media is “impregnated with unconscious racism”. Even though certain forms of media may try to present a anti-racist view, they are still embedded with these racist ideologies.
In relation to the media’s persuasion of race, Hall brings attention to the ways in which these ideologies are circulated throughout history. He gives an example of the adventure genre as it is a prime example of a concept that is surrounded by many ideologies. Even though this genre has evolved, the original concepts are still represented. Hall describes three main familiar figures from this genre, “the slave, the native and the entertainer”, all of whom have distinct characteristics that without intention, project the racist undertones that history created for them, thus identifying Halls “grammar of race”.
Stuart Hall’s ideas about racist ideologies within the media are directly applicable to Jean Kilbourne’s documentary, “Killing us softly 4”. Kilbourne expresses similar ideas about how the media, specifically the world of advertising, is embedded with a certain ideological grammar. However, Kilbourne’s work focuses primarily on image representation and how the media creates an unattainable beauty standard for men and especially women. Still, we see Hall’s views expressed in the documentary as many advertisements portray an African American model as a ‘jungle warrior’ or a ‘savage’, which could have been to make her seem strong and adventurous but since our minds our embedded with these racist ideologies, we see it as a mockery or a racist stereotype.
Furthermore, Hall brings attention to the media creating and or having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas towards racism, “the double vision of the white eye through which they are seen” (84). Even though society tries to remove racism within the media, these rooted ideologies are fixed in our nature.
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Works Cited
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Stuart Hall, “The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media” , Extract from Gender,
Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader, Sage Publications, 2011
Killing Us Softly 4. By Jean Kilbourne. 2010. Documentary.