^ Until her retirement in 2010, Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist, wrote a regular column for the Boston Globe, where this article first
appeared in May 1999, a few days after many newspapers had featured a news story
about how adolescent Fijian girls' self-image was affected by watching American
TV. Goodman's column generally appeared on the op-ed pages 0/newspapers
across the country. As you read, consider how she uses a discussion of a scientific
study and the evidence it cites to make a claim about what she sees as a larger social
problem. Keep in mind that Goodman wrote this article shortly after the shootings
at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two male students killed and
wounded a number of other students and teachers.
The Culture of Thin Bites Fiji
ELLEN GOODMAN ______________
First of all, imagine a place women
greet one another at the market with
open arms, loving smiles, and a
cheer-fill
exchange
of
ritual
compliments:
"You look wonderful! You've put
on weight!"
Does that sound like dialogue from
Fat Fantasyland? Or a skit from
fat-is-a-feminist-issue satire? Well, this
Western fantasy was a South Pacific
fact of life. In Fiji, before 1995, big
was beautiful and bigger was more
beautiful—and people really did
flatter one another with exclamations
about weight gain.
In this island paradise, food was
not only love, it was a cultural imperative. Eating and overeating were rites
of mutual hospitality. Everyone worried about losing weight—but not the
way we do. "Going thin" was considered to be a sign of some social problem, a worrisome indication the
person wasn't getting enough to eat.
(502)
The Fijians were, to be sure, a bit 5 drawn by Anne Becker, an anthropologist and psychiatrist who directs
obsessed with food; they prescribed
research at the Harvard Eating
herbs to stimulate the appetite. They
were a reverse image of our culture.
Disorders Center. She presented her
And that turns out to be the point.
research at the American Psychiatric
Something happened in 1995. A
Association last week with all the usual
Western mirror was shoved into the
caveats. No, you cannot prove a direct
face of the Fijians. Television came to
causal link0 between television and eatthe island. Suddenly, the girls of rural
ing disorders. Heather Locklear"
coastal villages were watching the
doesn't cause anorexia. Nor does Tori
girls of Melrose Place and Beverly
Spelling0 cause bulimia.
Hills 90210, not to mention Seinfeld
Fiji is not just a Fat Paradise Lost.
and E.R.
It's an economy in transition from
Within 38 months, the number of
subsistence agriculture" to tourism
teenagers at risk for eating disorders
and its entry into the global economy
more than doubled to 29 percent. The
has threatened many old values.
number of high school girls who
Nevertheless, you don't get a much 10
vomited for weight control went up
better lab experiment than this. In just 38
five times to 15 percent. Worse yet, 74
months, and with only one channel, a
percent of the Fiji teens in the study
television-free culture that defined a
said they felt "too big or fat" at least
fat person as robust has become a
some of the time and 62 percent said
television culture that sees robust as,
they had dieted in the past month.
well, repulsive.
This before-and-after television
All that and these islanders didn't
portrait of a body image takeover was
even get Ally McBeal.°
GOODMAN / The Culture of Thin Bites Fiji
"Going thin" is no longer a social
disease but the perceived requirement
for getting a good job, nice clothes,
and fancy cars. As Becker says carefully, "The acute and constant bombardment of certain images in the
media are apparently quite influential
in how teens experience their bodies."
Speaking of Fiji teenagers in a way
that sounds all too familiar, she adds,
"We have a set of vulnerable teens
consuming television. There's a huge
disparity between what they see on
television and what they look like
themselves—that goes not only to
clothing, hairstyles, and skin color,
but size of bodies."
In short, the sum of Western culture, the big success story of our
entertainment industry, is our ability
to export insecurity: We can make any
woman anywhere feel perfectly rotten
about her shape. At this rate, we owe
the islanders at least one year of the
ample lawyer Camryn ManheinT in
The Practice for free.
