Mass Media and Socialization among Children By

Ayotunde Badaru
seun_ayotunde@yahoo.com

Introduction This paper will examine socialization and its process in the lives of children; human infants are born without any culture. The culture they lack at that early stage of their lives must be transferred to them from their parents, teachers and other in cultural and socially adept animals. The general process of acquiring culture is referred to as Socialization. During the socialization process we learn roles we are to play in life. Norms are the major aspects of the socialization process, norms are the conceptions of appropriate and expected behavior held by most members of the society. This term paper in its capacity aims to discuss socialization, its agencies; the mass media being the case study of this paper. The effect of mass media on the socialization process of children will also be a point of analysis. The mass media which is a major agent of socialization will also be examined. To understand the correlation between the mass media, socialization and children each of these concepts will be explained and analysed under different sub-topics. Each sub-topic takes a deeper look at the triangle existing between socialization, the mass media and children. This paper in its subsequent pages takes a look at the television: a major media agent, and see how it has transformed the socialization process of children. However, there are vital agencies responsible for the consistent actualization of the complex socialization process; this is where the mass media comes in. The mass media in its capacity plays a vital role as an aid of socialization among children. In fact, mass media may be considered as the most important agent of socialization (Wiki Answers, 2010).

Socialization: A General Overview Socialization as a complex, long-term and multi-dimensional set of communicative exchanges between individuals and various agents of society that results in the individuals preparation for life in a socio cultural environment (DeFleur, 1989). Socialization is a complex learning process through which a new group of members are created and incorporated into group life. According to Goffman, human interaction is absolutely necessary for the physical and social development of children. Socialization is a process whereby individuals are made aware of behaviors that are expected of them with regards to the norms, beliefs, attitudes and values of the society in which they live. Socialization in this sense, initiates the awareness of every individual, age and sex no in

question, to the expected i.e. the existing trends in the society they live in, this means each society has a trend, lifestyle, way of life, dressing, language and so many other things that make up the social life of individuals. Socialization through the appreciation of cultural practices builds up the individual in facing the realities of life in that society. The agencies of socialization which would be discussed later in this paper are the social institutions that pass the norms, values, beliefs and attitudes of the society to every individual. According to Aloysion, there are several agencies of socialization which can be developmental, anticipatory, resocialization, primary and secondary socialization. However, according to him, the main agencies are those regarding primary socialization, which is the process where people learn attitudes, values and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture. Secondary agencies are important too. These agencies are responsible for the process in where individuals learn appropriate behaviors as members of a smaller group within the larger society. Under the primary agencies are the family, peer groups and opinion leaders. The family is the most important and integral part of every individuals upbringing. The family has the power to influence an individuals self concept, emotions, attitudes and behaviors. Peer groups are made up of people with similar ages and statuses in society. This group also sets the trends by which an individual must abide. The secondary agencies of socialization are the work environment, education, mass media and religion. The mass media is a major agency of socialization. Through the mass media, individuals are able to learn and adopt new lifestyles and behaviors, which, at the end, become a convention in society, a good example is fashion. Religion is another major agency of socialization because it embodies the moral principles of society. Religion has its own set of norms, values and principle that regulate the conduct of its members. Human interaction is absolutely necessary when it comes to socialization, it vital for the physical and social development of children and individuals in general. Human interaction in this sense can either be directly or through mediated interaction. The process of interaction is the major way of transferring norms and attitude expected by the society. Agents of socialization also use the interaction process with the inclusion of their setting and functions to aid the process of socialization. During the socialization process, we learn the roles we play in life. Socialization through its agents define the roles of different individual in the society especially gender roles. This will be discussed in detail consequently in this paper.

