Mass Media Socialization Behavior: Negro-White Differences

This paper is a comparative analysis of differences between 351 Negro and 272 white adolescents in their uses of the mass media as an agency of socialization. Through the use of indexes to measure two socialization behaviors-media reinforcement and media norm-acquiringit was possible to empirically differentiate between media socializees and non-media-socializees. The data indicate that, under almost every condition considered in the analysis, more Negro than white adolescents were media socializees. The interpretation of the data suggests that many Negro adolescents are using the mass media to learn how to behave like whites (i.e., behave in a socially acceptable way). An attempt is made to explain the findings by the consideration of a Negro subcommunity which is a partially bounded subsystem within the larger community system and which is the result of three types of mechanisms of maintenance: (1) ecological and social segregation of Negro-white interactions; (2) self-conceptions of Negro children; and (3) subcultural differences between white and Negro communities. T here has been relatively little systematic research of the common assumption that the mass media constitute a significant agency of socialization. Considerable research has been directed toward the functions and effects of mass communication, but most of these inquiries relate only indirectly to socialization.' Researchers and theorists agree that the significance of mass media exposure is not generally found in the media-person experience alone, but in the link between media exposure and interpersonal environment. The dominant approach to recent mass communications research has been referred to by several names"functional,"2 "situational,"3 "phenomenistic,"4 and "uses and gratifications."5 The mass media * This study was financed in part by a grant from the Graduate School funds for faculty research, Stanford University. The author is indebted to Otto Larsen and E.A.T. Barth for their provocative and helpful suggestions during all phases of the project. 1 Two books that systematically elaborate upon the functions and effects of mass communications are Joseph T. Klapper, The Effects of Mass Commnunication (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960), and Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1955). Two comprehensive studies of the uses of one medium, television, by children are Hilde T. Himmelweit, A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince, Television and the Child (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), and Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker, Television in the Lives of Our Children (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1961). 2 Charles R. Wright, "Functional Analysis and Mass Communication," Public Opinion Quarterly, 24 (Winter 1960), pp. 605-620. 3 Eliot Freidson, "The Relationship of the Social Situation of Contact to the Media in Mass Communication," Public Opinion Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1953), pp. 230-238. 4 Klapper, op. cit.; and Joseph T. Klapper, "What We Know About the Effects of Mass Communication: The Brink of Hope," Public Opinion Quarterly, 21 (Winter 1957-1958), pp. 453-474. 5 Elihu Katz, "Mass Communication Research and the Study of Popular Culture," Studies in Public Commutnication, 3 (Summer 1959), pp. 1-6. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.47 on Sun, 17 Jul 2016 04:28:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MASS MEDIA SOCIALIZAT'ION BEHAVIOR 41 are viewed as one factor working along with several others in the total milieu of the audience. Direct effects are not emphasized but rather the key question is: How do persons with different statuses and in different social structures use the media and what are the resulting gratifications and consequences ? Respondents are seen not as discrete individuals, but rather as persons functioning within particular social contexts.6 Some lines of research have indicated that there are several functions of the mass media and that people "use" the media in numerous ways.7 Socialization, then, is only one of several possible consequences of media exposure. Some of the ways in which the media are used, such as entertainment, may or may not have a relationship to the socialization of individuals. Concern should be directed toward concepts and data bearing on the social structures the media penetrate. Wilensky suggests that millions of persons in America "have no place to anchor an opinion, no vital culture through which to filter the media impact."8 He says that "where local cultures offer no stable guide to good and bad . . . the media may reach the person directly and carry heavy weight."9 However, it is not sufficient merely to state that the media are important in the socialization of young persons. It is necessary to specify how persons use the media in their socialization. Some previous research suggests that the media can function as an agency of socialization in at least two ways: (1) by reinforcing existing values and attitudes, and (2) by serving as a source of norms and values which offer solutions to personal problems. Persons who are high in either or in both types of behavior can be called media socializees. This paper is an analysis of some conditions of media socialization.'0 Certain social structural contexts are more likely to produce media socialization behavior. One indicator of social context which has been widely used in sociological investigations is racial or ethnic status. Race and ethnic status have been used as an analytical variable in a wide variety of studies by sociologists. It would seem, then, that an individual's racial status would be an important starting point in explaining his mass media behavior. However, relatively little systematic research has been conducted on the influence of ethnic status on media behavior and, except for sporadic references, practically no systematic mass media research has utilized the race variable. Very little is known about the functions of media for Negroes, for example.11 Negroes are seldom B See John W. Riley, Jr. and Matilda White Riley, "Mass Communication and the Social System," in Robert Merton, Leonard Broom, and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr. (eds.), Sociology Today (New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp. 537-578. 7 Two good summaries of functions of the mass media are in Charles R. Wright, Mass Comunication: A Sociological Perspective (New York: Random House, 1959), and in George Lundberg, Clarence Schrag, and Otto Larsen, Sociology (rev. ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1963), pp. 254258. 8Harold L. Wilensky, "Social Structure, Popular Culture, and Mass Behavior: Some Research Implications," Stuidies in Public Communication, 5 (Summer 1961), pp. 15-22, quote from p. 17. In a more recent paper, Wilensky elaborates upon and tests some of the ideas he put forth in the above article. See Harold L. Wilensky, "Mass Society and Mass Culture: Interdependence or Independence ?", Aierican Sociological Review, 29 (April 1964), pp. 173-197. 9Wilensky, "Social Structure . .. and Mass Behavior," p. 16. 10 Combining the two behaviors, media reinforcement and media norm-acquiring, into a general category called media socialization does have the consequence of virtually erasing pertinent specific data. In the present paper, space does not allow the separate consideration of the reinforcement and norm-acquiring behaviors. This analysis will be presented in a companion paper, in which it will be shown that, contrary to the main body of literature on the sociology of mass communication, our data suggest that more adolescents use the media as a normative agency than as a reinforcement agency. 11 Frazier's Black Boufrgeoisie is an example of a work where various references are made about Negroes' uses of the mass media. Such statements are seldom substantiated by systematic empirical research. See E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1957). A more recent article that touches upon the subject of the use of the mass media by Negro youth is Joseph S. Himes, "Negro Teen-Age Culture," This content downloaded from 157.55.39.47 on Sun, 17 Jul 2016 04:28:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms