Running head: PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 1

Womens Fashion on Pinterest and the Underlying Messages

Sarah Seneca
Messiah College



























PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 2
1. Introduction

Inspiration for womens appearance can come in various ways. From celebrities in a
magazine, to an advertisement on television, inspiration is key when choosing how to present
oneself. Sociocultural standards of feminine beauty are presented in almost all forms of popular
media, barraging women with images that portray what is considered to be the ideal appearance
(Serdar, 2005). Media portrays the ideal women as put together, thin, flawless, and fashion
forward. Pinterest, a popular imaged based media website, has developed into one of the largest
platforms enabling women to express themselves. The sites Womens Fashion category
consists hundreds of pictures, motivating women to become inspired by trendy outfits and
appearances. Medias affect on women is a topic that has saturated the journalism field however,
medias affect on women in regards to Pinterest has not been analyzed. What underlying
messages is the Womens Fashion category on Pinterest sending to women? Through textual
analysis, this study will take a rhetorical approach and assess images displayed on the Womens
Fashion page to unfold unrecognized messages.

1.2 Pinterest

According to Pinterests site, this type of social media is, a tool for collecting and
organizing the things that inspire you (Pinterest, 2013). Pinterest revolves around the metaphor
of a pin board. Users pin photos they nd on the web and organize them into topical
collections, such as hobbies, sports, fashion, etc. Pinterest users, called pinners, can follow one
another and also re-pin, like, and comment on other pins (Gilbert, Bakhshi, Chang, &
Terveen , 2013). Once their account is created, users begin searching for pins that inspire them,
and reflect their style. Pinterest also has a popular option, where the user can view the most
popular pins by category. In an interview with Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann, he stated,
"What you collect says so much about who you are (Shontell, 2012). As a child, Silbermann
enjoyed collecting things, from insects to stamps. Silbermanns intention for Pinterest was to
build a site which helped people continue their collections online.
Although currently Pinterest is successful, Silbermann would describe his initial attempt
at creating Pinterest as seemingly, another failed project. Iowa raised, Silbermanns first job out
of college was with Google, although he lacked an engineering background. His initial feelings of
being lucky to work at such a successful company lead to him wanting more. Silbermann took
two things away from his Google experience: he learned to think big and he was exposed to
people who built amazing products. Once he resigned from Google, Silbermann spent the next
few months figuring out his life. After several failed project attempts, he partnered up with a
friend from college and began creating Pinterest. Eventually, the site started to catch on but
Silbermann says Pinterest wasn't an overnight success (Shontell, 2012). Currently, Pinterest is the
fastest growing social media site encompassing over 70 million users in just three years since its
creation (Smith, 2013).

1.3 Pinterest and Womens Fashion

As of 2013 80% of the 70 million Pinterest users are women. (Smith 2013). Nearly half
of these users are between the ages of 23 and 44. On the Womens Fashion page, less than 20%
of these Pinterest images contain faces (Smith, 2013). Womens Fashion seems to be a forum for
PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 3
building up "innocent" fantasies such as dream closets, and in this (Wallace, 2012). Womens
Fashion is arguably the most popular category to browse as it encourages consumer tendencies.
These fantasies engage both a visual and emotional fantasy that is often disconnected from reality.
Associate editor for BuildingChurchLeaders.com - Laura Leonard claimed, By collecting and
displaying these images, we are laying ourselves and our desire out for all to see (Leonard,
2011). Looking at the Womens Fashion category from a users surface level approach, one may
think they are simply repining ideas that are inspired, and cute. However, this paper aims to take a
deeper look at the underlying messages that the Fashion category is sending to women, as well as
how women unknowingly interact with these messages on a daily basis. Furthermore, the question
for this rhetorical analysis remains, What underlying messages is the Womens Fashion category
on Pinterest sending to women?

