The role that society has given to the media to dictate youth culture has become one of the most lucrative conquests corporations are battling over today. Much like empires throughout history, media empires today have found their ‘Africa’. This paper is an examination of this silent, bloodless conquest through two different sociological lenses. First we will consider the effect of media in youth’s culture using functional theory.Stating the primary assumptions valuable in studying the effects of media on youth and youth culture. We will then consider the role of media in youth’s culture and how it is a functional piece of society.
We will next consider the symbolic interactionist’s perspective. Again, following the same process as with the functional theory. I chose these two classic sociological perspectives because I thought it best to examine from both macrosociological (functional) and microsociological (symbolic interaction) viewpoints to grasp a more comprehensive understanding.Ultimately though deductive reasoning , the perspective that makes more sense in [making sense] of popular culture in the United States. Before we start our examination, let me first address my usage for a few terms.
Throughout the paper, I use the word ‘product’. This is meant to be any idea, method, information, good or service meant to satisfy the demand of a targeted potential customer. The second term is ‘cool’.Cool, as referred to in the film, is the desirable product a business tries to sell to young people. The functionalistic perspective views the social world as a dynamic system of interrelated and interdependent parts (Ravelli & Webber, 2010, p.
40). There are several assumptions this viewpoint incorporates. To begin with, society is a collection of subsystems and institutions that rely on each other in order for it to function. In doing so, society generates a degree of stability.The teenager’s marketing machine composes of such systems like Viacom’s MTV, the studios/record labels that feed MTV, the artists that feed the studios and coming full circle, MTV setting the landscape of how an artist must behave and what an artist must produce in order to be accepted in this lucrative institution of selling ‘cool’; selling sociological acceptance. The next functional assumption relative to young people discusses how each subsystem and/or institution has an underlying objective to keep society at a status quo.
A typical family dynamic that this film depicts is that of a teen’s parents working hard, receiving an income and then giving their money to their teen. This dynamic is heavily relied upon by mass media and countless industries that manufacture ‘cool’ so teens with disposable income buy (or buy into) their product. So we have, at one end, parents working to keep these industries that manufacture ‘cool’ and these industries that manufacture ‘cool’ employing parents in the workforce that is demanded of these industries.Each part works to keep each working. The last assumption a functionalist would deem prudent when discussing the effects of media on young people is that members within society have a common understanding on what is morally right. Was it morally right to use the pressure of sex to sell advertising space on the WB network? Culture bought into Dawson’s Creek, a television show that did just that.
Therefore the collective understanding is that this would be socially acceptable. Functionalists view media’s role as a functional part of society.That is, there is a necessity for media in order for society and other establishments to experience stability. The institution of media is systematically set up to achieve maximum profits for the few whom are in control of the institution. Consider again Viacom-MTV. The organization’s entire purpose is to sell back to youth their own [perceived] culture.
The music videos sell music, the shows sell clothes, tangibles put together to sell a ‘look’ and of coarse obvious, the commercials then sell products.The businesses involved in this promoting system would is enormous. MTV then cross-promotes with other unrelated businesses like, for example, Sprite. Sprite provides a venue for the music, MTV broadcasts the artist performing and in doing so, promotes the artist that has been systematically chosen to promote. Two separate business entities interdependent of each other to accrue profit.
But these businesses are not trying to reach an equilibrium or ideal plateau as this theoretical model employs.This is where the functional approach’s flaw lays; the definition of cool is always changing and therefore the industry must be always be changing not trying to stay the same. The second theoretical perspective to be examined is Symbolic Interactionism. This American-based perspective states that society and social structures are creations of interacting people and can therefore be changed (Ravelli & Webber, 2010, p.
56). Here, again, lie fundamental properties the symbolic interactionist would assume. Firstly, society is in constant evolution.This s a crucial point to make when studying the effects of media on young people and their unyielding need to be ‘cool’ because ‘cool’ is constantly evolving and changing. One must understand this to understand that meeting the objective of selling ‘cool’, requires constant examination of the product’s perception to it’s targeted demographic.
Symbolic interactionists would argue that people in a society interact through different mediums using symbolic communication(s). This assumption is again significant when defining the effect media has to the youth, as there is a wealth of symbolic elements within youth culture.The music, television programming, films, imagery, color usage, linguistics, phrases, signs and semantics the youth choose to accept, effect the state of society, culture and moreover, the effect media has on it. Lastly, the reality that one experiences in society is the result of one’s interactions with another and can, therefore, be changed (Ravelli & Webber, 2010, p.
56). If the current youth culture view sexuality as a heavily weighted component in their decision making process, then this becomes reality.The main role media has is being the agency through which the teenager continues his or her process of being socialized. Unlike a functionalist, the symbolic internationalist would argue that youths look to each other to define what is cool. This is why media injects characters into society such as “mooks” or “midriffs” in order to accommodate this need for youths to imitate how these characters interact.
This is also why cool finding agencies such as Look Look are crucial for mediums in fulfilling their role.If the youth looks to each other for insight to what is cool, then the media must discover this first in order to be profitable. This paper’s intention was to set up the architecture a theorist would work within when attempting to define the role of media and it’s impact on the youth of today. The function and symbolic interaction theories present very different views. As stated in the introduction, I chose both a macrosociological (functional) and microsociological (symbolic interaction) viewpoints to grasp a more comprehensive understanding.
So which made the most sense?This statement by Rushkoff in this film reflects what makes the most sense to me, "Kids' culture and media culture are now one and the same, and it becomes impossible to tell which came first…” The dependence of each institution to each other is so close, they are becoming hard to identify from each other. This closeness is best explained using the functional theory. Despite its flaws, the functional theory makes sense of the web of systems that makes up the media in youth culture. Further, because of this macrosociological view, one is able to examine the effect on culture verses looking at how the individual is affected.
