The Effects Of Mass Communication On A Critical Branch Of Sociological Thought From 20th Century Social Thought

Chapter 3 of Essential of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin discusses the topic of socialization, which is the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, attitudes, skills, norms, values, and actions thought appropriate for them. Sociologists try to determine how much of a person’s characteristics comes from “nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture” (social environment). Studying feral, isolated, and institutionalized children, such as The Skeels/Dye Experiment, have helped them understand how “society makes us human.” The theories and research of Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Piaget to explain socialization into the self and mind. Cooley’s looking-glass self theory focuses on how we believe others perceive us.

The media in American society has a major influential impact on the minds and beliefs of millions of people. Whether through the news, television shows, or film, the media acts as a huge database for knowledge and instruction. It is both an auditory and visual database that can press images and ideas into people's minds. Even if the individual has no prior exposure or knowledge to something, the media can project into people's minds and leave a lasting impression. Though obviously people are aware of what they are listening to or watching, thoughts and assumptions can drift into their minds without even realizing it. These thoughts that drift in are extremely influential. The massive impact it

Mass media is communication that reaches a large audience. This includes television, advertisement, the Internet, newspapers, and so on. Mass media is a significant effect in modern culture in America. It creates ideas and sustained within society not only send ideological messages out to the public but to advertise this ideas which are tend to manipulate our mantalities.

Mass media during the 1920s united the nation and created an economic boom in new areas of entertainment and leisure. As technology advanced, new forms of communication and entertainment began to rise. A variety of new entertainment like radio, magazines, and movies with sound became common and popular. Over 700 films were produced each year, over 100 million radios were in use, and LIFE magazine had over 250,000 readers in the year 1920 alone. The demand of new forms of media began to increase due to the thirst to live vicariously through the personas they see and hear all around them. Mass media in the 1920s united the country, controlled individual consumption, and propelled American consumerism.

The mass media consists of any means of communication that has the ability to reach a large amount of people. The term ‘media’ can refer to movies, television, the newspaper, etc. It is because of it’s ability to out reach to a mass quantity of people that it is able to “reinforce and teach societal values.” At a young age, socialization occurs in that it involves the “learning of the values and the norms of society” and adopting them into their own personal values (Perse, 2001.) Children often have little life experience so they learn and imitate their environment whether that be the characters on television or societal institutions like their families or teachers at school. Adolescents are more susceptible to socialization in that they are at a period in which they are trying to find

Mass media is considered one of the multiple factors that impact today’s society, the biggest of them all being, television. The media is powerful enough to dictate what people learn about current issues throughout the world and how they interact with one another. Most people believe information is based on what they read and see in the media, rather than basing it off of personal experiences. Due to this decision, professionals in the T.V. industry are extremely good at figuring out what will appeal to the mass majority. At the same time, they easily manipulate messages to encourage people to buy products and believe in certain ideas. One great example of this is an adult animated sitcom titled, American Dad. This show features a psychotic,

| According to sociologist C. Wright Mills, the ability to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society is referred to as:

The media in American society has a major influential impact on the minds and beliefs of millions of people. Whether through the news, television shows, or film, the media acts as a huge database for knowledge and instruction. It is both an auditory and visual database that can press images and ideas into people's minds. Even if the individual has no prior exposure or knowledge to something, the media can project into people's minds and leave a lasting impression. Though obviously people are aware of what they are listening to or watching, thoughts and assumptions can drift into their minds without even realizing it. These thoughts that drift in are extremely influential. The massive impact

In today’s technology-based society, there arises a question. How much do the everyday things that we do affect us. If we were to take an inventory of how much media we let ourselves be influenced by every day, we would be shocked. When you read a book, watch television, or look at a magazine, you are opening your mind to the opinions represented. However, it is not the obvious messages that are the most dangerous. The scariest opinions are the ones that are hidden in subtle messages that maybe only the subconscious picks up on. There are many ways that a person can be influenced to change their ideas, thoughts, and even personal beliefs. In the article “Media's Use of Propaganda to Persuade People's Attitude, Beliefs

An important contribution that has made a great impact on the modern social psychology was from William McDougall. McDougall proposed for an evolutionary psychology, which was influenced by Darwin’s theory. Especially with the dominant fields of sociology and anthropology, McDougall was able to link science, sociology and psychology (McDougall, 1919). However, McDougall’s research in social evolution was also interpreted as radical due to the racism involved in the concept of behaviour gene inheritance. This shows that even though McDougall’s work had been a start point to the origins of social psychology, it also led to misconcepts especially in the Western society. Another person who contributed to the origins of social psychology was William James which introduced the theory of ‘stream of consciousness’. The reason why James made an influence in social

George Gerbner’s *cultivation theory* a macro-level system theory that examines mass communication by studying institutions, message systems, and cultivation analysis (1967; 1970; Gerbner & Gross, 1973; Gerbner et al., 1980; Potter, 2014). Theorized during the “Age of Television” (Shanahan & Morgan, 2004), the theory has been applied to newspapers and other media formats, assuming that media institutions “cultivate facts, norms and values of society” (Gerbner, 1970; Gerbner & Gross, 1976). Specifically, frequent television viewers are more likely to be influenced by portrayals of the world than viewers who watch less. The theory’s popularity grew after the rapid integration of televisions into American homes in the 1940s and 1950s, it was

The media influences how people experience social life. Media such as newspaper, television and film, are important sources of information, education and entertainment. It can be used to learn more about the world and the people in it. In this regard it can be said that the media represent, interpret and endorse aspects of social experience (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2005). The media are also implicated in social regulation, or in other terms, the government of society. The media are implicated in government and politics in an obvious way because modern systems of democracy are conducted through the media. But the media have a bigger role to play in government by structuring how society is controlled and maintained.

Mills’s concept of the sociological imagination is helpful to individuals, because this will help them learn their place as a productive member of society. This allows you to grasp relationships between your own personal self along with society and history. By doing this it allows you to experience the world how others experience the world to get a better understanding of the sociologic reality of everyday life. This can help an individual to realize that its ok to view things in a different way then what society says is “right”. This tool can also be used to get a better understanding of the people around you the different cultures, religion, race, ethics, and morals. This will help an individual to live in society in harmony with other members of society.

Media is a huge part of people’s lives in today’s society. Through different forms of media people can now obtain vast amounts of information at the slightest touch of a finger. While it is convenient and comforting to have access to so much data, the question arises. How much of this information we receive shapes our lives? Mass media as an agent of socialization can prime and/or skew people’s belief system through mere exposure without the slightest clue of it affects. Mass media as an agent of socialization can structure people’s perception on society as a whole by simply using influence, control, and trust.

Mass society theory is an idea that media has strong influence towards people, it plays a role of shaping people’s mind and perception of the social world and it is also to manipulate people’s action with delicate, subtle and effective ways (Baran and Davis 2006, p.43). Mass society theory has first introduced in the nineteenth century when there are disruptive consequences caused by modernization (Baran and Davis 2006, p.52). At that time, mass media considered as a cause of social problems (Baran and Davis 2006, p.52). That was the yellow journalism era for mass newspapers (Baran and Davis 2006, p.52). For instance, newspapers irresponsibly give out information, probably some sensational information which directly