Do interactive media change socialisation - Essay Example

?Do interactive media change socialisation? How, or why not? Does this socialisation increase political awareness Introduction The continuous development of technology worldwide has influenced all human activities; communication and socialization had also to change in order to meet the needs of people, as differentiated because of the advances of technology. Furthermore, media, one of the most critical tools of communication, had to be transformed, ensuring that they will be able to follow the market trends, meaning the preferences of the public. Current paper focuses on interactive media; emphasis is given on the potential role of interactive media for the introduction of changes in socialization. At the next level, the following issue is addressed: does the socialization related to interactive media lead to the increase of political awareness? The terms under which the interaction between media (in their interactive form), socialization and political awareness can be developed are examined and critically evaluated in this paper. It is proved that interactive media have significantly changed socialization; at the next level, the above relationship has affected the political awareness, meaning that it has become easier for people to be informed on critical political issues - comparing to the past where no such mode of communication was available, a fact which had negatively influenced the political awareness of people in various social classes. 2. Interactive media and socialization Interactive media have introduced new modes of socialisation. In order to understand the role of interactive media in changing socialisation it would be necessary to refer primarily to the context of interactive media, as a modern way of communication. Traditionally, media were used for informing the public on a series of issues. In other words, in their initial form media promoted the one-way communication with the public (Milne et al. 1999, p.138). However, through the Internet, the role of the media changed; this change was combined with the appearance of interactive media, a common form of media in countries worldwide. More specifically, Internet introduced the two-way communication with the public, a feature that is particularly valuable for the development of commercial transactions, but also for other activities, as analytically explained below. Before examining the relationship between interactive media and socialization, it would be necessary to present the context of socialization as an element of societies with different cultural and social characteristics. In accordance with Andersen et al. (2007) ‘socialization is the process by which human beings learn the social expectations of society’ (Andersen et al. 2007, p.107). It is also explained that the power of socialization is significant, being able to affect the behavior and the perceptions of people at different social levels. Socialization is closely related to the social environment of each individual; in fact, socialization is depended on the activities of various persons or groups of people, that are known as ‘socialization agents’ (Andersen et al. 2007, p.107); the most common socialization agents are the following ones: ‘the family, the media, the sports and the school’ (Andersen et al. 2007, p.107). In accordance with Milne et al. (1999) socialization is one of the key human needs – along with information and entertainment needs; reference is made to the needs of humans as members of a society and not to the needs related to the survival. In the context of their socialization needs, humans are likely to develop conversations with their friends. Interactive media changed the above mode of socialization in the following way: through the chat rooms people can discuss not just to their friends but also to unknown people from all over the planet (Milne et al. 1999, p.138). This means that anonymity is not anymore a barrier for discussing personal issues. The above alteration of socialization has been negatively criticized as setting important safety issues for people involved in the relevant activities. In practice, the above risk has been proved to be high, leading to concerns regarding the interaction between interactive media and socialization. The interaction between interactive media and socialization could have another aspect: interactive media could affect the socialization of a person by influencing his perceptions on social values and ethics. The above issue is highlighted in the study of Grusec et al. (2007); in the above study reference is made to videogames and their severe impact on the psychological conditions and perceptions of kids – but also of adults. Often, videogames promote violence as a mode of socialization; communication is then replaced by violent behavior as a way of expressing the personal views or showing the reaction to various social phenomena. Through the continuous exposure to violent scenes, the natural emotions can be affected, leading to ‘the reduction in distress-related physiological reactivity to media portrayals of violence’ (Grusec et al. 2007, p.412). The above implications may also refer to adults who are highly exposed to violence through media. The above-described process of transformation of human emotions is known as ‘desensitization’ (Grusec et al. 2007, p.412) and it is a process which is developed through the interactive media – referring to those people who are not exposed to violent scenes in their daily life and who may also pass a process of ‘desensitization’ without the intervention of interactive media. At this point, reference should be made to the study of Andersen et al. (2007) who note that socialization, as a complex process, can be in progress through the entire life of a person (Andersen et al. 2007, p.108), i.e. it is not necessarily related to the childhood. It is assumed that interactive media can affect the socialization of people of all ages who are likely to use interactive media as a basic tool of communication. From a similar point of view, Nabi et al. (2009) refer to the importance of interactive media for the perceptions of people on their sexual life, which is also likely to be developed in the context of a person’s socialization process. In accordance with Nabi et al. (2009) interactive media, such as ‘chat rooms, blogs, text messaging and social networking sites’ (Nabi et al. 2009, p.415) can highly influence the sexual beliefs of people, especially of teenagers. It is suggested that parents should monitor the use of interactive media by teenagers trying to protect them from being exposed to false or dangerous messages regarding their sexual beliefs, a fact which could also put the teenagers in danger – referring to the case of messages that urge teenagers to suicide, as a way for reacting to various social or personal problems; the messages that urge teenagers to activities which could also threaten the teenager’s life – such as the messages to use drugs or meeting unknown people – would be also included in the above category. On the other hand, Macedo et