Sociological and Culturalist Accounts - Essay Example

Sociological and Culturalist Accounts All forms of conveying information and messages through the mass media have the capabilities of robbing the society of its own personality; the cost and idea of what it takes to be a male or female being in the community; the sagacity of oneself; judgment of social class; ethnic background, and social race, of sexual status, and personality. Messages relayed through the mass media forms the best model and icon of streamlining our understanding of the human race and our earnest principals. The model perfects our view societal means and way of determining ethical or immorality, awful or excellent, constructive or unconstructive deeds and conducts in our society. Furthermore, the model shapes our culture. It gives us the necessary resources, cryptogram and tradition through which the society compose a universal culture, and that which enables us to fit in the very culture. The question of who possesses media power and the powerless, or even those that can implement might and brutality, and those who cannot is a clear display of the media and its associated culture. The centrality and influence of mass media in modern culture cannot be overlooked. This is a true demonstration of how a number of media sources mainstream information and messages to the society through such forms as internet, newspapers, articles, and Radio. Such information despite positive impact to the society creates an illusion of things not beneficial to the very culture. Mostly, media power proves to be symbolic and persuasive. The media primarily have the greater potential in controlling extensively the mind of readers or viewers but not their actions in a direct way. In such cases of physical, coercive force however, the control of action, that is often the ultimate aim of the exercise of power, is mostly indirect. Whereas the control of intentions plans, knowledge, beliefs, or opinions in mental representations that monitor overt activities is presupposed. Despite the pervasive symbolic power of the media, the audience will generally retain a minimum of autonomy and independence, and engage more or less actively instead of purely passively, in the use of the means of mass communication. In a greater sense of media power, whatever the symbolic power of the news media, at least some media users will generally resist such persuasion (Kellner, 2001). Different forms of media prototype and multiculturalism politics is promoted by society interest in studying its own culture and that of others. Such prototypes are sensitive to associations and supremacy described in cultural media forms like film or television. The studies aims are to enlighten the society to defend against prevailing programmed meanings and develop their own decisive and different understanding. Studies in culture empowers the society to resist the prevailing meanings programmed and relayed by cultural products and create their own understandings by explaining how media culture controls and indoctrinates them. Moreover, individuals are made aware of the confrontations and unfair criticism in mass media. Sociology employs to a diverse possibility of an animated study of culture that is informed by a seriousness of moral and cultural intention of a type that is unimaginable form the point of view of cultural studies. Sociology is driven by a sense of moral commitment and by a moral fury to that which presently includes a good life. Such in depth outrage of sociology overpowers cultural studies with its increasing prominence on items such as clothes and shopping (Devereux, 2003). The urge to understand why things happen is a direct function of sociology. Sociology, therefore, creates an opportunity to develop a possible argument for why things ought to have happened differently in the past or could be redesigned to happen in a different way in the future. Therefore, in a sociological approach, the community will refuse to take anything at all for granted. In principle sociology can salvage the media and hence the cultural and moral values from the trivialization to which they are otherwise all too vulnerable (Devereux, 2003). In a greater perspective, if sociological imagination is brought to bear on the quest of the mass media and their impact on cultural and moral values, the a greater possibility to encourage the society to think of the media for themselves. Such a society with its people in good principle will be capable of developing their own attitude towards the media rather than rely or simply accept what the media conveys, or what they are told (Devereux, 2003). Sociological prototype as elucidated above pursues questions of media sources and news access majorly in terms of activities of news producers and tactical interventions of sources. From a cultural perspective however, this paradigm lacks a sense of the culturally mediating nature of news approached not just as a cipher of social interest and political power, but in terms of its very constitution as a cultural medium of communication and vendor of cryptogram. Hence, to bridge the two platforms, a deeper insight into the very nature of news media source interest is of greater need (Cottle, 2003). Journalists also have deep inside them a news power of fitting new situations into old definitions and not merely use culturally determined definition. They have the power to place individuals and events into existing categories of leading actor, villain, good and awful, and further enrich their stories with the power of mythological truth (Cottle, 2003). The society is so much absorbed in media form from its centrality to structure and consumer society. Knowledge of accepting, interpreting, and criticizing the connotation and information encoded by such mass media products is therefore inevitable. Mass media as the main source of cultural pedagogy is superficial and often misunderstood. It is engrossed in the society and has a role in manipulating the way individuals perform, think, experience, or believe. The media is a tool in the society that is a key source of influence to how men and women tend to be themselves in society. It educates the society of dressing modes, how to view such modes and appropriately use them. The way the community reacts to varied social classes in their dressing modes and its understanding of how to be triumphant and fashionable, and methods of avoiding disgrace conforms to encoded texts in the media. Mass media therefore grossly influences the values, characteristics and practices that match dominant culture in the media. In the society, media knowledge is vital and important if the community wishes to muddle through with a changing and seductive cultural background. The society will develop own sense of managing socio-cultural powers and manipulations and have capability and strength to criticize certain governing media forms and customs. This gives the society the power and better reasoning ground to develop