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Debord: The Stereotypes Of Social Media

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Debord: The Stereotypes Of Social Media
Debord emphasized that the life that we live is made up of a collection of spectacles, in which real life has been converted to mere representations (Knabb, 2002). As a society, we consume these representations that the producers create. One of the major producers is the media. The media creates these representations of real life in the form of images and videos in which they show to society. These representations are often misleading, as they contain some aspects of truth with the majority of it being a false representation. On social media platforms, such as Instagram, these false representations essentially create a fake world that becomes our reality. For this assignment, I chose not to use the social media platforms that I am a part of …show more content…
Especially in today’s technological world, the media can be seen almost anywhere that we go. From billboards on the highway, to the streets of downtown Toronto, to the televisions of our own home. The power of the media comes from its omnipresence in society. Due to its strong presence, the messages that the media produces often become the beliefs of its consumers. For example, one of the greatest phenomena within recent decades is the desire to be fit and healthy. The media began to preach the message that being skinny is what people find attractive and cited several studies to confirm their claim. Magazines started to use thin female models as the standard for what is considered beautiful. The media even altered some of the photographs in advertisements to create the ‘perfect body’ for both sexes. These messages sparked a huge movement, which saw the rise of multiple well known commercial gyms such as Goodlife Fitness. Many people started to follow online personas that gave advice on how to burn fat quickly and shared a plethora of fad diets that many people lived by. This is still relevant to today’s society, as millions of people are following numerous fitness models and pages across all social media platforms. They are trying their best to achieve the so-called ‘perfect body’, which is truly a fake reality created by the representations from the

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