al. (2007) note that socialization is developed under the influence of two different contexts: the social structure and the agency; ‘social structure’ is a term used for reflecting the social ethics and values but also the social classes, as elements of the society. As for ‘agency’, this is a term used for describing the individual who ‘passes the socialization process’ (Macedo et al. 2007, p.158). In accordance with the above view, socialization is depended both on the social environment and the personal views of individual. If using the specific view for evaluating the interaction between interactive media and socialization, it could be argued that interactive media cannot highly affect socialization. The above assumption however would be strongly criticized as the literature published on the specific subject, as presented previously, leads to different results, i.e. to the existence of a close interaction between interactive media and socialization. The specific view is further verified through the study of Berns (2009) who emphasized on the role of media as critical agents of socialization. In accordance with the above researcher, the interactive media are more powerful compared to the mass media – such as the newspapers, the magazines, the television and so on; reference is made to the power of interactive media to influence the socialization process of people of all ages and especially of kids and teenagers (Berns 2009, p.52). It is explained that the specific power of interactive media is mostly based on ‘the direct communication feature’ (Berns 2009, p.52) available in them – a feature non available in mass media. In other words, interactive media can highly influence the socialization process; moreover, the above media have already affected socialization under the terms that the modes of communication between people have been alternated; text messages, chat rooms and social networking websites are often used instead of traditional modes of communication, such as the phone or the letter. Through the current social and technology trends worldwide, a further increase of the power of interactive media and a further transformation of socialization can be expected. 3. Socialization and political awareness Socialization, as a key process for entering and surviving within society, is related to the political environment, which cannot exist out of the society. However, the level at which socialization can interact with politics is not standardized; in fact, the increased socialization of an individual cannot lead to the assumption that the political awareness of the particular individual is high, and vice versa, i.e. an individual may have a high political awareness even if he is not highly socialized. The relationship between socialization and politics can be verified through the liberation theory, used in order to explain the progress of socialization within a particular society. In the context of the above theory, individuals of all ages are likely to be affected by the messages of their environment (Holtzman 2000, p.19); it is assumed that the political beliefs and perceptions of individual can be also affected by the messages that the individuals receive during their socialization process. In order to identify the potentials of socialization to increase political awareness, it is necessary to address the following issue: at what level can socialization, as a process related to interactive media, be used as a vehicle for passing political messages. In accordance with Jordan et al. (2008) the potentials of socialization to be used as a tool for promoting specific social or political message cannot be estimated with accuracy, mostly because socialization, as influenced by interactive media, is difficult to be controlled. Reference is made to the case of mass media, which could be used for passing the same message to the public for several times (Jordan et al. 2008, p.6), an activity, which cannot be developed through interactive media that make the influence of the public more difficult. However, the increase of political awareness through socialization cannot be rejected; in fact, it would be possible for socialization to have such role. The above target could be achieved in the following ways: a) as explained earlier, in the context of interactive media, socialization has been transformed focusing on the exchange of views between the individuals/ users; the message exchanged could also reflect the views of users in regard to the political conditions – both locally or internationally (Gobel 2004); from this point of view, socialization could be used for increasing political awareness, since the users would be informed on key political issues of which they were not aware; the increase of political awareness of individuals/ users would be developed through the exchange of messages related to politics, as explained above, b) another way for socialization – referring to the modern type of socialization as influenced by interactive media – to increase political awareness would be the following one: through the social networking sites or the chat rooms, people could be informed on important activities related to politics (Farmen 2004); people/ users could decide to participate in these activities influencing the political decisions in their region/ internationally. This trend is particularly developed today when social networking sites are used for organizing demonstrations against the decisions of governments regarding the local fiscal policies. 4. Conclusion Socialization, as a process necessary for participating in a particular social framework, can be strongly affected by interactive media. In fact, through the literature presented above it has been made clear that interactive media have changed the modes of socialization; currently, socialization is a process, which is closely related to technology – on which interactive media are based. The above fact cannot lead to the assumption that socialization is no more related to social values and ethics; on the contrary, socialization is still depended on society, as proved through its interaction with politics. It seems through that the changes in socialization have also influenced politics – referring to the changes in the ways through which the political awareness of people worldwide can be developed, as analytically explained above. References Andersen, M., Taylor, H. 2007. Sociology: understanding a diverse society. Belmont: Cengage Learning Berns, R. 2009. Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support. Belmont: Cengage Learning, 2009 Farnen, R. 2004. Nationalism, ethnicity, and identity: cross national and comparative perspectives. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers Gobel, S. 2004. Technologies for interactive digital storytelling and entertainment: second international conference, TIDSE 2004, Darmstadt, Germany, June 24-26, 2004: proceedings, Volume 2. New York: Springer Grusec, J., Hastings, P. 2007. Handbook of socialization: theory and research. New York: Guilford Press, 2007 Holtzman, L. 2000. 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