Sociological Perspectives on Mass Media Explained

Introduction: Media and Social Institutions

Most of us go about our everyday lives thinking that we are masters — or mistresses — of our own lives, making decisions by ourselves and for ourselves, the embodiment of autonomy. We do not like to think of ourselves as being under the control of the major social and cultural institutions of our society. And yet, of course, we are in no way independent of these institutions: family structure, religious traditions, political structures, economic trends, and the mass media all sculpt our lives.

In this paper, three important sociological theories — functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism — are used to analyze the ways in which the mass media affect the individual in society as well as the other important institutions that together construct our social reality.

Functionalism and the Mass Media

Functionalism — or "structural functionalism," to distinguish it from the functionalist school of philosophy — is a mode of sociological inquiry that takes as its basis a view of society as a single structure with interrelated parts. In functional analyses, society is often seen as a living body, with each of the major sociological institutions (such as the media) serving as different organs. This is no longer a widely used model of sociological analysis, given that it focuses on society as an essentially integrated mechanism with an overall unified purpose. Anyone who has read a newspaper or watched the news recently can hardly think of American society as integrated.

Functionalism is essentially a carryover from the work of Durkheim, who viewed the work of sociology as providing an explanation of the ways in which societies are stable and cohesive over time (Holmwood, 2005, p. 88). This perspective has in general been replaced by sociological frameworks that emphasize the importance of understanding change and conflict — although societies always contain some element of stability as well. Functionalism can be seen to apply to the institution of the mass media in that a large portion of the media can be viewed as upholding social institutions. Here we encounter one of the key problems of functionalism: it presumes a high degree of homogeneity in both form and function that does not exist in contemporary America.

For example, Fox News can be seen as upholding conservative elements of society — such as the interests of large corporations and established political movements. This segment of the American mass media universe can be seen as a stabilizing element, and it certainly represents long-standing interests in American society. What functionalism fails to do is explain more radical or progressive media outlets, since the goal of progressive media organizations is to disrupt the status quo.

Functionalism does not do a good job of explaining how social change occurs within mass media organizations, given that its entire purpose is to explain what endures rather than what changes. With something of a stretch, functionalism can help explain the fact that the mass media remain important to Americans as a whole, and that what endures is the importance of a free press. However, this is a very partial explanation.

People who work for the mass media no doubt vary in their attitudes depending on whether they are liberals, who see the media's role as disruptive, or conservatives, who see their role as preventing change. People in society as a whole are similarly divided, with conservatives feeling the media allows for too much change and progressives arguing that it promotes too little.

Social Conflict Theory and the Mass Media

The social conflict model can be seen as the mirror image of functionalism: where functionalists arguably ignore social change as they struggle to explain society as a stable and cohesive entity, social conflict theorists arguably ignore the stable and cohesive elements of society as they focus on aspects that are in conflict with each other. As noted, society is of course a mixture of change and stasis.

Social conflict theory arises in largest measure from Marxist theory. As a result, conflict theorists tend to focus on economic issues. Social conflict theory examines first the unequal division of material goods — money, land, and other forms of wealth. Those with great wealth try to maintain their disproportionate share by suppressing the majority who have few resources. The rich are able to keep the poor — who outnumber them many times over — in check through the resources that money can buy, including influencing the government, influencing the legal system, brute force, or through the deflection of charity. In this model, the primary force for change in society results from conflicts between classes as the wealthy try to maintain their position of power and the poor shift between being dominated and either rebelling or engaging in revolution (Thio, 2009, p. 87).

As with functionalism, a significant problem with using social conflict theory to analyze the American mass media is that the media are not unified or homogeneous. A social conflict theorist could certainly see large media corporations as helping to sustain a status quo that exists to protect the rich — working to elect politicians who will create and execute legislation that keeps the wealthy in power. While such outlets argue they are simply being "fair and balanced," a social conflict theorist would find this claim disingenuous.

But social conflict theory does not easily explain progressive media organizations. Such outlets are not supporters of the status quo, as neither those who work for them nor their opponents would claim otherwise. A social conflict theorist might argue that the powerful and wealthy allow the existence of progressive media as a pressure valve — giving the masses of poor an outlet to feel heard, thereby preventing more disruptive forms of rebellion. While there may be slices of truth in this, it is not a fully convincing explanation on its own.

Conclusion

People outside of the mass media tend to see their own general views reflected in their assessments of media institutions. Liberals tend to see the mass media as controlled by Big Business and the conservative wealthy — a point of view that carries some truth — while conservatives tend to see the mass media as the voice of liberal journalists, a point of view that carries considerably less. Each of the three sociological theories examined here offers partial insight into the workings of the mass media, but each also reveals significant blind spots. Ultimately, interactionism's attention to individual agency and constant social negotiation makes it the most adaptable framework for understanding how media institutions both shape and are shaped by the society in which they operate.