I'm not surprised by research 15
showing that eating disorders are a
cultural byproduct. We've watched the
female image shrink down to Calista
Flockhart at the same time we've seen
eating problems grow. But Hollywood
hasn't been exactly eager to acknowledge
the connection between image and
illness.
Over the past few weeks since the
Columbine High massacre, we've broken through some denial about violence as a teaching tool. It's pretty
clear that boys are literally learning
how to hate and harm others.
Maybe we ought to worry a little
more about what girls learn: To hate
and harm themselves.
503
SCR
ACTGUI
AW
Calista Flockhart in 1998
causal link: a justified claim
Heather Locklear (1961- ):
subsistence agriculture: a
Camryn Manheim (1961-):
that X causes Y. Scientific
American actress best
model of farming focused on
an actress known for playing
research based on statistics,
known for her television
growing enough to keep
Ellenor Frutt on The Practice,
as is the Becker study that
roles, including Amanda
one's own family and animals
an ABC legal drama that aired
Goodman refers to, cannot
Woodward in Melrose Place.
fed, in contrast to growing
from 1997 until 2004.
food to sell or large-scale
demonstrate causality;
instead, it demonstrates
Tori Spelling (1973- J.-
correlation, a mathematical
American actress and
link between two (or more)
best-selling author.
commercial farming.
Ally McBeal: an
phenomena that is likely not
award-winning Fox television
chance or accidental in
series that aired from 1997
nature. Prolonged exposure to
until 2002 and featured
direct sunlight is correlated
Calista Flockhart—whose
with higher rates of skin
thin figure was often the
cancer, but this fact does not
subject of comment—as a
mean that playing tennis in
young attorney working in
Arizona year-round causes
Boston.
skin cancer.
504
CHAPTER
22
HOW DOES POPULAR CULTURE STEREOTYPE YOU?
RESPOND.
Chapter 11 notes that causal
arguments are often included as part
of other arguments. Goodman's
article reports on Anne Becker's
research (an excerpt of which is
reprinted in the following selection,
beginning on page 505) to support a
larger argument.
LINK TO P. 243
1. What is Goodman's argument? How does she build it around Becker's study
while not limiting herself to that evidence alone? (Consider, especially,
paragraphs 15-17.)
2. What knowledge of popular American culture does Goodman assume that
her Boston Globe audience has? How does she use allusions to American
TV programs to build her argument? Note, for example, that she sometimes
uses such allusions as conversational asides—"All that and these islanders
didn't even get Ally McBeal," and "At this rate, we owe the islanders at least
one year of the ample lawyer Camryn Manheim in The Practice for
free"—to establish her ethos. (For a discussion of ethos, see Chapter 3.) In
what other ways do allusions to TV programs contribute to Goodman's
argument? Would you have understood this article without the glosses to
Ally McBeal and The Practice that the editors have provided? What does
this situation teach you about the need to consider your audience and their
background knowledge as you write? (See Chapter 6 for a discussion of
audience.)
3. At least by implication, if not in fact, Goodman makes a causal argument
about the entertainment industry, women's body image, and the
consequences of such an image. What sort of causal argument does she set
up? (For a discussion of causal arguments, see Chapter 11.) How effective
do you find it? Why?
A Fijian woman—before 1995
4. Many professors would find Goodman's conversational style inappropriate
for most academic writing assignments. Choose several paragraphs of the
text that contain information appropriate for an argumentative academic
paper. Then write a few well-developed paragraphs on the topic.
(Paragraphs 4-8 could be revised in this way, though you would put the
information contained in these five paragraphs into only two or three longer
paragraphs. Newspaper articles often feature short paragraphs of one or two
sentences, which is generally an inappropriate length for paragraphs in
academic writing.)
