As part of my A2 Media Studies coursework, I have been asked to complete coursework in the form of a critical investigation and a linked production of my choice. The subject matter is chosen individually and I have decided to base my coursework on the idea of 'perfect' beauty and the ideal body image. As a teenage girl the media has definetly had an impact on what I believed was beautiful and how and what I should look like. However as I got older I started to question who actually decides what is beautiful and why a stereotypical image of beauty like the 'Barbie Doll' look is considered so amazing and so sought after despite only 8 women in this country actually looking like that.

Giving women an unattainable and unrealistic image of beauty is causing many women to go through extreme and unnessacary lengths to try and achieve it. Shouldn't beauty reflect humans rather then plastic dolls? Beauty cannot really be defined in terms of appearence because every women is different yet the media do. In this essay, I will be exploring how beauty is portrayed in the media, what it looks like and who decides this.. I will also be looking at the effects it has on women and if it is doing more harm than good.  
 
In the media, there is not enough of an emphasis of different body shapes being represented in advertisements, magazines, websites and other forms of the media. An example of this can be seen from the Love Your Body campaign in which they found only 5% of females naturally posess the body type most portrayed in adevertising campaigns as the ideal body image. This shows how body image is wrongly portrayed in the media and how unrealistic it is. The negative effect it has on women is giving major  concerns to campaigns and instituations how want to change the ideal body image from one perfect body type to a range of acceptable body types to be shown as being beautiful in their own way.
 
My Objective is to finally decide on a which subject of Critical Investigation and Linked Production I will produce based on a list I have made.
 
I have a lovely introduction... WooHoo!