Agents of Socialization

There are many agents of socialization i.e. a lot of individuals and institutions a person come in contact with aid the socialization process. But we are going to dwell on the major ones and also the main focus of this paper: mass media, and also the agents that interact with children. -The Family: The family is a primary agent of socialization. Primary in the sense that it is the starting point of the socialization process i.e. everyone is born into a family. Family can nuclear or extended. The family: (a) Determines the childs social class, race, religion, background and ethnic group. (b) Teaches children the values that they will hold throughout life. -Schools: In highly technical societies, children are also socialized by the educational system. Schools teach students to develop themselves, test their achievements through competition, discipline themselves to cooperate with others, obey rules, and incorporate a sense of citizenship and to reinforce a nations cultural emphasis. All of these are essential for a youngster to achieve success in a society dominated by large organizations. -Peer Groups: The peer group, a group of people approximately the same age is an important influence upon the socialization of young people. Young people spend much time with peer groups usually in their schools. Young people create their own unique cultures in part because they are often unsure of themselves and value a sense of belonging. There may be other agents of socialization children come in contact with, but these with the inclusion of the mass media constitute the major ones.

Some Approaches to Socialization DeFleur in his research refers to the process of Enculturation. According to him, it consists of individuals internalizing all aspects of their culture. The process of enculturation is a vital process that originates from the family. Culture as a way of life has to be learned and internalized by the children, this includes the roles to play, dresses to wear and how to wear them, languages and so on (DeFleur, 1989). Psychologists in their opinion approach socialization as an inner process that one must acquire in order to control inborn drives that would lead to socially unacceptable behavior. The role of media in this case can be considered as highly important for the negative aspects that explicit exposition of adult issues can cause in a childs future development. However, socially unacceptable inborn drives usually manifest in the behavior of individuals, this can be traced back to the socialization process of that individual.

How Are Children Socialized? Socialization is a learning process that begins shortly after birth. Early childhood is the period of the most intense and the most crucial period of socialization. This because whatever the child is taught during this period is internalized and very difficult to correct or change. It is also during

this period that children acquire language and learn the fundamentals of our culture. It also during this period that much of our personality takes shape. However we continue to be socialized throughout our lives. As we age, we enter new statuses and need to learn the appropriate role for us. We also have experiences that teach us lessons and potentially lead us to our expectations. Socialization in the early stages of childhood is crucial and vital. Looking around the world we see that different techniques to socialize their children. (Henslin, 2010). Erving Goffman emphasizes the process of interaction once it has been developed. Every interaction, Goffman states, begins with a presentation of self. Social interaction, he suggest, can be compared to drama on a stage, with its backstage and front stage presentations. Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) coined the term Looking Glass Self to describe how our senses develops from interaction with others by first imagining how we appear to others, then by how we interpret others reactions and finally by how we develop. John and Beatrice Whitting did an extensive field study of early socialization on six different societies. These societies include: -Gusii of Kenya -Rajputs of India -Village of Taira on the island of Okinawa in Japan -Tarang of the Phillipines -Mixteca Indians of Central Mexico and -A New England community that is given the pseudonym Orchard Town. Whitting emerged with two major conclusions from the study: 1. Socialization practices vary remarkably from society to society. 2. The socialization practices were generally similar among people of the same society. They found that different methods were used to control children in these societies e.g. Gusii people used fear and punishment, the people of Taira used parental praise and threat of withholding praise. Different cultures in different countries use different techniques to socialize their children. There are two broad types of education that socialize children: Formal and Informal education. -Formal Education: This type of education primarily happens in the classroom. It usually is structured, controlled and directed primarily by adult teachers. -Informal Education: This can occur anywhere. It usually involves imitation of what others do and say as well as experimentation and repetitive practice of basic skills. Most early socialization throughout the world is done under the supervision of women and girls. Initially, mothers and their female relations are primarily responsible for socialization. Later, when children enter the lower school grade they are usually the control of women teachers. In North America, and some other industrialized nations, babysitters are mostly teenage girls who live in the neighborhood, and in other societies they are likely to be older sisters or grandmothers.

