The Impact of Idealized Imagery of Models/Celebrities in Malaysian Television and Online Commercial Towards Youth Behaviour

Abstract

Advertising plays an important role to educate, promote and create awareness for a company's product and services through traditional media such as television, radio, newspaper, billboard, and magazine or via the Internet. It is not easy to persuade potential and target market to buy the product. Therefore, advertisers decided to use any methods to attract the customer's attention. One of the ways includes using beautiful and well-figured models in their advertisements. However, some of the ads do not look relevant to the product. The advertisers' objective is to develop the ads that can grab attention, create interest and desire to purchase. The study's major purpose is to look into the effects of the media on body image and self-esteem in males and females aged 19 to 24. The media is the most influential contributor of social acceptance norms surrounding physical expectations, ideal height and weight, which have been the main factors contributing to one dissatisfaction of his or her own physical appearances and in turn, attributed to mental health issues such as depressive disorder, inferiority complex and disturbed eating habits. A quantitative non-experimental correlational method was used, and a total of 354 participants involved in this study which consists of 225 females and 129 males. Participants completed survey questionnaires containing three sections, which included media exposure, body image, and self-esteem. Data from these survey questionnaires were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results derived from the study shows that females tend to have lower body image than males, but there is no significant linkage between a person's body image and self–esteem. The result also shows that there is a negative correlation between media exposure and self-esteem for both males and females.