Family Interaction & Social Relationships Lauren Alfero

In the beginning of radio and television the family came together around their television and radio sets.

“Television can be credited with increasing the family’s fund of common experience and shared interests and blamed for decreasing conversation and face-to-face interaction.” “When the television is on, there is ‘more privatization’ of experience ; the family may gather around the set, but they remain isolated in their attention to it.”

Do you agree or disagree with these statements?

Before the rise of mass media there were three institutions in charge of socializing a child, instilling particular values and ideals, and standards of behavior: the family, the church, and the school. Now the mass media has become a fourth institution.

The problem with mass media being an institution of socialization is that mass media is operated by individuals and corporations who are looking out for their best interest rather than the public interest.

Television families: Since the beginning of radio and television most critics have been concerned with the “demise” of families on television. FROM TO

George Bush, 1992: Urging American families to be “a lot like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons”

Mass media producers say that they cannot create successful content that does not, in some way, reflect already existing social realities. The mediated messages shown on television reflect and mirror our soceity.

So… TV Families: Fact or Fiction Do you think TV families accurately reflect American families?

Fact or Fiction: The majority of families on television are white, middle class, nuclear families. Single parents on television are mostly male and upper class with hired help – in reality the majority of single parents are poor black women.

Fact or Fiction: Most television marriages are depicted as conventional and happy, with almost no serious conflict. Most situation comedies avoid all social issues and focus on superficial problems that are solved in 22 minutes or less.

Immediate Gratification and quick solution scenario The orientation towards immediate gratification so common to contemporary media and quick solutions to problems is in conflict with many of the basic commitments and slow and gradual processes necessary to sustain the family.

With commercials advertising quick solutions to problems, and electronic media moving faster every day the expectation to obtain gratification immediately and to fix problems easily is becoming an idealized ideology. This becomes a problem with relationships because children learn from an early age about immediate gratification and in later relationships they are not prepared to endure difficult, enduring problems associated with being a parent or a spouse.

Examples: Marshmallow test Clearasil Ad

Cultivation theory: Gerbner Theorizes that heavy television viewers gradually accept the repetitive distortions and stereotypes projected on television and apply these ideas to real events. Example: Heavy television viewers are more likely to overestimate the amount of crime in the real world because of the amount of television crime and violence.

Children’s perceptions of reality versus television: Study of 200 adolescents believed that being single is bad, families are large, and families are good. Heavy tv viewers also believed that families in sitcoms are like families in real life and that real families were less likely to experience strife and conflicts. Heavy soap opera viewers tend to believe that there are a larger amount of extramarital affairs, divorces, and the conception of illegitimate children then in reality. Also, heavy television viewers are more supportive of non-traditional family values, children out of wedlock, and single parenthood.

Thoughts?

Bryant, Jennings, Alison J. Bryant. Television and the American Family Bryant, Jennings, Alison J. Bryant. Television and the American Family. 2nd. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 2000. Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2001. Douglas , William. Television Families: Is Something Wrong with Surburbia?. 1. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.: Mahwah, NJ, 2003. Singer, Dorothy G., Jerome L. Singer. Handbook of Children and the Media. Thousand Oaks, CA, 2001.