Mass Media: An Agent of Socialization To understand the mass media, we need to understand mass communication. According to Gerbner, mass communication is a technologically and institutionally based mass production and dissemination of broadly shared flow of public messages. The mass media as the name implies is the different means by which public messages are transmitted. According to Wiki Answers, the mass media is considered as the most important agent of socialization for development of the child is the mass media. The mass media are the different process that facilitates communication between the sender of a message and the receiver of the message. It plays an important role in the socialization of children. In fact, there are many types of media; these include newspaper, magazines, radio, films, CDs, Internet, and television. These kinds of media, especially television, affect children and adults in different ways. The television is a very interesting media of dissemination as it combines picture and sound to transmit information to the audience. Children being part of the audience find the television very interesting. The audience especially children can sit for hours watching movies and television programs. The mass media as an agent of socialization comes a lot of demerits and at the same time a lot of benefit. Violent programs on the television create bad role models of actors and actresses; it also makes the children internalize bad attitudes. The television also brings to the children the lives of great men and role models, this people teach the children values and good attitude. The average family in the United States has at least one television turned on for at least seven hours (Wiki Answers, 2010). Television is the biggest mass media in almost every country and has positive and negative aspects. According to Kasper, mass media is the most important agent of socialization. In her opinion, mass media is a significant force in modern culture. It also referred to as mediated culture by the sociologist. Does Mass Media Influence Socialization? In the socialization of youth especially mass media plays a boisterous part in the subculture that it develops. Since both our self and or minds are social products, it makes sense that our own understanding of cultural norms are influenced by our digestion of mass media (Henslin, 2010). These norms are developed by digesting advertisements, T.V Shows, radio and film personalities and similar influences that become reinforced through repetitive exposure and perhaps most importantly, fear of negative sanctions from our peer groups. For example, a peer group of female high school students from the inside and the out and how mass media influences each member to the point where it actually steers the socialization process in a certain way.

Media that is watched by these girls generally depicts gender-bias in terms of the reinforcement of gender roles .i.e. television as well as magazines and advertisement tends to reinforce the cultural expectations of a certain gender. In the case of girls, adverts that show beautifully dressed women with makeup tells them what they should look like, since an average U.S. children see 25,000 advertisement per year (Henslin, 2010). So from the outside, the cultural norms of these girls are going to be influenced and almost defined completely by mass medias reinforcement of the cultural expectation of gender. From the inside, their definitions of how girls ought to look like are both defined and reinforced by their peer group interactions. Huesmann (1988, 1998; Huesmann et al., 2003) proposes that exposure to media such as television, films, video games, or internet web pages are a consequence of three processes: 1. Priming of already existing cognitions or scripts for behavior: An encounter with an event or object can prime related concepts, ideas and emotions in a persons memory, even without the person being aware of it (Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982). For example, the mere presence of a weapon in a persons visual field can increase aggressive thoughts or behavior (Berkowitz & LePage, 1967). Therefore, related exposure to specific media content, therefore, has the potential to bias individuals towards thinking, feeling, or behaving in ways relevant to that content. 2. Imitation: Immediate mimicry of specific behaviors can be viewed as a special case of the more general long-term process of observational learning (Huesmann, 2005). Consequently, observation of specific facial expressions or social behaviors increases the likelihood of children immediately displaying those expressions or behaviors. 3. Arousal and Excitation Transfer: High arousal generated by exposure to rapid action sequences and loud music makes any dominant response tendency more likely to be carried out. The increased general arousal stimulated by a media presentation may simply reach such a peak. Other long term influences include: -Observational learning process -Activation and desensitization of emotional processes. Childrens Exposure to the Media By the time most Americans are eighteen years old, they will have spent 15,000 hours in front of a television set, about 4,000 hours more than they have spent in school, and far more than they have spent talking with their teachers, their friends, or even their parents (Minnow & LaMay, 1995, p.5). This quote goes to show the extent of exposure to the media among children. In Nigeria, children are not exposed to those hobbies their counterparts in developed countries are exposed to. There are few recreational facilities in most of these developing countries. For

instance, in Nigeria, children have recreational centers in Ibadan, Lagos and a few other cities. This consequently makes them rely on viewing television as a past-time and hobby. They watch television and home videos for long hours immediately after closing from schools about 2.00 pm till late hours in the night. In the process, they are exposed to so many hours of television commercials and programmes which eventually have consequential effects on their behavior. Children are surrounded by mass media. Children are an ideal target, simply because they are avid viewers. Most big name brands and advertising agencies use television for example to try and influence children as consumers. Television

