Originally written August 30, 2010
The number of people around the
world who have access to a variety of media continues to grow
exponentially. Even Buddhist monks in
Tibet have access to television and the internet is increasingly available to
remote and rural communities. Moreover,
the amount of time humans spend consuming different media also continues to
increase. With smart phones and PDA’s
many of us are continually connected and have the media at our fingertips
twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
The following is an analysis of the Mass Media through the perspective
of the three main Sociological theories – Functionalism, Interactionism and
Conflict Theory, and their relative impact on the media as a sociological
institution.
The first theory to be explored is
the Functionalist Theory, which basically states that each aspect of society is
interdependent and contributes to society's functioning as a whole. Further, it emphasizes that society is held
together by social consensus and cohesion, in which members agree upon and work
together to achieve what is in the best interests for the society as a
whole. More implicitly, functionalism
argues that if something does not serve a useful purpose in society, it will
not endure from one generation to the next.
Based on this perspective one would conclude that the purpose of the
media has become increasingly useful to society since its prevalence has only
increased. From the Functionalist
perspective, the media serves five essential functions – it acts a means of
socialization; enforces social norms; confers status; promotes consumption; and
keeps us informed about our environment.
According to the Interactionist
perspective, people attach meanings to symbols, and then they act according to
their subjective interpretation of these symbols. Whereas functionalism looks at the “big
picture” concepts in sociology, interactionism focuses on how people interact
with each other day to day, and then seek to determine what meanings
individuals assign to their own actions and symbols, as well as to those of
others. Accordingly, interactionists
seek to analyze how the mass media contributes not only to shaping social
behavior between members of society, but also to creating shared understandings
of this same behavior. interactionism
also seeks to study mass media as a major and growing source of daily activity
in many societies. As more and more
youngsters spend a significant portion of their day on Facebook and Twitter,
whereas functionalists may be concerned with how these new media serve to
maintain social stability, interactionists would focus on the effects these
media have in the peoples’ everyday interactions with each other and with
society at large.
Conflict Theory, tends to present
society in a different light than do the functionalist and interactionist
perspectives. While these latter
perspectives focus on the positive aspects of society that contribute to its
stability, the conflict perspective focuses more on the conflicted, and
ever-changing nature of society. Unlike
functionalism, that defend the status quo, seeks to avoid social change, and
asserts that people cooperate to effect social order, conflict theorists
challenge the status quo, encourage social change, and believe wealthy and
powerful people try to force social order lower classes and minority
populations to serve their own interests.
Based on this point of view conflict theory argues that the mass media
simply reflects, and often even exacerbates the many conflicts and divisions
within different groups in our society.
Therefore, as opposed to functionalists, conflict theorists believe that
the mass media serves to reinforce the distance and discord between genders,
different races and ethnicities and social classes, rather than promoting
social harmony.
Each perspective interprets the
role of the mass media in a different manner and hence each theory is likely to
affect the views of individuals who are part of the institution in distinct
ways. As a functionalist, you are likely
to view the programming decisions of a news organization executive who
deliberately decides to omit a negative story about one of its sponsor
corporations as a neutral act designed to reduce potential disharmony within
the organization and possibly the public at large. As an interactionist, you would be interested
in how the decision may affect the day to day interactions between the members
of the organization or even between the organization and members of the public
may be affected. On the other hand, a
conflict theorist would likely view this as one of the negative functions of
the mass media – Gatekeeping.
Gatekeeping is the method by which power is maintained within the elites
which control the flow of information by ensuring that material must travel
through a series of checkpoints before reaching the public (Schaefer,
2009). Therefore conflict theory
explains why news organizations may shy away from negative stories about
corporations that finance large advertising campaigns in their newspaper or on
their stations. This was clearly
evidenced when TV networks receiving millions of dollars in advertising from
companies like Nike and other textile manufacturers were reluctant to run
stories about possible human-rights violations by these companies in foreign countries. Conflict theorist identify the same problem
at the local level where city newspapers will not give new cars poor reviews or
run stories on selling a home without an agent because the majority of their
funding comes from auto and real estate advertising.