▼ Anne E. Becker receiued her MD and PhD in anthropology as tuell as her ScM in
epidemiology from Harvard University. Currently, she is uice-chair of the
Department 0/Global Health and Social Medicine, inhere she holds the Maude and
Lillian Pressley Professorship; she also serves as an associate professor of
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, ivhere she directs the Social Sciences
MD-PhD Program. Throughout her career, Becker has conducted/ieldivork in Fiji
on teenage girls and eating disorders, which is sometimes referred to as "disordered
eating" in research on this topic. This selection presents three sections of one of
Becker's research articles, "Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in
Fiji," which originally appeared in a special 2004 issue of the academic journal
Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry devoted to global eating disorders. The sections
presented are "Abstract," "Discussion," and "Conclusions"; if you are familiar with
research articles, you can immediately guess that the missing sections are those
between the abstract and the discussion section that review earlier research on the
topics of the paper, state the research questions to be investigated, describe the
methods used to investigate the research questions, and report the results of the
study. As you read the sections reprinted here, consider how writing about research
for other researchers (as Becker has done here) differs from writing about research
for a popular audience (as Ellen Goodman does in the previous selection, "The
Culture of Thin Bites Fiji," which relies on an earlier oral presentation of Becker's
research as a starting point for Goodman's discussion).
Television, Disordered Eating, and
Young Women in Fiji: Negotiating
Body Image and Identity during
Rapid Social Change
ANNE E. BECKER
ABSTRACT Although the relationship between media exposure and risk behavior
among youth is established at a population level, the specific psychological and
social mechanisms mediating the adverse effects of media on youth remain poorly
understood. This study reports on an investigation of
506
CHAPTER 22
HOW DOES POPULAR CULTURE STEREOTYPE YOU?
narrative data ... semi-structured,
open-ended interviews: data
resulting from oral interviews
during which the girls answered
questions covering a range of
topics and told stories about their
experiences rather than simply
answering the sorts of questions
you find on questionnaires where
the ordering of questions is fixed
and the choices of answers are
given and forced (e.g., Yes/No;
Strongly Agree/Agree/Disagree/
Strongly Disagree).
disparagement: speaking about
in a negative way.
the impact of the introduction of television to a rural community in Western Fiji on
adolescent ethnic Fijian girls in a setting of rapid social and economic
change. Narrative data were collected from 30 purposively selected ethnic
Fijian secondary school girls via semi-structured, open-ended interviews.
Interviews were conducted in 1998, 3 years after television was first broadcast to this region of Fiji. Narrative data were analyzed for content relating to
response to television and mechanisms that mediate self and body image in
Fijian adolescents. Data in this sample suggest that media imagery is used in
both creative and destructive ways by adolescent Fijian girls to navigate
opportunities and conflicts posed by the rapidly changing social environment. Study respondents indicated their explicit modeling of the perceived
positive attributes of characters presented in television dramas, but also the
beginnings of weight and body shape preoccupation, purging behavior to
control weight, and body disparagement. Response to television appeared to
be shaped by a desire for competitive social positioning during a period of
rapid social transition. Understanding vulnerability to images and values
imported with media will be critical to preventing disordered eating and,
, .
,
potentially, other youth risk behaviors in this population, as well as other something
populations at risk.
KEY WORDS: body image, eating disorders, Fiji, modernization
DISCUSSION
Minimally, and at the most superficial level, narrative data reflect a shift in fashion
among the adolescent ethnic Fijian population studied. A shift in aesthetic ideals is
remarkable in and of itself given the numerous social mechanisms that have long
supported the preference for large bodies. Moreover, this change reflects a
disruption of both apparently stable traditional preference for a robust body shape
and the traditional disinterest in reshaping the body (Becker 1995).
Subjects' responses to television in this study also reflect a more complicated
reshaping of personal and cultural identities inherent in their endeavors to reshape
their bodies. Traditionally for Fijians, identity had been fixed not so much in the
body as in family, community, and relationships with others, in contrast to
Western-cultural models that firmly fix identity in the body/self. Comparatively
speaking, social identity is manipulated and projected through personal, visual
props in many Western social contexts, whereas this was less true in Fiji. Instead,
Fijians have traditionally invested themselves in nurturing others—efforts that are
then concretized in the bod-
BECKER / Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in Fiji
ies that one cares for and feeds. Hence, identity is represented (and experienced)
individually and collectively through the well-fed bodies of others, not through
one's own body (again, comparatively speaking) (Becker 1995). In addition, since
Fiji's economy has until recently been based in subsistence agriculture, and since
multiple cultural practices encourage distribution of material resources, traditional
Fijian identity has also not been represented through the ability to purchase and
accumulate material goods.