Television has witnessed a great deal of technological advancement over the years, from the black and white TV to the colored TV. An important advancement is the Satellite Television. The satellite television makes it possible for children to be exposed to various programs showcasing life in other parts of the world. The television in its capacity influences the language, dressing, lifestyle and attitude of children viewers. Some researchers believe that television shapes not only what we think, but how we think. Roberts et al. (2005) found that 51% of youth reported that the television is on most of the time in their homes; 63% said the television is on during meals. Children watch 184 minutes per day of television (Roberts et al., 2005). Woodard (2000) reported that boys watched TV more than girls, but Roberts et al. (2005) found no gender difference, and whereas Woodard (2000) found that children from higher-income homes watched less TV than children from lower-income homes, Roberts et al. (2005) found no income-level differences, correlated with this findings are strong viewing rate among children between the ages of 11 and 13. A recent trend in television programming, which is the satellite television, has become very important. With the satellite television, TV programming has become more diverse. Specialized channels targeted at the children have emerged e.g. Nickelodeon, children although having programs specially made for them, view other channels not meant for them. Video Games

Video games are also a major media agent targeting the children. Video game units are now present in 83% of homes with children (Roberts et al., 2005). Each day, 52% of children ages 818 years play a video game. The surveys found that boys play video games far more frequently than girls. Actions and activities involved in video games also go a long way in shaping the role of a child. Educative and logical games such as scrabble and chess are encouraged for children. Computers and Online Access

The computer and online access (internet connectivity) is a major agent of the media, the internet is an embodiment of all aspects of the media. It offers news, music, movies, games and television, all of these are combined together. The major problem here is that the internet has no censorship; children can go online to watch and listen to whatever they like. In most developed

countries, the internet is considered as strong agent of socialization from the media apart from the television. Print Media

In contrast to the steady rise of other media, in many countries print media have experienced a setback from the role they once played. Several recent developments have served to further decrease the numbers of young readers of print media. In part, this is a result of the improved quantity and quality of information available from television and radio. In industrialized countries, young people are distracted by numerous media choices and technologies. According to the article, Socialization: From Infancy to Old Age. Television is known to be the medium with the greatest socialization effect, surpassing all the other media by far in its influence on the young child. The fact that television is not an interactive agent is greatly significant to the development of young children. While watching children have the feeling that they are interacting but they are not.

Hearly (1990) believes that television presents thinking, at least in characteristics ways. He argues that children, who have grown up watching a great deal of it do not think unless the pictures and sounds are provided for them. The television is considered the most influential mass media in most countries. Television programs socialize children in positive and negative ways. There are some programs which are helpful with lots of information for the children. In Nigeria, programs such as Work It Out, showcases children working out mathematics, children at home can learn from this as they watch. However there are programs that affect children negatively, for example, The Jerry Springer Show is a program not good for children; it contains a lot fights and vulgar language.

Mass Media and Socialization of Gender Roles Gender roles socialization in our society begins at birth, and from that moment on, parents respond to the infant on the basis of the gender. Traditionally, boys are expected to acquire Instrumental Roles; performing tasks that lead to goals that they have set for themselves, whereas, girls expected to acquire expressive roles, roles which encourage more verbal, more expressive, more emotional interaction and more interest in interpersonal relationship. Parents also give their children different toys and games based on gender. Television shows, music videos and adverts tend to promote male and female gender roles stereotypes. Adverts showing a women caring for children or cooking tends to instill this role on the girl children, this and many other adverts socialize children into different gender roles.

Conclusion Mass media, socialization and children are three separate but related aspects of our everyday life. Socialization being a vital period in the life of children, mass media being an agent of socialization and a means of bringing socialization to the children, children being the receivers of the socialization transmitted through the mass media. The mass media uses its agents such as television, newspaper, and internet to bring the socialization message to children in need of it. The children on the other hand through viewing, reading and hearing internalize the trends, attitudes and expected behavior. Although, the mass media transmits any information or program paid for. It is then the responsibility of the parents and moral institutions to censor the type program and information they watch. It is also important to note that socialization can be positive or negative. Children right from their birth are badly socialized and thought bad habits that makes them constitutes nuisance to their environment.

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