What sociological theories apply when talking about mass media influence on youth?

Question

One that sticks out is the Conflict Theory. Can anyone elaborate in detail.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Extremist groups share a common perception about the world. They are anti-science, anti-technology, anti-trade, anti-globalization - not just free trade, but all trade.

People who embrace extremist views and philosophies believe all large machines are inherently evil, and - worse - science is used to justify positions "that actually have nothing to do with science."

These viewpoints are naive, including the oft-stated wish to return to a "Garden of Eden." How ironic, that these same people use cell phones, laptops and jet planes as the main tools of their trade.

Answer 2

You could probably go with all of the big three.

Conflict is obvious; the media perpetuates the ideology of the powerful, pacifies people, etc. You might want to check out Antonio Gramsci's ideas of hegemony; the ideas of the dominant class become the "normal" ideas of society and these benefit the dominant class in turn. The media is one of the modern ways of spreading hegemony.

Functionalism is also fairly reasonable, though you might have to take a less cynical view towards the media for this one. The media serves to keep society fairly informed, helps foster social solidarity by giving us common knowledge(for instance, everyone can relate to each other because we all know what Brittney did last night) and by homogenizing ideology. Basically, anything you can think of that the media does falls under functionalism.

Then you could go with symbolic-interactionism. You might look at how the media influences face to face interactions. For instance, we learn how to act in large part due to the media... like we learn slang, mannerisms, etc from the media.

Hope that helps!