From a section of my book on the sexualization of women in media that discusses the role of the media in shaping our perceptions

 The media shapes our perceptions, in part because we spend more time consuming media than doing just about anything else other than sleeping and working or going to school. In 2014 Gloria Steinem gave a public lecture entitled Media: More Real than Reality[1] in which she said, “Yet because we are communal creatures, the media campfire is still where we learn what is normal, what is possible, what is desirable. Even if we’re informed enough to know that the media are not reality—reality is reality—they still are the biggest force shaping what reality will become.”[2] Jackson Katz, an American author and filmmaker quoted in the documentary Miss Representation said, “People learn more from media than any other single source of information, so if you want to understand what’s going on in our society in the 21st century we have to understand media.”[3] Indeed, it is now widely acknowledged that the media plays a crucial role in shaping our attitudes and perceptions. Everyone seems to concur: the media shapes our perceptions. In 2009 the Canadian Mental Health Association published an article that stated, “The mass media’s power to impact public perception and the degree to which people are exposed to media representations makes the mass media one of the most significant influences in developed society. The mass media is unquestionably the Canadian public’s primary sources of information.”[4] In 2013 the Australian Psychological Society published a paper in which it stated, “In more recent times, the influence of media on society has expanded exponentially and into ever diversified forms. […] Entertainment media has literally leaped off the big screen and out of the television producers’ hands into video games, YouTube, and applications for mobile phones, to name a few. […] Media, in all their various forms, are today shaping our world in more ways than ever.”[5]


[1] Gloria Steinem, public lecture entitled Media: More Real than Reality delivered at Rutgers University on Feb. 27, 2014

[2] Gloria Steinem, public lecture entitled Media: More Real than Reality delivered at Rutgers University on Feb. 27, 2014

[3] Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, 2011

[4] Canadian Mental Health Association, The Media’s Impact on Public Perceptions of Mental Illness, Feb. 2009, Kismet Baun, p. 1

[5] Australian Psychological Society, Media Representations and Responsibilities: Psychological Perspectives, Melbourne, March 2013, p. 1 


​© 2016 Alline Cormier