Conflict theory seeks to promote
social change, whereas functionalism seeks to thwart it and interactionism
merely to observe and analyze it as it pertains to the everyday
interaction. There is no disputing the
fact that online social networks are becoming an increasingly dominant form of
media in everyday life. “Today,
conversations are markets and markets are conversations. And the forums for these conversations
cultivate a tight, unswerving and mostly unforgiving community and
culture. Participation requires
observation in order to understand the sociological landscape and the dynamics
that define each community. They are after all, populated by people, not
audiences (Solis, 2007).” While
observing that social networks are becoming an important catalyst for social
change within internet media by reallocating power to individual rather than
conglomerates, Interactionism perspective would be useful in interpreting the
shift in dialogue and assist companies in bridging the gap with improved
marketing strategies. “An interactionist
may argue that by listening, reading, and participating, corporate marketing
will be smarter and more approachable than ever before. This is how we humanize
brands, create loyalty, and earn customer’s business. Yes, there are many networks. Yes, they’re
thinning our attention. And, yes, this is the new form of media and influence,
and it is transforming corporate communications, traditional media, and how people
communicate with each other (2007).
In contrast to the above
perspective, a conflict theorist may be more inclined to see the media’s
approach to social change as that of facilitating “negative” or regressive
social change rather than contributing to greater harmony. Conflict theory would be more interested in
the fact that “marketers and media firms target audiences based increasingly on
their ideological beliefs. Increasingly, though, these marketers are focusing
on those with higher levels of expendable income in combination with information
they gain on age, ethnicity, education, gender, race, and place of
residence. The effect is the social
price alienation, reduced social mobility, anger and fear of others. If primary media communities continue to take
hold, their large numbers will diminish the chance that individuals who
identify with certain social categories will even have an opportunity to learn
about others (Gibbs, 2000).”
As media influences society,
society also influences the media. In
fact, I believe that especially now, with the advent of Twitter and other
social networks, the public should be viewed as equally powerful institution
that has become increasingly able to exert influence in the other sociological
institutions including the mass media.
Although conflict theory can often fall into the common trap of
dismissing the public as irrelevant by viewing it as just passively subjected
to the powers of the free market, interactionism is more likely to give us
insight into how the increased dialogue exchanges between individual and
society at large with media affects our individual lives on a personal
level.
Functionalism, on the other hand
may be more likely to offer insight into how society’s views of the media have
become increasingly critical and even on occasion suspicious. A functionalist may argue that the changing
opinions of society regarding the media and the influence they exert serve a
functional purpose by directly affecting the organizations that depend on the
media. While conducting a study on human
rights organizations and the media, Rodgers noted that Amnesty's
[International] need to appear relevant and to remain in the lens of the media
in relation to contemporary geopolitical dilemmas was embodied in a clear
organizational policy. Interviews with members of Amnesty's executive confirmed
this evaluation in the logic behind their strategy as one member of Amnesty's
executive member observed: “You can work all you like on Mauritania, but the
press couldn't give a rat's ass about Mauritania. You don't put a press release
out on that.” (Amnesty informant #2, Female, September 14, 2003) (Rodgers,
2009). Therefore, society’s pressure on
the media serves to funnel appropriate interest, and therefore funding to the
issues that more accurately reflect the public interest.
We have seen that although there
are some similarities between the social theories of Functionalism,
Interactionism and Conflict Theory, they differ quite substantially from each
other and according to which theory one subscribes to, their approach to
different sociological institutions, including the media, will vary
greatly. , therefore I tend to view the
media and their impact on society through a conflict lens because I believe the
Conflict Theory holds the most appeal.
However, this does not mean that Functionalism and Interactionism do not
have important contributions to make to the overall picture. As a student of Communications it is important
that I also understand the social and political forces which shape our cultural
landscape and especially the changing nature of society and culture.
References
Gibbs, P. (2000).
Breaking up America: advertisers and the new media world. Contemporary Sociology, 29(2), 397-398. Retrieved August 25, 2010, from Research
Library. (Document ID: 53078415)
Rodgers, K. (2009). When do opportunities become trade-offs
for social movement organizations? Assessing media impact in the global human
rights movement. Canadian Journal of
Sociology (Online), 34(4), 1087-1114.
Retrieved August 25, 2010, from CBCA Complete. (Document ID:
1953592681).
Schaefer, R.T. (2009) Sociology: A brief introduction (8th
ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill
Solis, B. (August, 2007) Social media is about sociology not
technology. Brian Solis: Defining the
convergence of media and influence.
Retrieved from http://www.briansolis.com/2007/08/social-media-is-about-sociology-not/
No comments:
Post a Comment