More broadly than interest in body shape, however, the qualitative data
demonstrate a rather concrete identification with television characters as role
models of successful engagement in Western, consumeristic lifestyles. Admiration
and emulation of television characters appears to stem from recognition that
traditional channels are ill-equipped to assist Fijian adolescents in navigating the
landscape of rapid social change in Fiji. Unfortunately,
while affording an opportunity to develop identities syntonic with the shifting social context, the behavioral modeling on Western appearance and customs appears to have undercut traditional cultural resources for identity-making
(Becker et al. 2002). Specifically, narrative data reveal here that traditional sources
of information about self-presentation and public comportment have been
supplanted by captivating and convincing role models depicted in televised
programming and commercials.
It is noteworthy that the interest in reshaping the body differs in subtle 5 but
important ways from the drive for thinness observed in other social
contexts. The discourse on reshaping the body is, indeed, quite explicitly
and pragmatically focused on competitive social positioning—for both
employment opportunities and peer approval. This discourse on weight
and body shape is suffused with moral as well as material associations (i.e.,
that appear to be commentary on the social body). That is, repeatedly expressed
sentiment that excessive weight results in laziness and undermines domestic
productivity may reflect a concern about how Fijians will "measure up" in the
global economy. The juxtaposition of extreme affluence depicted on most
television programs against the materially impoverished Fijians associates the
nearly uniformly thin bodies and restrained appetites of television characters with
the (illusory) promise of economic opportunity and success. Each child's future, as
well as the fitness of the social body, seems to be at stake.
In this sense, disordered eating among the Fijian schoolgirls in this study
appears to be primarily an instrumental means of reshaping body and identity to
enhance social and economic opportunities. From this perspective, it may be
premature to comment on whether or not disordered eating behaviors share the
same meaning as similar behaviors in other cultural contexts.
507
syntonic: emotionally responsive
to one's environment.
discourse: here, the kinds of
comments young girls made
about a particular topic during
the interviews.
508
CHAPTER
22
nosologic: relating to diseases.
HOW DOES POPULAR CULTURE STEREOTYPE YOU?
It is also premature to say whether these behaviors correspond well to
Western nosologic categories describing eating disorders. Regardless of any
differences in psychological significance of the behaviors, however, physiologic
risks will be the same. Quite possibly—and this remains to be studied in further
detail—disordered eating may also be a symbolic embodiment of the anxiety and
conflict the youth experience on the threshold of rapid social
BECKER / Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in Fiji
change in Fiji and during their personal and collective navigation through it.
Moreover, there is some preliminary evidence that the disordered eating is
accompanied by clinical features associated with the illnesses elsewhere and eating
disorders may be emerging in this context. Finally, television has certainly
imported more than just images associating appearance with material success; it has
arguably enhanced reflexivity about the possibility of reshaping one's body and life
trajectory and popularized the notion of competitive social positioning.
The impact of imported media in societies undergoing transition on local values
has been demonstrated in multiple societies (e.g., Cheung and Chan 1996;
Granzberg 1985; Miller 1998; Reis 1998; Tan et al. 1987; Wu 1990). As others have
argued in other contexts, ideas from imported media can be used to negotiate
"hybrid identities" (Barker 1997) and otherwise incorporated into various strategies
for social positioning (Mazzarella 2003) and coping with modernization (Varan
1998). Likewise and ironically, here as elsewhere in the world (see Anderson-Fye
2004), Fijian youth must craft an identity which adopts Western values about
productivity and efficiency in the workplace while simultaneously selling their
Fijian-ness (an essential asset to their role in the tourist industry). Self-presentation
is thus carefully constructed so as to bridge and integrate dual identities. That these
identities are not consistently smoothly fused is evidenced in the ambivalence in the
narratives about how thin a body is actually ideal.