2. Literature Review

Cultural standards of feminine beauty are displayed in almost every form of popular
media, bombarding women with images that portray what is the ideal body. The cultural
standard of female beauty is unattainable for most women causing detrimental effects such as
unhealthy body weight and insecurities. Media influences women to think that in order to be
beautiful, she must be unhealthy. Women have developed the mindset that a woman can never be
too rich or too thin. This mindset is making it difficult for females to achieve any level of
satisfaction and contentment with their physical appearance (Serdar 2005).
Body image is a complicated aspect of the self-concept that concerns an individual's
perceptions and feelings about their body and physical appearance (Cash & Pruzinsky, 2002).
Researchers are referring to womens insecurities about physical appearance as normative
discontent. Normative discontent implies that body dissatisfaction will impact every woman at
one point in their life, its inevitable (Striegel & Schreiber, 2000). In recent years, womens body
sizes have actually grown larger, yet societal standards have become much thinner (Spitzer,
Henderson, & Zivian, 1999).
With Societal standards so thin, the rate of women with eating disorders is higher than
ever. Many of the models shown on television, advertisements, and in other forms of popular
media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the diagnostic criteria for
anorexia nervosa (Dittmar & Howard, 2004). A study was performed amongst Fijian adolescent
girls assessing the impact of novel, prolonged exposure to television on disordered eating
attitudes and behaviors. Cross-sectional design was used to compare two samples of Fijian
schoolgirls before and after prolonged regional television exposure. Key indicators of disordered
eating were significantly more prevalent following exposure. Narrative data revealed subjects
interest in weight loss as a denote of modeling themselves after television characters. This
experiment suggests negative impact of television on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors in
a media-naive population. This experiment also exhibits the impact that images have on females
from a young age (Becker, Burwell, Herzog, Hamburg, & Gilman, 2002).
Jaehee Jung, a professor at the University of Delaware, performed a study which
employed repeated measures designed to asses the effects on womens mood and body image
after exposure to attractive models in the media on women's mood and body image. Jungs study
consisted of one hundred six college women participants. These students were divided into two
groups (high-vs. low-appearance self-schema), and their mood and body image were measured
twice with an interval of 4 weeks. The study found that exposure to media images had an
PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 4
influence on women's mood by decreasing positive mood and elevating anxiety and depression
from preexposure to postexposure. In both pre-and post exposure conditions, women with high-
appearance self-schema exhibited significantly greater negative mood and lower body
dissatisfaction and appearance evaluation than did those with low-appearance self-schema. This
study suggests that media images of thinness and attractiveness may negatively affect college
women's mood (Jung, 2006).
Kathy Wilcox and James Laird, professor at Clark University, acknowledge that some
women enjoy examining media depictions of extremely slender models, while others find such
depictions produce feelings of inadequacy. Wilcox and Laird examined forty-one women and
randomly assigned them to view pictures of slender or normal-weight models and to respond to
scales measuring body esteem and self-esteem. The importance of personal, bodily cues in
feeling processes was also determined by inducing the women to adopt facial expressions of
emotion and assessing whether their feelings changed to match their expressions. Wilcox and
Laird found, Among women whose emotions were based on personal cues, looking at slender
models produced lower self-esteem and satisfaction with their weight as compared to women
viewing more robust models, apparently reflecting social-comparison processes. Among women
unresponsive to personal cues, looking at slender models increased self-esteem and satisfaction
with their weight, apparently due to identification (Wilcox & Laird, 2000).
Body image, and self perception messages sent by the Pinterest Womens Fashion page is
a topic that has yet to be analyzed. There is a lot more to the images, than the clothing being
advertised. This topic begs for interpretation as 80 percent of Pinterest users are women.
Researchers have examined the grueling affects that media has on womens perception of ideal
beauty. This study aims to uncover the affects of Pinterest through its research question, What
underlying messages is the Womens Fashion category on Pinterest sending to women?

3. Method

3.1 Rhetorical Analysis

This study used Rhetorical Analysis to interpret the underlying messages the Womens
Fashion category on Pinterest is sending to women. Rhetorical Analysis is no longer confined to
just speech and written materials, however expanded to mass media. Rhetorical theory is now
being used to interpret works found on radio, television, and film - mass-mediated culture. In
media and communication research, rhetoric plays an important role because it gives us a large
number of concepts that enable us to understand how a text generates meaning and helps shape
people's emotions and behaviors. Arthur Berger provides several examples where rhetorical
analysis can be applied; commercials, books, speeches, television shows, movies, social media,
culture, books, etc. This rhetorical analysis on Pinterest compiled information by asking
rhetorical questions to interpret data. When writing a Rhetorical Analysis, Arthur Asa Berger
suggests several questions to consider during the process of interpreting images (Berger, 2014).

