Media Stereotypes and Socialization of Children

Social Institutions

Our media is a major element of socialization for a number of reasons. The first is that it is, to some degree, a representation of the world we live in. While much of what is depicted is fiction, the way that people's home and work lives are presented on television is an influencer with respect to how we view our own lives, and the types of things to which we aspire. We pick up behavioral cues from the characters on TV shows, for example, but also cues about social structures and how we interact with one another. Our media is the means by which the majority of ideas are transmitted to us in the modern world, with television, the Internet and radio all receiving hours every day of exposure.

An example of this can be found in the sitcom. The sitcom as a medium is intended to generate humor through situations relatable to typical families. For the situations to be humorous, they have to be relatable in some way to the audience. Early sitcoms focused on the so-called nuclear family, which was always patriarchal, and almost always white. A child watching such programming would view that as a standard of normality, something that they might measure their own life against. Children in homes where parents divorced would not surprisingly struggle to accept their family situation, given that it was deemed not normal. Families that were not white would likely conclude that they were not as accepted. This is because television is basically an aggregator, and those in power viewed the only relevant audience in America to be white; anybody not white would receive a negative message about their status in this country. If that is compared to a show like Modern Family, where those old archetypes are broken down, such a show reflects a world today where the family can be comprised any number of different ways, and all are considered normal. A child watching such programming today would have a better sense of belonging because of the representations of different family structures, different gender roles, and people of different ethnicities and sexual orientations.

The types of programming overall also affect how a child perceives its world. The sitcom is just one of many types of programming. A child immersed in "reality television" that promotes narcissism, superficiality and in many instances anti-social behavior will doubtless adopt some of the affectations and outlooks to which he or she is exposed. "News" programming that directly seeks to manipulate emotions and perspectives on the world through repeated messages calling for fear of others, or distortions of truths to engender and normalize anger, can have a strong negative impact, but there is also room for positive impact when the messages themselves are positive.

Television is one of the means by which children are essentially immersed in their culture. They learn about communication, about gender roles, and about society's power structures. Power is a common theme in many television shows, whether it is a political drama, whether the power comes in the form of violence, or whether the power comes in the form of money. Many voices, and alternate theories about how power can or should manifest in society, are marginalized in television. There are barely any, if any at all, prominent voices for LGBT perspectives, the perspectives of many minority groups, for socialist thought or other political views outside of the mainstream, or even views about things like education, the political process, or philosophical viewpoints that may be outside the norms. For example, societies that emphasize the communal are seldom shown on television, even though many Asian or Hispanic-Americans subscribe to such values. It is unusual to see television characters attend a religious institution, even though many Americans are spiritual -- we are reduced to see the absurd rock star preacher shows of televangelists as the primary window into America's spirituality, which cannot possibly give any child a healthy perspective on the subject.