Unit 4: Media and Social Institution

Introduction: The Interdependence of Media and Society

In sociology, mass media is viewed not as an isolated entity but as a central social institution that interacts with, shapes, and is shaped by other major institutions (religion, education, economy, and polity). This unit examines these dynamic relationships through functionalist, conflict, and interactionist frameworks.

1. Media and Religion

The relationship between media and religion is characterized by the concept of Mediatization, where religious practices and institutional changes are increasingly shaped by media logic.

A. The "Electronic Church" and Televangelism

• Definition: The use of television and radio to broadcast religious services and recruit followers.
• Sociological Impact:
  • Privatization of Religion: Religion shifts from a communal, congregational activity to a private, home-based consumption experience.
  • Commodifiction: Faith becomes a product to be sold; believers become consumers. High-production values are used to solicit donations (prosperity theology).
  • Deterritorialization: Religion is no longer bound by physical geography or the local parish.

B. Representation of Religion in Media

• Stereotyping: Media often relies on simplified tropes for religious groups (e.g., the "fundamentalist" Muslim, the "strict" nun, the "pacifist" Buddhist).
• Orientalism (Edward Said): Western media often frames Eastern religions through an exoticized or "othering" lens.
• Agenda Setting: News media tends to focus on religion primarily during times of conflict or scandal (e.g., clergy abuse cases, religious terrorism), potentially skewing public perception of the role of faith in daily life.

C. Digital Religion and Cyber-Spirituality

• Online Rituals: The rise of "cyber-churches" and prayer apps.
• Community formation: The internet allows diasporic religious communities to maintain cohesion and share distinct cultural-religious identities across borders.
• Authority Challenges: The internet democratizes religious knowledge, allowing laypeople to challenge traditional clerical hierarchies and interpretations.

2. Media and Education

Media acts as a "Parallel Curriculum," educating audiences informally alongside formal schooling.

A. Media as an Agent of Socialization

• Edutainment: The deliberate combination of educational content with entertainment value (e.g., Sesame Street, National Geographic).
• Incidental Learning: Acquisition of social norms, language, and cultural values through consumption of non-educational media (e.g., learning about court procedures from legal dramas).

B. The Digital Divide and Educational Inequality

• Access Gap: Disparities in access to high-speed internet and devices create a "knowledge gap" between socioeconomic classes.
• Usage Gap: Even with access, higher cultural capital families often use media for educational enrichment, while lower-income families may use it primarily for entertainment (Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital).

C. Media Literacy

• Critical Pedagogy: The educational movement to teach students how to deconstruct media messages, identify bias, and understand ownership structures.
• Protectionism vs. Empowerment: Older models focused on protecting students from "bad" media effects; newer sociological models focus on empowering students to be active producers and critical consumers.

3. Media and Occupation (Economy & Work)

Media influences how society values different types of labor and operates as a massive labor industry itself.

A. Representation of Labor

• Class Invisibility: Working-class jobs (manual labor, service industry) are vastly underrepresented in entertainment media compared to professional/managerial roles (doctors, lawyers, architects).
• Sanitization of Work: Media often ignores the mundane or exploitative aspects of capitalism, focusing on high-drama professions.
• Stereotypes:
  • The Incompetent Worker: The "bumbling dad" or lazy employee trope.
  • The Heroic Professional: The genius doctor or detective who ignores rules to get results.

B. The Gig Economy and Media

• Platformization: Media technologies (Uber, Fiverr, Upwork) have restructured the institution of work, moving from stable employment to precarious "gig" labor.
• Algorithm Management: Workers are increasingly managed by software algorithms rather than human supervisors, changing the social dynamic of the workplace.

C. Media as an Industry (Political Economy)

• Precarity in Creative Industries: "Below-the-line" media workers (camera operators, editors, assistants) often face job insecurity, long hours, and lack of union protection, despite the glamour associated with the industry.

4. News Media

News media is the primary institution through which citizens understand the polity and society.

A. Theoretical Concepts

• Gatekeeping (Kurt Lewin): The process by which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication. Editors and algorithms decide what counts as "news."
• Agenda Setting (McCombs & Shaw): The media may not tell people what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling them what to think about.
• Framing (Goffman/Entman): To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient to promote a particular problem definition or moral evaluation.

B. Manufacturing Consent (Herman & Chomsky)

A propaganda model arguing that mass media manufacture consent for economic and social policies through five filters:

1. Ownership: Profit orientation of media conglomerates.
2. Advertising: Dependence on ad revenue forces media to please advertisers.
3. Sourcing: Reliance on official government/corporate sources for information.
4. Flak: Disciplining the media through negative responses (lawsuits, complaints) to controversial reporting.
5. Ideology: Anti-communism (or the "War on Terror") as a control mechanism.

C. Citizen Journalism

• The shift from "One-to-Many" (Broadcast) to "Many-to-Many" (Networked) communication.
• Public citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information, often challenging traditional gatekeepers.

5. Film Production

From a sociological perspective, film production is an industrial process influenced by economic constraints and organizational hierarchies.

A. The Studio System and Standardization

• The Culture Industry (Adorno & Horkheimer): Frankfurt School theorists argued that film production is akin to a factory, producing standardized cultural goods that placate the masses and discourage critical thinking.
• Vertical Integration: Historical and contemporary attempts by studios to control production, distribution, and exhibition.

B. Production Culture

• Hierarchy of Labor: Film sets are strictly hierarchical social systems (Director > Above-the-line talent > Below-the-line crew).
• The Auteur Theory vs. Collective Production: While film criticism often focuses on the director (Auteur) as the sole artist, sociologists view film as a collective action (Howard Becker) requiring the coordination of hundreds of specialists.

C. Globalization of Production

• Runaway Productions: Hollywood outsourcing filming to locations with tax incentives or cheaper labor.
• Co-productions: Films produced by companies from multiple nations to bypass quotas and access different markets (e.g., Hollywood-China co-productions).

6. Cinema and Society

This topic explores the cultural impact of the finished film text and the social experience of movie-going.

A. Reflection Theory vs. Shaping Theory

• Reflection: Cinema mirrors the existing values, anxieties, and norms of the society that produces it (e.g., 1950s Sci-Fi reflecting Cold War paranoia).
• Shaping: Cinema introduces new ideas, fashions, and behaviors that society adopts.

B. The Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey)

• A feminist film theory concept suggesting that cinema is constructed through the eyes of a heterosexual male active viewer.
• Scopophilia: The pleasure of looking.
• Objectification: Women are portrayed as passive objects of desire to be looked at, while men are the active drivers of the narrative.

C. Cinema as a Social Valve

• Escapism: Functionalists argue cinema provides a necessary release from the stresses of modern life.
• Catharsis: Audiences experience emotional release through identifying with characters.

D. Representation and Identity

• Symbolic Annihilation: The absence or underrepresentation of specific groups (minorities, LGBTQ+, disabled) in cinema, suggesting they do not matter socially.
• The Bechdel Test: A measure of female representation (Do two named women talk to each other about something other than a man?).

E. The Audience Reception

• Encoding/Decoding (Stuart Hall): Audiences are not passive sponges.
  • Dominant Reading: Audience accepts the filmmaker's intended meaning.
  • Negotiated Reading: Audience accepts parts but modifies them to fit their own experiences.
  • Oppositional Reading: Audience understands the intended meaning but rejects it entirely (often due to conflicting ideological beliefs).