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Content analyses and experimental studies often indicate strong, usually negative effects of media on the self In contrast, qualitative work suggests that individuals may exercise considerable influence in selecting, interpreting and criticizing media content. This literature, however, does not adequately consider or specify how "interpreted" media content still might affect self-concept negatively. Incorporating social comparison and reflected appraisal processes, this study shows how media affect self-esteem indirectly, despite criticism, through beliefs about how others use and are affected by media. In-depth interviews with 60 white and minority girls, complemented by quantitative measures from a larger study, help to clarify how girls are affected by prominent images of females pervasive in media. Most girls see the images as unrealistic; many prefer to see "real" girls White girls, despite their criticism, are still harmed by the images because they believe that others find the images important and that others in the local culture, especially boys, evaluate them on the basis of these images. Minority girls do not identify with "white" media images, nor believe that significant others are affected by them; thus their critical interpretations succeed in thwarting negative feelings. The study increases our understanding of media effects on the selfconcept and suggests that researchers consider how media images may be part of social comparison and reflected appraisal processes.
Questions of whether and how media influence self-concept-both self-identities and self-evaluations-as well as their impact on beliefs, values and behaviors underlies much media research. Content analyses often show how media content departs from reality in regard to who is represented, and in how groups and situations are portrayed. Experimental studies show how content involving violence, sexual violence, or stereotypes affects self-concept, attitudes, and behavior. Yet these quantitative "strong effects" approaches have been criticized for presuming that negative messages harm a target group, even though they never directly assess this effect (in the case of content analyses), or isolate content from how people experience and interpret media in everyday life (in the case of experimental studies).
Qualitative approaches to the study of media have taken these criticisms seriously and have advanced several key conceptual and methodological issues indicated decades ago by prominent scholars (Blumer 1969; Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet 1948; Mills 1963). First, researchers...