Psychology condense p 112-121 Sociology Mass Media Perspectives

Subculture and Counterculture

• Subcultures are groups within a larger society, often based on ethnicity, religion, or social class. Examples include girl scouts, college sororities, and boarding schools. Tension can arise between subcultures and the larger dominant culture.
• A counterculture develops when the laws or values of the dominant society are violated. Counterculture values often differ significantly from the larger society's values.
• Polygamy (more than one spouse) and polygyny (more than one wife) are examples of values that differ from mainstream beliefs. The Amish reject modern technology and consumerism.
• Subcultures are smaller communities that distinguish themselves from the larger society, often with unique customs and beliefs. Different cities and states within the same country can have distinct subcultures.

Culture Lag and Culture Shock

• Culture lag occurs when technological innovations change faster than cultural norms and values adjust. This results in social problems.
• Material culture (physical objects) changes quickly, while non-material culture (ideas, beliefs, and values) resists change. This is common in societies experiencing rapid technological advancement.
• Culture shock is a feeling of disorientation, uncertainty, and fear when encountering unfamiliar cultural practices. This commonly occurs when traveling to different countries, or changing lifestyles from rural to urban.

Diffusion of Culture

• Diffusion is the spread of inventions and discoveries from one place to another. Factors contributing to diffusion include exploration, military conquest, missionary work, mass media, tourism, and the internet.
• Culture spreads through various means, including digital media like the internet, as well as print media and traditional methods. How information and culture is consumed changes across different cultures.

Functionalist and Conflict Perspectives on Mass Media

• From a functionalist perspective, mass media provides entertainment, facilitates socialization, and reinforces social norms, by exposing people to behaviours and norms through rewards and punishments.
• The conflict perspective examines how mass media reflects existing power imbalances and reinforces social class and racial divisions. Gatekeeping describes how a limited number of people and corporations control the media.

Feminist Theories and Mass Media

• Feminist theories critique the way mass media misrepresents society and supports dominant ideology, often portraying men and women in stereotypical and traditional roles.

Evolution and Human Culture

• Culture is passed down through customs, knowledge, and learned behaviors. Culture is socially transmitted.
• Charles Darwin's theory of evolution helps explain how physical and behavioral traits evolve as an adaptive response through natural selection, including customs like marriage and funeral rituals.
• Evolution both shapes culture and is impacted by it.

Social Inequality

• Groups like racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income individuals, often face more significant inequalities in areas including lower incomes, lower education levels, and reduced access to healthcare.
• Social stratification involves dividing society into layers based on income, wealth, and power. This affects access to resources like education, healthcare, and opportunities.

Social Mobility

• Social mobility refers to the ability to move up or down the social hierarchy. Upward mobility involves moving to a higher class, while downward mobility involves moving to a lower class, both horizontally (within same class) and vertically (different class).
• Education, housing, and employment are often factors in social mobility, influencing individual's social position.
• The Caste system is a way to divide social status, where social status is assigned at birth, and social mobility is almost non-existent, unlike the class system.

Absolute and Relative Poverty

• Absolute poverty refers to the minimum amount of resources needed to survive.
• Relative poverty refers to income disparities compared to the average income in a society.

Social Reproduction

• Social reproduction refers to the continuation of social inequality from one generation to the next.

Residential and Environmental Justice

• Residential segregation is the separation of groups of people into different neighborhoods.
• Environmental justice refers to issues of fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, often based on race and income, as communities with higher poverty levels and racial minorities frequently face disproportionate environmental burdens and reduced access to benefits like green spaces.

Linguistic and Spatial Isolation

• Linguistic isolation occurs when communities develop their own languages, creating barriers to social interaction with larger communities.
• Spatial mismatch occurs when opportunities for low-income people are available but they do not have convenient access to these due to location, which can be exacerbated by segregation.

Global Inequality

• Global inequalities manifest in differences in life expectancy, access to resources, and wealth distribution across the world.
• Economic disparities like a small percentage of the world's population controlling most of the wealth, compared to a disproportionately larger portion lacking access to resources, are examples of global inequality.

Statistical Types and Validity

• Regression: used to examine the relationship between continuous variables
• Correlation: measures the relationship between continuous variables; is less specific than regression and does not attempt to determine direction
• Chi-square: used to examine the relationship between categorical variables
• T-test: used to determine differences in means between two groups
• ANOVA: used to determine differences in means among three or more groups
• Cross-sectional Study: a snapshot of a population at one point in time
• Cohort Study: follows a specific group of people over time
• Longitudinal Study: follows a population over time
• Case-Control Study: compares subjects with and without a condition
• Clinical Trial: evaluates the effects of a treatment on patients
• Internal Validity: The extent to which a study's results are attributable to an effect or intervention, instead of another, unrelated factor.
• External Validity: Whether the results of a study can be generalized to other populations and settings.
• Construct Validity: The degree to which a tool or test measures what it is intended to measure.
• Confounding Variables: Variables that influence the dependent variable, confounding the interpretation of the study finding.
• Types of Control: Include the use of a control group that does not receive a treatment, as well as positive controls (already known effects), to determine and quantify the effects of given treatments.

Explore various perspectives on mass media, including functionalist and conflict theories. This quiz covers how mass media influences societal norms, minority portrayals, and the control of information. Test your understanding of these concepts and their implications on society.