Mass Media

Description

This is a picture of the Regina LeaderPost newspaper representing a form of advertisement and mass media.

Sociological Interpretation

We live in a world saturated by media, that bombards us with images through advertising. Mass media can be described as a large scale organization that uses such means as print, radio, television, and the internet to communicate to large numbers of people. In sociology, the function of mass media can be explained through a functionalist perspective. Mass media and advertisement function in society as means of surveillance, socialization and entertainment. Media becomes the pathway of inspecting our world by providing warnings of dangers, news, setting social agendas, and calling attention to certain issues of importance. Though surveillance functions to benefit society, it can also be harmful. By providing news of imminent danger it can produce widespread panic and anxiety. Media also broadcasts norms and values, that assists in social cohesiveness by giving people a sense of belonging from sharing the same values and norms. The socialization function of mass communication can produce a mass society in which everyone leads a totally predictable but colourless life. The third function of media is for the leisure of entertainment, yet it can excessively cloud people from reality and reduce social activity.

Specifically, we can look at different issues that are portrayed in media and their impacts on society. There has been a long debate about the effect of violence in media. The issue is whether media violence causes societal violence and whether there should be censorship to protect children, especially. On the other hand there are those who believe censorship is a smokescreen in hiding the root causes of violence in society. The culture of violence normalizes aggression and decreases the lack of empathy in our society. We can see that though violence in media may not be the core cause for aggressive behaviours, it does have an influence on increasing the likelihood of aggressive tendencies and provoking aggressive responses. Gender role socialization also occurs through media. Sets of behaviour, expectations and perceptions are learned and definitions of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man is established. For example, provocative images of partly clothed or naked women are especially prevalent in advertising. Women’s bodies are sexualized in advertisements in order to grab the viewer’s attention. Women become sexual objects when their bodies and their sexuality are linked to products that are bought and sold. This reinforces the message that women are objects rather than whole human beings. The presence of misinformation and media stereotypes, directs young people to turn to media for information about sex and sexuality. In a more broad perspective, we can examine the selectivity of what we focus on in our daily lives as mass communication provides us with basic information about current events. Do we watch television and movies, read magazines and newspapers, and play video games for entertainment, or to be better informed, or to escape life? None the less, the reality of our world is while we are doing all these things, we are also being socialized—learning about roles, behaviours, values, modes of conduct, possibilities and solutions to life’s daily stresses and dilemmas.