their self-being over media forces and dominant cultural setting. A society with knowledge of the manner, in which prevailing culture in the media avails materials warrant of manipulating societal understanding of the world, behavior, and even personality, is able to resist governing media customs. If a society opts to welcome the dictates and ways of the media, then its members will be ``mainstreamed’’ by the principal media text like style of life as fashion, conduct, and or ethics. On the contrary, a society that keeps distance from the customs and dictates of media culture develops their own style and way of life and defends against such prevailing norms, edging such mainstreams. Individuals in the former society for instance, tend to develop their own personality within the faithful group that conforms to the ruling of the media culture. They identify themselves as individuals of a specific social class with their defined way of life and norms that obeys the ruling of the media, for example persons living in slums and modern estates in developing parts of the world. Society living in resistance to the mainstream however creates oppositional identities and brands themselves against the distinctive model. A deep understanding of culture presents a society with the best way of relating and viewing contrary cultures. It gives the members of such a society a social and cultural respect of the style of life and customs of other cultures. Such a society is therefore able to resist the dominant culture that the mass media presents. Furthermore, such a society convinces its people to center their own ideologies on politics and resist customs that do not conform to their very way of life. This creates a differentiated political set up rather than aesthetic that distinguishes decisive from conformist and conservative politics in a cultural model. For instance, in 1960s, movies acted by Hollywood actors relayed information that restricted the politics, was radical and encouraged counterculture. The very Hollywood products in 1970s encouraged conventional stands. This even enabled swearing of Ronald Reagan as President (Cook, 2000). In a social and cultural upbringing where governing ideologies from the norms of the media are dominant, the concept of critical thinking is important. Dominant views and ideas will strife to be supreme and subordinate other concepts and existing forms of life. The dominant view of social class, for example, will welcome and commemorate modern class while disparaging the working class. The knowledge of race moreover is vital to the provision of racist showcase of color discrimination and that of smaller social groups in the society. Understanding of gender however promotes ideas that represents women and projects their status and centrality in the society that is under media culture influence. The concept of ideologies also creates inequalities in a contemporary society. It induces consent to supremacy relations between different social groups, the mass media and the society culture. The society engages in a war of political supremacy and ideology that creates a radical, liberal, or conservative politics in the society. The approach of culturalist in such a situation is to clarify and specify contradictions of ideologies. Social relations and its systems, in which culture is formed and consumed, conform to the study and relations within the very relations. The study of society itself, its prevailing politics and economy that is dictated in mass media, defines the basis of understanding its social systems and relations. This is vital if the society is to make its own decision in economical, political, and social matters. Such studies elucidate the understanding of the society principal integrity values, its social growth and developments, political status and originality of its culture. In US, for example, the understanding of why various races of life struggle for dominance or express their views on national matters (Keller, 2001). Media impacts differently on its readers and listeners. The manner in which its users its information is reflective of society reception to mass media and its products. Media reception is important in ensuring that the society understands the information or texts being communicated. Different persons from varied social classes like gender, political status, complexity, nationality will read and draw different meanings from mass media texts. Culturalist in their contribution to the society nature of culture and social status explains as to why various groups receive media information differently and how that affects the society. This explains why culture knowledge is important in society reception of the media and its products. Ethnographic research and education explains the reasons behind the varied reception of media reception within social groups and how this affects the society. Such research gives explanation of media information reception effects on its audience and how such texts influences society behavior and beliefs. It also explains how receiving important messages from the media empowers the society values and education. Individuals in the society are able to form their own identities from media information and their own culture through the provision of necessary materials by media culture. Such persons thus develop abilities of identifying beneficial forms of their culture. Teens in a society that its core value is discipline spend time playing video games, watching television or listening to music in such a way to escape the demands of the society. Sporting activities form the mode of association and identification of male individuals in the society. This enables them to feel empowered in instances of victories. An activity of this kind brings individuals from different races of life, culture or nations together expanding social relations of the society. Some members of this sporting activity group may even recreate their own favorite forms of culture that defines their characters and style of life. The media also have a big say and dictates in a ruthless way, the manner in which the society interacts with varied social class systems and its entities. Particularly, people tend to live with and hence associate with persons in their very social class. The way such class view others in a different class can be largely framed by representation of varied class groups in the media. Mass media therefore has the power to shape public and society support at large for public assistance in defining such entities as social class or political affiliation (Anderson & Taylor, 2007). Media exaggerates the lifestyles of the most comfortable classes of life. For example, media portrayals like in television talks, in sports programming, always tend to emphasize stories of upward mobility. Depiction of working class furthermore in mass media, tends to show a more deviance, reinforcing class antagonism and presenting viewers with a sense of moral and class superiority (Anderson & Taylor, 2007). The poor and lower class of the society are also largely invisible in the media. These poor individuals are shown in media forms like televisions and magazines as more often black than is the true case while the elderly and working poor are rarely depicted in the media. This leads to an overestimation of the actual number of the black poor in the society. Mass media representation and emphasize of societal social class and welfare overemphasize themes of dependency specifically in the representation of African Americans in the United States of America. The media as well tends to represent women as more dependent than men in the society. It also tends to give public officials a dominant voice of authority than welfare activists in a show of media power and access to information. This often leads to a phenomenon where the media end up framing the ``field of thinkable solutions to public problems’’ in a way and set up that do not take into account the social structural context of social issues (Anderson & Taylor, 2007). Journalist as well plays a key role in media power and access to mass media information. They often break the daily strategic rituals of news gathering and representation. Most a times, journalists are evidently and intentionally missing from the scene of a newsworthy occurrence. For example, in the murder of President Kennedy, only amateur photographers covered his death as journalist were completely absent from the scene hence raising routine questions of professional competence and control of media power (Cook, 2000). Sometimes journalist inadvertently reveal that news would have not happened in absentia of their direct involvement rather than just channeling or reflecting the information. They are therefore perceived to have vested interest in interference with politics and are adversely criticized for their choices by the society. However, when such occasions of neglect arise, a strategic ritual for covering their incompetence is initiated. In such cases where media themselves become newsworthy, the resultant soul-searching rarely restricts the power of journalists or the strategic rituals that make it a possibility. Journalist therefore employs all means to maximize their autonomy and as well present a news account that seems largely further than their individual power to control. In also a social and cultural arena, such unprofessional representation of news by journalist may also be a direct function of the many restrictions under which they work. However such restrictions do not give good reason for their protestations of exercising little prudence and hence have no political power in their own right (Cook, 2000). In news access and power, the mass media will tend to support government policy and allow access to such voices that give find expression for to this support, mostly in times of elite political consensus (Cottle, 2003). However in situations and times of elite dissensus, the news mass media will tend to take their stand and access a wider range of voices than normal. They even adopt a more engaging and challenging stance. In distinction however, of elite sources between professional experts and advocates, experts are accessed by the news media to help in legislation, and make informed opinions and evaluations advanced by advocates on an issue or a specific debate. This often proves to be extremely influential. Successful news entry therefore is modulated in media to source strategies and political contingencies where once social dominance was assumed sufficient to enable such entry (Cottle, 2003). In communicative practice, sociological emphasis on the dominance of power of social interest in media is organized by competitive source fields and in strategic pursuit of definitional advantage in media. In the practice, emphasis on the culturalist sensitivity to textual forms and conventions and how these mediated sources of participation are viewed. Media communication action, power and access is therefore based on the performances, institutional opportunities and interactional encounters of engaged participants rather than cultural forms and myths. Such differences between communicative power and sociological approaches to strategic power and culturalist ways to symbolic power have not to be taken as mutually exclusive but to a certain extent as plateful to capture important differences of prominence and imminent (Cottle, 2003). The study of social and humanity sciences results into paradigmatic differences in both social and cultural approaches. This model is significant in establishment of public information by closer study of the manner in which media gives access to news, its production stages and associated powers. The manner in which media culture is presented lies deep in cultural studies itself. This acts as a source of understanding of paradigmatic differences in media sources. These differences are deep rooted in the manner in which news is accessed. Access to news is mostly defined by the media presenters themselves in terms of how they represent news. These results into varied cultural set ups and the manner in which such cultures are accepted (Cottle, 2003). Though culturalist model explains the way different cultural identities and its associated symbols is represented in politics, differences in sociological prototype emphasizes on the role of the society in strategic power and society politics (Cottle, 2003). The society in the light sociological and cultural models is able to relate media information, its sources and the journalist. These differences are explains the contribution of media and how it widens knowledge of the society. This is important if individuals in society are to relate media culture with their own style of life and to avoid civilization by media products. Culturalists in the society are therefore an important arm in which its centrality in educating the society on how to defend against exploitations by the media is inevitable. They form the tool through which we develop our own abilities to expand and exploit our freedom and personality. The society then gains stability of democracy and sovereignty in its own culture. They develop capabilities of relating political status, culture, social style and their economy with that of other society. Knowledge of culture is therefore significant in modeling a better society with capabilities to improve the life of its members. References Andersen, L. M., & Taylor, F. H. (2007). Sociology with Infotrac: Understanding a Diverse Society. London, LDN: Cengage Learning Publishers. Cook, E. T. (2000). Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cottle, S. (2003). News, Public Relations and Power. London, LDN: Sage Publishers. Devereux, E. (2007). Understanding the Media. London, LDN: Sage Publishers. Kellner, D. (2001). Grand Theft 2000: Media Spectacle and a Stolen Election. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefied. 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