The source of the emerging disordered eating among ethnic Fijian girls thus
appears multifactorial and multidetermined. Media images that associate thinness
with material success and marketing that promotes the possibility of reshaping the
body have supported a perceived nexus between diligence (work on the body),
appearance (thinness), and social and material success (material possessions,
economic opportunities, and popularity with peers). Fijian self-presentation has
absorbed new dimensions related to buying into Western styles of appearance and
the ethos of work on the body. A less articulated parallel to admiration for
characters, bodies, and lifestyles portrayed on imported television is the
demoralizing perception of not comparing favorably as a population. It is as though
a mirror was held up to these girls in which they perhaps saw themselves as poor
and overweight. The eagerness they express in grooming themselves to be hard
workers or perhaps obtain competitive jobs perhaps reflects their collective energy
and anxiety about how they, as individuals, and as a Fijian people, are going to fare
in a globalizing world. Thus preoccupation with weight loss and the restrictive
eating and purging certainly reflect pragmatic strategies to optimize social and
economic success. At the same time, they surely contribute
509
reflexivity: self-reflection.
Becker uses survey and interview
data to support her argument about
eating disorders in Fiji. Chapter 4
offers examples of "hard evidence"
used in arguments based on fact.
LINK TO P. 56
multifactorial and multidetermined:
created by many factors and caused
by many forces.
nexus: a point of convergence or
intersection.
510
C H A P T E R 22
HOW DOES POPULAR CULTURE STEREOTYPE YOU1
to body- and self-disparagement and reflect an embodied distress about the
uncertainty of personal future and the social body.
epidemiologic data: data, likely
Epidemiologic data' from other populations confirm an association
quantitative, concerning the
between social transition (e.g., transnational migration, modernization,
cause, spread, and control of
urbanization) and disordered eating among vulnerable groups (Andersondiseases.
Fye and Becker 2004). In particular, the association between upward mobility
and disordered eating across diverse populations has relevance here (Anderson-Fye
2000; Buchan and Gregory 1984; Silber 1986; Soomro et al. 1995; Yates 1989).
Exposure to Western media images and ideas may further contribute to disordered
eating by first promoting comparisons that result in perceived economic and social
disadvantage and then promoting the notion that efforts to reshape the body will
enhance social status. It can be argued that girls and young women undergoing
social transition may perceive that social status is enhanced by positioning oneself
competitively through the informed use of cultural symbols—e.g., by bodily
appearance and thinness (Becker and Hamburg 1996). This is comparable to
observations that children of immigrants to the U.S. (for whom the usual parental
"map of experience" is lacking) substitute alternative "cultural guides" from the
media as resources for negotiating successful social strategies (Suarez-Orozco and
Suarez-Orozco 2001). In both scenarios, adolescent girls and young women
assimilating to new cultural standards encounter a ready cultural script for
comportment and appearance in the media.
CONCLUSIONS
"I've wondered how television is made and how the actress and actors, I
always wondered how television, how people acted on it, and I'm kind of
wondering whether it's true or not." (S-48)
The increased prevalence of disordered eating in ethnic Fijian schoolgirls 10 is not
the only story—or even the most important one—that can be pieced together from the
respondents' narratives on television and its impact.1 Nor are images and values
transmitted through televised media singular forces in the chain of events that has led
to an apparent increase in disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. The impact of
media coupled with other sweeping economic and social change is likely to affect
Fijian youth and adults in many ways. On the other hand, this particular story allows a
window into the powerful impact and vulnerability of this adolescent female
population. This story also allows a frame for exploring resilience and suggesting
interventions for future research.
