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COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES
LESSON 12.4
EXERCISE 5 (PAGE 123)
SITUATION 1
When it was raining, Timothy Dawson carried an
umbrella.
LESSON 5.1
EXERCISE 7A (PAGE 47)
STUDENT B
LESSON 5.2
EXERCISE 2 (PAGE 48)
LESSON 5.3
EXERCISE 8A (PAGE 51)
MOTHER
You feel very strongly that your son should have a bike
that is very safe, not too big and not too fast. You have
heard stories about terrible accidents with quad bikes.
You don’t want one with a big engine.
Advertisers regularly edit and touch up images to make
their models more attractive so that consumers will spend
more money on their products and services. However, this
manipulation of images has been attracting increasing criticism
from the general public and also from celebrities. There is
a feeling that photoshopping has gone too far and that it is
harmful to society, and especially to young people.
The argument is simple. Constant exposure to digitally-enhanced
pictures that show apparently ‘perfect’ people is distorting
children’s and young adults’ view of the world. It can cause
young people to have unrealistic expectations about their body
image and can lead to eating disorders and emotional problems.
No wonder that fifty percent of women between sixteen and
twenty-one say they
would consider cosmetic surgery. And some teenagers are
even having their school photographs airbrushed to make them
appear like models.
Thankfully, governments are beginning to put pressure on the
advertising industry. In the United Kingdom, the Advertising
Standards Authority banned an advertisement featuring the
actress Julia Roberts. They said that the flawless skin seen in
the photo was too good to be true. Other governments are
proposing that all digitally-enhanced images should have a
warning label.
There have also been developments in the celebrity world, with
a number of famous people taking action. Kate Winslet famously
took action against fashion magazine for digitally altering her
body in its photographs, making her unrealistically thin. When
Brad Pitt appeared on the cover of a magazine, he requested
that there should be no retouching and selected a photographer,
Chuck Close, who was well known for his detailed portraits
that showed skin flaws. Britney Spears agreed to show ‘un-
airbrushed images of herself next to the digitally-altered ones.’
Her aim was to ‘highlight the pressure put on women to look
perfect’. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ images of Britney Spears were
striking. Some of the changes made to the original photograph
made her look very different.
Manipulating images of people in commercials is not acceptable
because it is particularly damaging to young people. They are
being set impossible standards of body image by the widespread
use of this technique – photoshopped images destroy young
people’s self-esteem. We need to follow the example set by
some celebrities and refuse to accept this practice. And we need
to put pressure on our government to introduce more legislation.
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