3.2 Example Questions

This study will focus on the following questions:
1. What is the image about? What is the subject of the image?
2. What is the primary message of the image? Are there secondary messages?
PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 5
3. What are the denotated/connotated messages of the image?
4. What feelings and connotations are created by the image?
5. What role does lighting play in the image?
6. What colors are found in the image?
7. What are the people in the image like? What do their faces convey?
8. What is emphasized in the image?
9. What time of camera shots are found in the image?
10. What do you think is the target audience for the image?

4. Results

3.1 Womens Fashion and a False Reality

Pinterest is a site of visual pleasure. The Womens Fashion page has deeper messages
and affects than what seems to meet the eye. The messages which are being sent through these
images represent roles and rules for women. Images on the Womens Fashion page can be
deceiving because they seem to represent reality, draw attention to persuasive messages, elicit an
emotional response, serve as proof, and make arguments in ways words cannot. The photographs
suggest that it is normal and even desirable for women to be gazed at as objects. There is great
emphasis on the body, as many images are meant to show off the womans figure. Furthermore,
what is proposed in the photographs as normal and beautiful, is thin and typically a white female.
By images focusing on the clothing, the images are also focusing on the body. In addition,
scarcely ever are there images of ethnic women. If the user wants to see any other ethnicity than
Caucasian, they would have to type the specific race into the search key because it does not
appear often on the popular page.

3.2 Target Audience

Pinterest doesnt claim to have a specific target audience however the users typically
range from teen to middle aged women. Although the target audience is wide, the images on the
popular page for Womens Fashion have images of women in their late teens to early thirties.
These images can be emotionally and psychologically damaging to the users. Girls between the
ages of 12 and 16 are using Pinterest and may be influenced by a style that is too mature for their
age. Clothing that a 25 year old woman is wearing in a picture, a 12 year old girl may now try to
replicate. These young girls are being brainwashed into thinking that ultra thin, and developed
bodies are now the norm at their age. On the other spectrum, women in their 40s and 50s may
constantly compare themselves to young women feeling constant dissatisfaction. Although the
popular Womens Fashion page can be inspirational it can also lead to messages of discontent as
women try to measure up to the images they are repining.
Although many images do not display the womans face, when a womans face is seen
she is typically smiling or expressing happiness. Many women appear sexy in the faces they
are making, and the way they are standing. The underlying message relayed is that if you wear
the clothing shown, and are thin, than you are happy. Women look at the images and are drawn
not only into the clothing being worn, but the nonverbals such as facial expressions.


PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 6
3.3 Unseen Images

We talk a lot about the images being displayed, and the messages in which they send
however, there is something to be said about the images not being shown on the popular page.
Could messages sent through the images not displayed suggest that ethnic and curvy women are
not considered beautiful in our culture? For example, there arent images of women with
blemishes on the popular page. Furthermore this may lead women to believe that it is normal to
have perfect skin, and if they dont they are not normal or considered beautiful in our culture.

3.4 Virtual Experience

Women search fashion for inspiration, but it is crucial to understand the power of an
images. Womens Fashion seems to be a forum for building up "innocent" fantasies such as
dream closet, but what are these visuals saying? Visuals possess the characteristic of presence
because of their immediacy, the creation of something in front of an audiences consciousness
(Berger, 2014). The images on Pinterest can create virtual experiences in a particularly intense
way, by making the users feel as though they actually own the clothes they are pinning. If a user
actually clicks on the images to explore where to purchase the clothing, the store doesn't always
appear and if it does the prices are typically extremely expensive. The average person cant
afford, or may choose to not purchase clothing of that expense, however still pin these outfits.
Women are comparing themselves and their closets to designer wear that they probably will
never purchase making Pinterest this fantasy closet.

3.5 Pinterest and Advertising

Women have the ability to upload images of their outfits, however many companies are
now using Pinterest as a means for advertising. If a woman really likes an outfit, she will click on
it to find out where she can purchase it. Furthermore, the purposes of the images arent just to
inspire, but to market a product or brand. Women are constantly being victims of advertising due
to their unawareness. When a woman sees an image of a stylish person wearing a particular
brand, the image does not merely depict that persons use of the brand. Instead, the image wants
the viewer to see herself wearing the brand in order to be like the stylish person in the picture.
The images on Pinterest are a form of visual communication. Visual artifacts provoke intended
and unintended meanings for individual and collective identity. Women are more than being
inspired by an outfit, they are identifying with it.