BECKER / Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in Fiji
In some important ways, Fiji is a unique context for investigating the impact of
media imagery on adolescents. In Fiji in particular, the evolving and multiple—and
potentially overlapping or dissonant—social terrain presents novel challenges and
opportunities for adolescents navigating their way in the absence of guidance from
"conventional" wisdom and social hierarchies that may have grown obsolete in
some respects. Doubtless the profound ways in which adolescent girls are
influenced by media imagery extend beyond the borders of Fiji and the ways in
which young women in Fiji consume and reflect on televised media may suggest
mechanisms for its impact on youth in other social contexts. This study, therefore,
allows insight into the ways in which social change intersects with the
developmental tasks of adolescence to pose the risk of eating disorders and other
youth risk behaviors.
Adolescent girls and young women in this and other indigenous, small-scale
societies may also be especially vulnerable to the effects of media exposure for
several key reasons. For example, in the context of rapid social change, these girls
and young women may lack traditional role models for how to successfully
maneuver in a shifting economic and political environment. Moreover, in societies
in which status is traditionally ascribed rather than achieved," girls and women may
feel more compelled to secure their social position through a mastery of
self-presentation that draws heavily from imported media. It is a logical and
frightening conclusion that vulnerable girls and women across diverse populations
who feel marginalized from the locally dominant culture's sources of prestige and
status may anchor
ascribed status: status that one is
granted by others, often on the basis
of external qualities (for example,
being a firstborn son in a society that
values male children and pays
attention to birth order).
achieved status: status that one
Singer-songwriter Jill Scott plays Precious
somehow wins or attains (for
Ramotswe, owner of the No. I Ladies' Detective
example, placing first in a
Agency, in the television minise-ries about
Alexander McCall Smith's fictional sleuth, set in
Botswana. Ramotswe frequently reflects on her
status as a "traditionally built" African woman in a
society where standards of female attractiveness
are rapidly changing.
511
competition).
HOW DOES POPULAR CULTURE STEREOTYPE YOU7
their identities in widely recognized cultural symbols of prestige popularized by
media-imported ideas, values, and images. Further, these girls and women have no
reference for comparison of the televised images to the "realities" they portray and
thus to critique and deconstruct the images they see compared with girls and women
who are "socialized" into a culture of viewership. Without thoughtful
interventions2—yet to be explored with the affected communities—the unfortunate
outcome is likely to be continued increasing rates of disordered eating and other
youth risk behaviors in vulnerable populations undergoing rapid modernization and
social transition.
NOTES
1. For example, the increased incidence of suicide and other self-injury in Fiji
(Pridmore et al. 1995) may index social distress related to rapid social change.
2. Prevention efforts that might be useful include psychoeducational information
about the psychological and medical risks associated with bingeing, purging, and
self-starvation as well as media literacy programs that assist youth in critical and
informed viewing of televised programming and commercials.
REFERENCES
Anderson-Fye, E.P. 2000 Self-Reported Eating Attitudes Among High School Girls
in Belize: A Quantitative Survey. Unpublished Qualifying Paper. Department of
Human Development and Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Anderson-Fye, E. 2004 A "Coca-Cola" Shape: Cultural Change, Body Image, and
Eating Disorders in San Andres, Belize. Culture, Medicine and Society 28: 561-595.
Anderson-Fye, E., and A.E. Becker 2004 Socio-Cultural Aspects of Eating Disorders.
In Handbook of Eating Disorders and Obesity. J.K.Thompson, ed., pp. 565-589.
Wiley. Barker, C. 1997 Television and the Reflexive Project of the Self: Soaps,
Teenage Talk and Hybrid Identities. British Journal of Sociology 48: 611-628.
Becker, A.E.
1995 Body, Self, Society: The View from Fiji. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
Becker, A.E., and P. Hamburg
1996 Culture, the Media, and Eating Disorders. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 4:
163-167.
Becker, A.E., R.A. Burwell, S.E. Gilman, D.B. Herzog, and P. Hamburg 2002 Eating
Behaviors and Attitudes Following Prolonged Television Exposure Among
Ethnic Fijian Adolescent Girls. British Journal of Psychiatry 180: 509-514.
