Aimal A2 Sociology

‘The media is able to shape the way people think and behave.’ Evaluate this view. [35]

There are several different perspectives on whether the media has the ability to shape the way
people think and behave. Marxists believe that the media is a strong agent of social control to
form the masses' opinions. Whereas, functionalists argue that media incorporates social
solidarity into society and displays shared values and beliefs.

The marxist theory claims that in order to legitimise and reproduce this system of inequality, the
elites use their cultural power to dominate institutions like the mass media and transmit ruling
class ideology. The function of these agencies is to socialise the working class into accepting
the legitimacy of the capitalist system and capitalist ideas. Marxists profess that the working
class experience a false class-consciousness where they come to accept that capitalism is a fair
system that benefits all social groups equally. Consequently, Miliband argues that the role of
media is to shape how people think about the world and there is a lack of information on
important issues like income inequality and poverty. In that way, marxists insist that media
owners shape content so that only approved and conformists views are represented. Curran’s
examination provides empirical evidence of the marxists' suggestions. Curran notes that in the
1900s, press barons openly boasted that they ran their newspapers for the purpose of
propaganda that reflected their political views.

The functionalist belief rejects this notion and expresses that media contributes to the benefit of
society. They believe that media can influence social conformity on a broader scale than ever.
Wright identified several ways in which media contributes to creating equilibrium in society. He
claims the media coordinates and correlates information that is valuable to the culture. The
media is a powerful agent of socialisation and through it, culture is communicated to the
masses. Serving society through social control, the media acts as stress relievers which keep
social conflicts to a minimum. For example, crimes such as murder, robberies, and abuse are
shown as deviant behaviour and people gather together to watch, talk about what they see, and
share the sense that they are watching something special. They form a consensus on acts that
are immoral and wrong and so, their personal values are reinforced and strengthened, resulting
in social uniformity. Thus, functionalism rejects the idea that media is a monolithic force that
pushes agendas into peoples’ minds to shape their views.

Furthermore, feminists agree that the media is a powerful influence on the way people think and
behave, especially women. Feminism constantly stresses on the fact that the media is a huge
factor in affecting women and their behaviours. Naomi Wolf’s suggestion that images of women
used by the media present a specific beauty ideal in which there is a strong ideological
message of women treating their bodies like a project of constant improvements, transmitted to
females all around the globe. This portrayal of women to always take care of their body and
looks often reflects the way in which women in real life think of themselves and other females. A
report by Just The Women provides observations that newspapers are often critical of
celebrities who put on weight and they encourage girls to compete with each other on their
thinness. The report concludes that the representations of women in magazines negatively
impacts the self-esteem of many girls, leading to body dysmorphia and eating disorders.
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However, the extent to which the media’s representation of women affects their behaviours and
beliefs is heavily questioned now by sociologists. As the masses have been able to take greater
control of media and its content, many feminists have challenged the oppressive regime they
present and have actively petitioned to change the way they present their ideologies. For
instance, Julia Buhm, a teen activist, started a petition to get Seventeen Magazine to change
the way they depict girls' bodies in their magazines. After collecting thousands of signatures and
organising protests, she was successful in getting Seventeen to agree to make some changes.
Hence, campaigning and protests have helped people to stop being manipulated by the media
into accepting particular ways of thinking and behaving and exercising their own right in actions.

The hypodermic-syringe model is an early model of the effects of media that agrees with the
view in question that media shapes peoples’ beliefs and behaviours. The model suggests that
the media is like a drug being injected into the audience. Therefore, it claims that the audience
are passive recipients of media messages. An example of this model was seen when a radio
broadcast of Wells’ War of the Worlds caused mass hysteria as members of the public who
heard it thought it was real and that the earth was being invaded by Martians. Although the
proof of the effect of the media was questioned by some, it still served to validate the theory that
audiences passively accept messages from the media. Furthermore, studies by psychologists
like Bandura can also be introduced to support the view. Bandura’s theory of Media Effects
study focused on establishing a relationship between media messages and the responses of
audiences. His study concluded that audiences acquire attitudes, emotional responses and new
styles of conduct through modelling. Media representations of violence and aggression can lead
people to imitate those forms of behaviour. And so, this observation supports the hypodermic
model of media effects.

However, the two-step flow model challenges the idea represented by the hypodermic-syringe
model. This model suggests that within social networks there are opinion leaders who are those
who influence others in a social network and others look up to. Opinion leaders will expose
themselves to a range of media, form opinions on the content and then pass these on to others
in their social circle. This means that the audience chooses to adopt a particular opinion,
attitude or way of behaving after negotiation and discussion with the opinion leader. That being
said, the two-step flow model has a general idea that audiences are not passive and the effects
of media are dependent on the audiences’ social relations. The model believes that the
interpretation of media varies between different individuals and the factors influencing this is not
solely the media but rather, peoples’ social circles and how people want to digest the content
they receive—people are active and not passive.

Additionally, the effect of celebrities in the modern society is a grave example of showcasing
how media can shape peoples’ beliefs. Celebrities are often looked up to by their supporters,
fanbases and even the general audience. Actors, musicians and artists who are deemed to be
charismatic tend to have a strong degree of influence over their viewers and are frequently seen
as role models. In essence, celebrities can be perceived as opinion leaders in society as all their
beliefs, values and behaviours are published for the world to see. As celebrities are known to be
rich and famous, they all likely come from the same social class—the bourgeoisie. Therefore,
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the ideologies they promote to their fanbase, seemingly means that they are transmitting the
ruling-class ideology to the lower classes and the lower class passively accepts these values
because they view their role models in a highly favourable light and as someone to look up to.

Lastly, the digital optimist view of media believes that media (specifically new media) does not
shape the way people think and behave, but rather has given individuals so much freedom that
they can now produce their own content instead of relying on the ones made for them by the
traditional media. This perspective claims that new media have created more opportunities for
individuals to find information, offered individuals greater choice and freedom, provided new
ways for people to interact with each other, and ultimately resulted in more people challenging
the powerful and economic growth. For them, social media allows people the chance to
construct new online identities and give them greater freedom to express themselves than ever
before. Online, individuals can experiment with new identities in the comfort of anonymity and
expand their personal boundaries. Hence, if peoples’ thoughts were ever silenced or
disregarded in the previous times of traditional media, the new media now enables them to
openly share their stories and thoughts with other people in their community.

In conclusion, the media can be seen to shape peoples’ behaviours and beliefs as it usually only
broadcasts the values that the capitalist class and men have. However, this view does oversee
how people actually choose to interpret the content they get from media and how they
challenge media owners to steer away from the one-sided opinions they present, in order to
promote inclusivity and diversity of values.