Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
9th European Communication Conference, Aarhus, Danimarka, 19 - 22 Ekim 2022
Social media play a substantive role in the body image of adolescents. As frequent social media users, adolescents
often view imagery of idealized appearances displayed online (Holland & Tiggemann, 2016). Social media are
well-recognized for featuring selectively posted and digitally altered pictures of unattainably thin, muscular, and attractive
bodies (Saiphoo & Vahedi, 2020). Exposure to this kind of social media content has been linked to negative
body image and eating disturbances (Holland & Tiggemann, 2016), yet the previous research did not sufficiently
consider the role of communicative context accompanying social media idealized images. As the interaction with
others is a key affordance of social media, appearance-related images are commonly evaluated by users via
“likes”, emojis, and comments that praise a person’s appearance (e.g., “Great body!”). Such endorsing reactions
can reinforce the images’ adverse effects on body image, especially for adolescents who are prone to adhere to
appearance peer norms. However, the evidence is yet limited. The few studies (e.g., Tiggemann & Barbato, 2018)
that focused on the role of endorsing social media comments in body image have two main drawbacks: The role of
individual susceptibility characteristics that may determine the effect of endorsing comments has been neglected,
and we lack studies among adolescent boys. To overcome these gaps, the current experimental study examined
the impact of the comments endorsing appearance ideals on social media on body dissatisfaction among
adolescent girls and boys. We also investigated moderating effects of the tendency to internalize media ideals,
appearance schematicity, body appreciation, and gender. The data collected from 613 Czech adolescents (52%
girls) aged 13–18 (M = 15.5, SD = 1.7) did not support the presumed effect of exposure to endorsing comments on
body dissatisfaction, nor the moderating role of the investigated individual characteristics, except for gender. The
results showed that while the comments did not increase body dissatisfaction among boys, they did so among
adolescent girls. The further exploratory analyses also showed that the impact of endorsing comments depended
on the perceived attractiveness of the depicted girls and boys: the comments induced body dissatisfaction only
when the depicted person was perceived as highly attractive. The findings implicate that targeting the perceived
attractiveness of the media ideals could be an effective way to prevent the adverse influence of endorsing comments
on body image.
Holland, G., & Tiggemann, M. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of the use of social networking sites on
body image and disordered eating outcomes. Body Image, 17, 100–110. doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.02.008
Saiphoo, A. N., & Vahedi, Z. (2019). A meta-analytic review of the relationship between social media use and body
image disturbance. Computers in Human Behavior, 101, 259–275. doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.028