BECKER / Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in Fiji
Buchan.T, and L.D. Gregory
1984 Anorexia Nervosa in a Black Zimbabwean. British Journal of Psychiatry
145: 326-330.
Cheung, C.K., and C.F. Chan 1996 Television Viewing and Mean World Value in
Hong Kong's Adolescents. Social Behavior and Personality 24: 351-364. Granzberg,
G.
1985 Television and Self-Concept Formation in Developing Areas. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology 16: 313-328.
Mazzarella, W. 2003 Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in
Contemporary India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Miller, C.J. 1998 The
Social Impacts of Televised Media Among the Yucatec Maya. Human Organization
57: 307-314. Pridmore, S., K. Ryan, and L. Blizzard 1995 Victims of Violence in
Fiji. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 29:666-670. Reis, R. 1998
The Impact of Television Viewing in the Brazilian Amazon. Human Organization
57: 300-306. Silber.T.J.
1986 Anorexia Nervosa in Blacks and Hispanics. International Journal of Eating
Disorders 5:121-128.
Soomro, G.M., A.H. Crisp, D. Lynch, D.TVan, and N. Joughin
1995 Anorexia Nervosa in "Non-White" Populations. British Journal of Psychiatry
167: 385-389. Suarez-Orozco, C, and M.M. Suarez-Orozco
2001 Children of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tan,
A.S., G.K. Tan, and A.S. Tbn
1987 American TV in the Philippines: A Test of Cultural Impact. Journalism
Quarterly 64:65-72,144.
Varan, D. 1998 The Cultural Erosion Metaphor and the TTanscultural Impact of
Media Systems. Journal of Communication 48: 58-85. Wu,Y.K. 1990 Television and
the Value Systems of Taiwan's Adolescents: A Cultivation Analysis. Dissertation
Abstracts International 50: 3783A. Yates, A. 1989 Current Perspectives on the Eating
Disorders: I. History, Psychological and Biological Aspects. Journal of the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 28(6): 813-828.
(513
CHAPTER 22
HOW DOES POPULAR CULTURE STEREOTYPE YOU7
RESPOND*
1. How does Becker link exposure to Western media to the changing
notions young Fijian women have of their own bodies? Why does
Becker claim these women now want to be thin? How are these
changes linked to other social changes occurring in Fiji, to adolescence, and to gender, especially in small-scale societies?
2. As Becker notes, she relies on qualitative data—specifically, interview
data—to support her arguments. Why are such data especially appropriate, given her goals of understanding the changing social meanings
of body image for young Fijian women as part of other rapid social
changes taking place in Fiji? (For a discussion of firsthand evidence,
see Chapter 17.)
3. Throughout the "Discussion" and "Conclusions" sections, Becker
repeatedly qualifies her arguments to discourage readers from
extending them further than she believes her data warrant. Find two
cases where she does so, and explain the specific ways that she
reminds readers of the limits of her claims. (For a discussion on qualifying claims and arguments, see Chapter 7.)
4. These excerpts from Becker's article represent research writing for an
academic audience. What functions does each of the reprinted sections
serve for the article's readers, and why is each located where it is? Why,
for example, is an abstract placed at the beginning of an article? Why
are key words a valuable part of an abstract?
5. In paragraph 3, in the "Discussion" section of her article, Becker compares and contrasts how Westerners (which would include Americans)
and Fijians understand identity, especially as it relates to the body.
Write an essay in which you evaluate Becker's characterization of
Western notions of identity. (For a discussion of evaluative arguments,
see Chapter 10.) Unless you have detailed knowledge of a culture very
different from Western cultures (Fiji, for example), you may want to
begin by trying to demonstrate that Becker's assessment is correct, at
least to some degree, rather than claiming that she misunderstands
the West. Once you've conceded that there's at least some truth in her
assessment, you may be able to cite cases of American subcultures
that don't "firmly fix identity in the body/self."