Media and Self-Objectification of Women in Pakistan: Exploring the Role of Culture and Religion

Abstract

The aim of study is to explore the self-objectification of women and media exposure. It explores the relationship of media and self-objectification with reference to culture and religion as moderating variables. For this purpose, quantitative survey was chosen as research design and data from four universities of provincial capitals were collected through simple random sampling. It Includes the Punjab University Lahore, Karachi University Sindh, Baluchistan University, Baluchistan and Peshawar University, KPK. The total respondent was 400. Hundred from each university. STATA and SPSS were used to applied the test. Linear regression was run to know the relationship between variables. Our analysis shows a relationship between media exposure and self-objectification of women. More exposure to media objectified images leads to more self-objectification in female students. Association with religion and culture decline the self-objectification tendencies among female students. Our finding suggest that more media literacy can decrease the self-objectification phenomenon and more cultural association can omit the effects of media objectified images on female students of universities.