Elsevier

Body Image

Volume 17, June 2016, Pages 171-174
Body Image

Brief research report
Reducing the negative effects of media exposure on body image: Testing the effectiveness of subvertising and disclaimer labels

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.03.009Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Examined effects of adding disclaimers and subvertising to thin-ideal media.

  • Participants were adult women recruited for two experiments (Ns = 1268 and 820).

  • Disclaimers and subvertising did not enhance body image relative to unaltered media.

  • Disclaimers and subvertising did not reduce state appearance social comparison.

  • The results raise concerns about the effectiveness of disclaimers and subvertising.

Abstract

Body image activists have proposed adding disclaimer labels to digitally altered media as a way to promote positive body image. Another approach advocated by activists is to alter advertisements through subvertising (adding social commentary to the image to undermine the message of the advertisement). We examined if body image could be enhanced by attaching Photoshop disclaimers or subvertising to thin-ideal media images of swimsuit models. In Study 1 (N = 1268), adult women exposed to disclaimers or subvertising did not report higher body state satisfaction or lower drive for thinness than women exposed to unaltered images. In Study 2 (N = 820), adult women who were exposed to disclaimers or subvertising did not report higher state body satisfaction or lower state social appearance comparisons than women exposed to unaltered images or to no images. These results raise questions about the effectiveness of disclaimers and subvertising for promoting body satisfaction.

Introduction

Many women are dissatisfied with their appearance and weight (Frederick et al., 2007b, Frederick et al., 2006, Peplau et al., 2009, Swami et al., 2010). Slender women are routinely featured as attractive in popular media, and women who internalize these slender ideals are less satisfied with their bodies (Cafri et al., 2005, Schaefer et al., 2015). Meta-analyses show that exposure to slender models can cause small increases in body dissatisfaction (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008), particularly for women if they have low overall body satisfaction (r = .26) rather than high body satisfaction (r = .07; Ferguson, 2013).

Body image activists and researchers have emphasized the importance of developing measures to counteract the negative effects of exposure to thin-ideal media. The primary goal of the current research was to examine whether adding disclaimer labels or “subvertising” messages to thin-ideal media improves body image, and whether it discourages women from comparing themselves to these media images.

Some governments, media literacy programs, and industries have embraced the idea of adding disclaimers to media images (Bury, Tiggemann, & Slater, 2016). Disclaimers are intended to prevent consumer confusion (e.g., “this image has been Photoshopped;” Heymann, 2010). Women do attend to these disclaimers when they are added to advertisements (Bury et al., 2014, Bury et al., 2016).

Little is known, however, about whether disclaimers are actually effective in promoting body satisfaction. The existing literature typically finds no benefits to adding disclaimers (for brief review, see Bury et al., 2016). In three experimental studies, women were exposed to images with or without disclaimer labels and their body dissatisfaction was assessed. These studies found no evidence for any protective effects of these disclaimers (Ata et al., 2013, Bury et al., 2016, Tiggemann et al., 2013). In another study, disclaimer labels were associated with negative thoughts becoming more readily accessible, raising concerns that labels could have counterintuitive negative effects (Selimbegovic & Chatard, 2015). Disclaimer labels may actually bring more attention to aspects of the model's appearances (Bury et al., 2016).

Only two studies have found positive effects (Slater et al., 2012, Veldhuis et al., 2012). In the Veldhuis et al. (2012) study, the only specific conditions that differed significantly from each other had small sample sizes (Ns = 11–16), raising concerns about the replicability of the study. An unexamined question is whether or not these disclaimers effectively reduce the extent to which women engage in social comparisons to these models or the extent to which they desire to be thin.

Alongside warning and disclaimer labels, some body image activists have advocated the more radical approach of “culture jamming,” which is a political movement to undermine the marketing rhetoric of corporations (Harold, 2004). Culture jamming is driven by the idea that advertising is a form of propaganda that serves special interests, and this propaganda can be countered by sabotaging or parodying the advertisements (Chung & Kirby, 2009). As a result, those who participate in culture jamming can alter advertisements to highlight certain flaws or hypocrisies, a practice known as “subvertising” because it subverts the purpose of the advertisement.

A common subvertising strategy is to superimpose slogans and phrases on media images or to alter a well-known logo to fit certain phrases (Chung & Kirby, 2009). For example, subvertisers changed the tagline on one Fox News billboard advertisement from “We report. You decide.” to “We deceive. You believe.” When applied to media featuring models, some examples of this approach include: (1) Taking an advertisement of a slender model and adding Photoshop tool bars; (2) taking a perfume advertisement that lightened the skin of a model and adding the phrase “This is Aishwarya Rai, and she is Indian. She's been whitewashed;” (3) taking an advertisement for Special-K cereal featuring a woman in a bathing suit and adding the cheeky phrase “Hey there Special-K lady. I know you think I should diet so that I can be slim just like you. thing is, I think I look pretty fabulous just the way I am. Also, Special-K tastes like cardboard so piss off.” This form of political activism is designed to engage audiences in critical media analysis while promoting media literacy. No research, however, has examined whether viewing images that have been subvertised improves body image, reduces social comparison, or reduces desire to be thin.

We hypothesized that women exposed to thin-ideal media images with disclaimer labels or subvertising will report better body image, less drive for thinness, and less social comparison to the images than women exposed to unaltered thin-ideal media images.

Section snippets

Method

We conducted two experiments. To conserve space for this brief report, we describe both studies in this section because the methods and analyses were similar for Studies 1 and 2.

Results

For Study 1, we conducted one-way between subjects ANOVAs for each of the dependent variables, with three levels of image type (disclaimer, subvertising, unaltered) comprising the independent variable. In contrast to the hypothesis, there was no significant main effect of image type on the Body Image States Scale, F(2, 1262) = 1.41, p = .24, 2 = .002, or on Drive for Thinness, F(2, 1217) = 0.29, p = .75, 2 = .000. The means are shown in Fig. 1.

For Study 2, we conducted one-way between subjects ANOVAs

Discussion

The results of these studies provide some reason for pessimism regarding the effectiveness of disclaimers and subvertising for improving body image in response to brief exposure to thin-ideal media. The results of these studies are in line with the generally mixed or null results from past research for the disclaimer labels (Ata et al., 2013, Bury et al., 2016, Selimbegovic and Chatard, 2015, Tiggemann et al., 2013, Veldhuis et al., 2012). There was no evidence of subvertising being effective.

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