3.6 Lighting, Angle, Spacing and Color

The images being displayed are all in color, rarely in black and white. The bold and
typically bright colors catch the viewers eye with intentions on holding their attention on the
image longer. The bright colors also affect the viewers mood. Brighter colors on the Fashion
page may intend on making women feel happy. The camera angle varies from picture to picture,
however many pictures are taken with a downward angle. The downward angle is known to
make women look more slender opposed to the upward angle. In regards to space, there isn't a lot
of space in the images shown, with the intent of focusing on the person or clothing, not the
background. Often the background is white or gray in order to show the contrast with the
PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 7
clothing. The neutral background makes the image being shown stand out on the page. Similarly
to the coloring of the clothing, the lighting is also bright attempting to convey happy emotions.
Although the coloring, angles, and lighting may be intended to make a person feel happy, many
women may feel poorly after comparing themselves to these idealistic women and closets.
As mentioned previously, on the Womens Fashion pages less than 20% of these
Pinterest images contain faces (Smith, 2013). The shot of just the womens body puts emphasis
on the body and clothing. This also dehumanizes the person, in the photo. The underlying
message that may be send to women is that it doesnt matter who you are as a person, just what
you wear and what you look like.

5. Discussion

This paper explores several suggestive answers to the question, What underlying
messages is the Womens Fashion category on Pinterest sending to women? Certain concepts
regarding the rhetorical analysis relate to other scholars research. As found in the rhetorical
analysis, the Womens Fashion category can cause comparison with ideal bodies and
wardrobes.
The Uses and Gratification Theory is the study of how people actively seek out specific
media to satisfy specific needs. This theory focuses on what people do with media, instead of
what media does to people (Gelmes & Yildirim, 2014). Although I analyzed what the images on
the womens fashion page can do to women, I also analyzed how women can seek out womens
fashion. As discussed, women may seek out this category on facebook to inspire, to compare,
and to own a virtual closet. A topic for further study to consider would be, If Pinterest can affect
women negatively and make them feel discontent, why do they continually use it?
The social comparison theory offers a level of explanation of how images actually come
to impact how women feel about their bodies. This theory explores how women come to evaluate
themselves in relation to peers, groups, and social categories. The theory believes that people
naturally compare themselves to other people who are similar to them according to upward or
downward comparison. Depending on the target of comparison, a person will judge themselves
as either better or worse. An upward comparison is when a person compares themselves to
someone far better in a particular construct. A downward comparison involves a person
comparing themselves to someone who is below in a particular construct. Upward comparisons
have been found to correlate with depression of mood, where downward comparison tends to
elicit elevation of mood (Serdar, 2005).
Serdar claims, Television, advertisements, magazines, and other forms of popular media
provide a plethora of references for upward social comparison. Evidence for the negative affects
of women's social comparison with media images is abundant. Research has found that women
who report frequently comparing themselves to other women, especially women in the media,
are more likely to show signs of negative mood and body image disturbance. Anxiety and eating
disorders develop from constant comparison to unattainable images. Although Pinterests
intention is to inspire womens wardrobes, its underlying affects and messages being sent may
actually be detrimental to the viewer according to the social comparison theory (Serdar. 2005).
Users on the Womens Fashion page typically compare upward which results in depression of
mood.
The actual idealistic standards portrayed in social media such as Pinterest, is also a theory
in itself. The cultivation theory argues images that portray women who match the sociocultural
PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 8
ideal of beauty are extremely prevalent in popular media, and that repetitive exposure to such
images influences women's abilities to understand that such standards are unrealistic. As
females constantly view images of tall, thin women that are shown in different forms of mass
media, there is a cumulative affect over time in that many women adopt this unrealistic standard
of beauty as reality (Berger, 2005).
In addition, the Objectification theory is applicable to the analysis in this paper. The
Objectification theory predicts that taking an observer's perspective on one's body (known as
self-objectification) leads to negative mental health outcomes. Self-objectification mediates the
relationship between internalized appearance ideals and drive for thinness; internalized
appearance ideals continued to be an independent predictor of variance. In accordance with
objectification theory, body shame partially mediated the relationship between self-
objectification and drive for thinness in women with eating disorders; self-objectification
continued to be an independent predictor of variance (Calogero, William, and Thompson,
2005).These results illustrate the importance of understanding and targeting the experience of
self-objectification in women with eating disorders or women at risk for eating disorders and
how perceive themselves after looking at the fashion page.
As mentioned several times, the underlying messages being sent through the popular
Womens Fashion category can be detrimental to the viewer, without them evening knowing.
This detrimental influence explains the importance of why this paper analyzed the underlying
messages on the Womens Fashion page. As an active user of Pinterest, I am guilty of being
influenced without even knowing. There are times I go to change my clothes, after being on
Pinterest, and I hate everything in my closet. There are also times I go to purchase an item of
clothing I have pinned off of Pinterest, and I hate the way I look in it because I am comparing
myself to the model I saw wearing it. I am not saying that Pinterest is completely negative, as it
serves for creative ideas and self expression, this paper serves as a tool to be aware and on guard
of the negative impacts when the user lets their guard down.
Further research can be done regarding direct affects on the Womens Fashion category.
Experiments studying mood in relation the popular Womens Fashion page can provide hard data
as well as interviews exploring womens emotions. Having hard data would prove the degree in
which the underlying messages studied in this paper are affecting women. Future research should
continue to be conducted as Pinterest is the fastest growing social media site and impacts many
people on a daily basis. As a society we should be on guard and develop media literacy skills in
order to be aware of underlying messages from sites such as Pinterest.












