Does the media reflect or construct social reality?
This question is at the heart of lively debate among sociologists about the relationship between media and the social world.
On the one hand, there are those who argue that mass media simply reflects the attitudes, values and norms of the society that it’s situated within.
On the other hand, there are those who suggest that media not only provides a mirror to society,
but strongly influences our social reality, to the point that it shapes, and even constructs, our understanding of that reality.
In this lecture, I’ll explain how these sometimes conflicting views stem from different conceptual understandings
of the functions and effects of the mass media, and of mass communication more generally.
Let’s first take a look at the idea that media shapes and constructs reality.
This perspective holds that the media is a profoundly powerful agent with the ability to influence social attitudes and norms.
Theorists who argue for the dominant or hegemonic approach to media believe that the mass media distribute a limited view of the world,
which conforms to the interests of the ruling class or dominant ideologies.
This model works to win popular consent and acceptance of dominant ideologies through media representations of the world.
Directly or indirectly, the media tell us what to think, what to believe, how our world should be and how we should behave in the social world.
This perspective suggests that media audiences by and large accept these views.
As a result, the media serve to legitimise and reinforce prevailing structures of power.
A Marxist theory of media fits within this overall approach, and supports the idea
that the mass media are instruments of control for and by the ruling class.
Marxist theories contend that existing society is maintained and legitimated by the concentration of media ownership in the hands of a minority elite.
Advocates of this view are concerned about media concentration,
because it means that a very small number of people have the ability to manipulate what people see or hear,
and thus shape the reality of media audiences.
There are also a number of other theories about how the media actually operates to influence the opinions and beliefs of media audiences.
The ‘hypodermic needle model,’ also sometimes called the ‘magic bullet theory,’ was developed in the 1920s,
and states that the media acts to directly inject beliefs and ideologies into the minds of a passive and powerless audience.
The theory suggests that the mass media could influence society as a whole uniformly by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’ them
with its intended messages, designed to trigger a particular response.
For example, a mass media that promotes the message that privilege and wealth belonging exclusively to a select group of people may then
cause members of society to internalise the divide between rich and poor, and maintains the status quo.
Another model which acknowledges the influence that media has on society is the agenda-setting function model.
Unlike the hypodermic needle model, agenda setting theory doesn’t necessarily tell audiences what to believe or how to think,
but it does instruct audiences as to what is important and what they should be concerned about –
in other words, they set the agenda for social discourse.
Most often attributed to Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, agenda setting theory concludes that mass media focuses on just a few issues
and subjects, in an attempt to shepherd the public towards perceiving those issues as more important than other issues.
For example, media owners may avoid publicising stories about the environmental degradation or labour exploitation of companies
that provides them with a significant portion of their advertising revenue.
This will then lead to media audiences attributing less importance to such issues.
It's clear that these approaches to the sociology of media views the mass media as having a significant influence on
media audience’s perception of their social world and their social reality.
What then of the argument that the media does not construct, but simply reflects society?
Many argue that the media should operate as a mirror to society, and accurately represent society and reflect society’s values and norms.
Proponents of this view contend that it is audiences who shape and influence the content of media through their
choices of which media to consume or not consume, and not the other way around.
This approach takes a pluralist, rather than a hegemonic perspective of the power of media.
According to the pluralist model of media, society is made up of competing social, cultural and political groups and interests
that are served by a variety of media that give diverse and competing views.
The pluralist model argues that because there is diversity in society, there is also choice.
In other words, media audiences can choose what to believe and what not to believe. In order to remain viable, mass media forms need
to conform to the needs and expectations of society.
This approach to media positions audiences as having a much more active and powerful role, and places less emphasis on
the influence of media on the opinions and attitudes of individuals.
For example, in the limited effects model of media, developed by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet,
people’s interpersonal relationships and communication with members of their families and social groups are seen as having
a far more significant impact than exposure to mass media.
Limited effects theory emerged from a study conducted during the election of Franklin Roosevelt in the United States,
which found that the vast majority of people were not influenced by political propaganda on television,
with only 5% changing their voting patterns based on exposure to mass media.
It appeared that people choose what media to consume based on their current beliefs, which then forces the mass media to
reflect those beliefs and attitudes.
Take, for example, the dominant representation of women in media and popular culture as being overly emotional or obsessed with shopping.
From a pluralist perspective, one would argue that such a representation is so prevalent and prominent,
not because of the ideological whims of a minority media elite,
but because the media caters to the pre-existing values and ideologies of people who already hold those views.
Using the same example, we can also see that media representations of women have changed throughout the decades,
as a result of changing social norms and consumer demand.
In reality, it’s likely that the relationship between the mass media and society is somewhere in between –
mass media both shapes and is shaped by the society in which it operates.
In the culturalist theory of mass media. people are seen as allowing themselves to be influenced by media to a certain extent,
but still exercise a large amount of agency within that interaction to interpret media messages through their own worldview.
Culturalist theorists claim that while members of the corporate elite may exert significant control over the messages promoted via mass media,
individual worldviews play a powerful role in how the audience members interpret those messages.