About-Face (Non-profit media literacy organization)
body icon: fear and loathing in the mirror (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism)

About-Face

• Source: About-Face is an all-volunteer non-profit media-literacy organization focused on the impact that mass media has on the physical, mental and emotional well-being of women and girls.

• Strengths:

  1. Staff includes a clinical psychologist and a health educator/community outreach coordinator with a masters degree in public health.

  2. Includes sections on the following:
      -    positive media images ("Gallery of Winners" subsection of "The Light")
      -    negative media images ("Gallery of Offenders")
      -    well-referenced list of related facts under "Resources"   

• Address: http://www.about-face.org

body icon: fear and loathing in the mirror

• Source: A masters project by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism students Kim Dixon, Tiffany Kary, and Dan Maccarone, class of 1999.

• Strengths:

  1. Combines meaningful pictures with stories about the icons of beauty that are conning American women in the pursuit of a perfect body.

  2. Includes sections on the following:
      -    the body as history, from the 1850s through 1990s
      -    the body as a commodity for making money
      -    forbidden food
      -    fighting back
      -    body modification

  3. Is appropriate for teen and adult audiences.

• Address: http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/newmedia/projects/masters/bodyimage/toc.html

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