PINTEREST FASHION AND THE UNDERLYING MESSAGES 9
References

Becker, A. E., Burwell, R. A., Herzog, D. B., Hamburg, P., & Gilman, S. E. (2002). Eating
behaviours and attitudes following prolonged exposure to television among ethnic Fijian
adolescent girls. The British Journal of Psychiatry , 509-514.
Berger, A. (2014). Media and communication research methods: An introduction to qualitative
and quantitative approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Calogero, Rachel M., William N. Davis, and Kevin Thompson. The Role of Self-Objectification
in the Experience of Women with Eating Disorders. Springer Link. Kluwer Academic
Publishers-Plenum, 1 Jan. 2005. Web. 30 Apr. 2014 <http://link.springer.com>
Cash, T. F., & Pruzinsky, T. (Eds.), Body Image: A handbook of theory, research, and clinical
practice. New York: Guilford Press.
Gelmes Burakgazi, S., & Yildirim, A. (2014). Acessing Science Through Media: Users and
Gratifications Among Fourth and Fifth Graders for Science Learning. Science
Communication, 36 (2), 168-193.
Dittmar, H., & Howard, S. (2004). Professional hazards? The impact of models' body size on
advertising affectiveness and women's body-focused anxiety in professions that do and do
not emphasize the cultural ideal of thinness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43(4),
477-497.
Gilbert, E., Bakhshi, S., Chang, S., & Terveen , L. (2013). "I Need to Try This!": A Statistical
Overview of Pinterest. CHI '13 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems , 2427-2436.
Jung, Jaehee. "Media Influence: Pre- and Postexposure of College Women to Media Images and
the Affect of Mood and Body Image." Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. University
of Delaware, Oct. 2006. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
<http://ctr.sagepub.com/content/24/4/335.refs>.
Leonard, Laura. "Why Women Are Obsessed with Pinterest." Www.christianitytoday.com. N.p.,
Nov. 2011. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Pinterest. (2013). About. Retrieved from Pinterest : about.pinterest.com
Serdar, K. L. (2005). Female body image and the mass media: Perspectives on how women
internalize the ideal beauty standard. Westminster Colleges Student-Produced Academic
Journal.
Shontell, A. (2012, March 13). Meet Ben Silbermann, The Brilliant Young Co-Founder Of
Pinterest. Retrieved from Business Insider: www.businessinsider.com
Smith, C. (2013, November 22). (November 2013) By the Numbers: 36 Amazing Pinterest Stats.
Retrieved from Digital Marketing Ramblings : http://expandedramblings.com
Spitzer, B. L., Henderson, K. A., & Zivian, M. T. (1999). Gender differences in population
versus media body sizes: A comparison over four decades. Sex Roles, 40(7), 545-565
Striegel-Moore, R. H., & Schreiber, G. B. (2000). Eating disorder symptoms in a cohort of 11 to
16-year-old black and white girls: International Journal of Eating Disorders, 27(1), 49-66.
Wallace, D. (2012, June 22). Pinterestingly Enough: Interesting Pinterest Stats. Retrieved from
Search Engine Journal: www.searchenginejournal.com
Wilcox, Kathy, and James D. Laird. "The Impact of Media Images of Super-Slender Women on
Women's Self-Esteem: Identification, Social Comparison, and Self-Perception."
ScienceDirect.com. N.p., June 2000. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009265669992281X>.