Print media profoundly affects people's perceptions.
Print media, such as magazines, newspapers and graphic novels, has been around for centuries, spreading information and opinions, and helping people to form a view of the world. Even with televisions and computers doing part of that job, print media still informs many of our views. Some people believe that printed media uses this influence in ways that hurts the public in order to increase sales and ad revenue.
Body Image
Fashion magazines and men's magazines that usually put women on the front cover draw criticism on two fronts. The first is that consistently presenting women sexually objectifies them, affecting the way that men and women interact. This may be difficult to prove, but the second criticism is more concrete. According to Sara Cohen, cover models became steadily thinner over four decades, at the same time that the incidence of anorexia in American girls doubled. Cohen says that these covers cultivate the belief that it is important to be thin, and as the standards of thinness depicted on covers and women's normal sizes diverged, the result was an increase in eating disorders.
Crime
Perception of crime is highly dependent on local news reporting. Research by Kenneth Dowler shows that when people are exposed to crime stories from their own area they are more likely to feel afraid of crime, while crime stories from other places make them feel more secure because their cities are relatively safer. People who had been victims of crime were more likely to be affected than those who had not. Dowler also cites studies that say people who are statistically less likely to be affected by crime, including women, white people and the elderly, are more likely to be affected by crime reporting than men and non-whites. Television has an even stronger impact on people's perceptions of crime than print media.
Politics
Media is often called on to act as the government's watchdog, but it can just as often be used to help governments direct public opinion. In his analysis of media in the Arab world, Lawrence Pintak cites studies showing that print media played a key role in shaping Palestinian views against the early Zionists. He also tells that the Saudi Arabian print media did not report on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for 48 hours so that the Saudi government would have time to decide how it would respond before its citizens knew anything had happened. Pintak claims that this type of control has been reduced by the Qatari-based "Al-Jazeera." He cites the creation of Egypt's independent "Al-Masry Al-Youm," but government run newspapers such as Egypt's "Al-Ahram" still have considerable influence.
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