Sociology Essay: Desperately Need Your Help, Please!

P.S. I Love You <3

Hiya Guys & girls :smile:

Guess what... :p:

...my sociology teacher gave us another essay to do :mad:

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“Any sociological explanation of the influence of the mass media needs to take into account the social situation of the audience.” Explain and evaluate this view. :mad:

I really don't know how to deal with this kind of essay statement. However, here is my very rough idea:
Intro: various studies + theories onto the effects of the media such as catharticism, imitation, sensitisation, desensitisation, disinhibition. Then I would say, some take the social situations into consideration and some do not -whether it's necessary or not. I would also include quotes that came from a recent newspaper article ( where an Eminem lookalike beat up fan to death) just to liven up the intro bit. :p:

Then I would go through the theories one by one if it takes into account social situation of the audience or not and if it's useful in our understanding:
-cultural effects
-Hypodermis syringe
-Inerpretativists
-Uses & Gratifications
-Pluralists.
Then back it up with other models/studies - outlining it and relate it to the qustion again.
My ending part would be : does it really have to be taken into account?
I am planning to use other models/theories/studies/sociological researches that would criticise the other theories.

:mad:

I am really finding this too hard. It's not that I'm lazy to do this but, I don't have enough detail to produce a good essay.
Any help at all would be very highly appreciated.
If you could possibly show me how you would deal with this kind of essay, any theoires, and studies that would relate to my essay, suggestions, comments, anything - would be of great help to me! :redface:

Thank you in advance !!! Mwaaaah XxX :tsr:

anyone???? please???

You used lots of complicated phrases up there which I don't know about, but looking at the question from a purely common sense point of view, I'd guess you need to say something about the individuals in the audience, and how likely they are to become influenced by the mass media- do you know of any research studies that show whether particular social classes or more likely to be influenced or not?
Hope that helps at all.

Reply 3

darryl

You could talk about post-modernity and choice, people being able to choose their own lifestyles and make their own life choices. You could link that with pluralism saying about how media represents a diverse range of groups and interests.

But I would have to agree with you, that is a very tricky essay!

Reply 4

P.S. I Love You <3

Fankoo soooo much for replying guys...
guess what.....................................im still doing that :mad:

CURSED

essay (due on thursday) :mad:

anyways, i really do appreciate your replies :smile:

xXx

Reply 5

Hoblox

Yes i would agree with the Post-Modernist stance. Perhaps contrasting the influence of the media in a Post-Modernist Western society to that of state media in a Middle-Eastern society?