Sociology and the Media

Considering I got my wisdom teeth pulled out over the past few weeks, my use of mass media has severely increased.  While looking for the meaning of being socialized by the media I stumbled upon an intro to sociology page that defined sociology as “the process by which people learn characteristics of their group’s norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors” (Cheney). While watching TV, I noticed just how much the media around us influences our society.  There are, what I would define as, cultural norms that are taught to us by the media we watch.  If a new fashion comes out it is advertised over the television, radio, internet and every other form of media available to make us think that we have to look a certain way to be accepted. I did not realize how much the media have socialized me until these past few weeks. I started noticing that the more certain clothing commercials came on TV the more I wanted to go to certain stores and buy the merchandise that they were advertising. After taking a look around my room I realized just how much “junk” I’ve bought that had been at some point advertise on TV or in some magazine. You see advertising everywhere even while walking down the street. There are public ads plastered on billboards telling us where to go and what to buy.  It seems as though the entire world is run off advertisements.