People spend a large share of their day with mediated content. According to a 2010 Media Comparisons Study by the Television Bureau of Advertising, American adults watched about 319 minutes of television daily (Prince, 2012). As internet use has grown and new platforms have appeared, television time seems to have dropped by 2022. Media consumption remains high, but television is now a less dominant channel. In 2022, only 13% of respondents said they watched four to six hours of TV a day, and most watched two to four hours. Adults over 65 watched the most, about four hours daily, while teenagers aged 15 to 19 watched the least, under two hours.
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Early Research on Media and Socialization
For a long time, little research looked directly at how mass media shapes socialization. Gerson (1966) observed that nearly all earlier work touched on the topic only indirectly. Most studies asked how "persons with different statuses and in different social structures use the media and…the resulting gratifications and consequences" (Gerson, 1966, p. 41). As a result, early work examined how media affects the "interpersonal environment" and not the individual (Gerson, 1966, p. 40).
At the time, scholars were only beginning to argue that media performs many functions, of which socialization is just one. Because so little evidence existed, Gerson assumed that media supports socialization in two ways:
- by strengthening values and attitudes people already hold, and
- by supplying norms and values that help people with personal problems (1966, p. 41).
Since then, sociologists have increasingly treated mass media as a strong socializing force. It influences how we learn about world events and how we are expected to behave toward one another, and it connects people to social institutions. Much of what people believe now comes from what they see and read in the media, not from direct experience.
Election coverage is one example. Media outlets broadcast debates in full and add expert commentary, so voters may be swayed more by this coverage than by attending town halls or reading campaign literature. Professional sports work the same way, with commentary framing the event. It is therefore reasonable to argue that media helps shape how people interact.
From Traditional Media to the Internet
Most research has focused on visual, audio, and print media such as television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. The internet has since joined them. It reaches many cultures at once and lets people share information and opinions through constant streams of images and sound. Even so, television remains influential. Television professionals are skilled at predicting what will appeal to a mass audience and at crafting messages that promote particular ideas and products. Smartphones are an example: most people got by without them for decades, yet many young people now consider them essential. Sociologists working from a Marxist perspective often argue that mass media helps sustain capitalist societies.
Smart devices and social media have existed for only about a generation. Access to far more content may come at the cost of meaningful face-to-face interaction, and the messages spread on social media are often anti-social. Studies link smartphone and social media use to higher stress, a rise that has paralleled the spread of mobile devices. Social media also encourages teenagers to compare themselves unfavorably with peers, and cyberbullying remains a serious problem.
Media as an Agent of Socialization
Media socialization is mostly implicit, a gradual process of learning and cultivation. Along with family, peers, and cultural context, media enables observational learning, in which people absorb lasting behavioral scripts and ways of thinking simply by watching others (Bandura, 1977). Technological determinism is the view that technology determines social structures and processes. However, many studies have challenged early theories claiming that media affects everyone the same way (Kirsh, 2010).
To understand media as a distinct agent of socialization, we must consider how it interacts with the other agents. Its role is hard to measure because it depends on many factors, including content, context, family, peers, personality, motivation, and educational and cultural background.
Family is usually seen as the most influential agent. In infancy, people first receive their norms, values, and beliefs from their family, and these reflect the family's social status, religion, and cultural or ethnic background. School, another major agent in childhood, transfers knowledge and skills. It also shapes behavior implicitly through norms and values such as teamwork, discipline, and following instructions. Peer groups further develop social skills, teaching people to accept differences, resolve conflicts, and help others.
A person's media habits are tied to those of their family and peers and to how media use is encouraged in school or at work. These agents also influence how people judge media quality and how receptive they are to stereotypes in media content.
Socialization involves sharing the norms, values, and language of a culture. Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov (2010, p. 6) describe culture as "the software of the mind," a collective programming that distinguishes one group from another. Media cultures around the world are hard to compare, but there is empirical evidence that media and internet use are linked to cultural dimensions such as press plurality, press freedom, film genre preferences, internet penetration, and social media behavior. Culture shapes access to media and the part media plays in society. In turn, media shapes cultural habits and rituals, such as watching the crime series Tatort on Sunday evenings in German-speaking Europe. Media also tends to reinforce stereotypes and sits at the center of youth cultures through film, music, and books.
Media effects research has traditionally centered on television, radio, and print, along with music and fan cultures. Digital and mobile devices and the flood of online content have changed the field. Producers and users of media are increasingly hard to tell apart ("produsers"), as are personal and public communication (the "networked public sphere"), so recent work mostly examines how digital media affects social behavior.
Media Socialization Across Generations
In the digital age, media is present at every stage of life, from children's bedrooms and classrooms to family homes and senior residences. Media socialization affects generations in two ways. First, during childhood and youth, the dominant medium of the era (cinema, radio, television, video, computers, the internet, or mobile communication) shapes a generation as it works through key developmental tasks. Second, media continues to influence people differently throughout adulthood, for two reasons. Developmental tasks change across life stages such as adolescence, early adulthood, parenthood, and retirement, and different media matter at each one depending on peers, work, and family. Technology also keeps evolving, widening access to media, and new devices affect the habits of older people who did not grow up with digital media. Early in the twenty-first century, Prensky (2001) introduced the influential terms "digital natives" and "digital immigrants."
Identity Formation Through Media
Psychologists have identified developmental tasks that teenagers must complete to become adults. Identity development is central and connects to adjusting to a changing body and emotions, building abstract thinking and decision-making skills, identifying moral standards and beliefs, renegotiating relationships with parents, and forming friendships and romantic relationships (Simpson, 2001). Identity is a person's concept of self, including cultural and ethnic values, group belonging, gender and sexual identity, career goals, and political and spiritual values. Part of the process is discovering what makes one unique and how one relates to social groups. Social comparison theory holds that people come to know themselves by comparing their attitudes, abilities, and beliefs with those of others (Festinger, 1954).
Considerable research shows that media contributes to identity development. Earlier studies focused on television and advertising, and newer ones on video games and the internet. Adolescents find their own media preferences, identify with characters and personalities, and test how they present themselves online. Fictional characters in films, television, comics, games, and books, as well as real celebrities portrayed in the media, can serve as reference points for this exploration. [The original sentence was incomplete; please confirm this ending.]
Social media use and identity development affect each other, depending partly on how strongly a person monitors their self-image. High self-monitors behave differently on social media than low self-monitors. Neuroscience research indicates that the desire for reputation gains, meaning positive social feedback, predicts more intensive Facebook use (Meshi, Morawetz, & Heekeren, 2013). On the other side, people who quit Facebook were found to be more privacy-conscious, to score higher on internet addiction, and to be more conscientious than continuing users (Stieger et al., 2013).
Many users deliberately share happy moments and not sad ones. Drawing on social comparison theory, researchers argue that browsing feeds can provoke envy or depression as people measure their lives against others' curated posts. This seems to apply mainly to passive users, however. Posting status updates more often can make people feel closer to friends and reduce loneliness (Deters & Mehl, 2012).
Identity formation is closely tied to belonging to social groups, which typically produces strong peer orientation in adolescence. Constant connectivity creates problems: the internet lets teens stay in touch with peers and experiment with who they are, but the constant presence of peers makes it hard to step away from group demands. Excessive connectivity correlates with high impulsivity and with poorer relationships with parents (Waller & Süss, 2012).
What Is the Impact of the Media?
Levine and Hoffner (2006, p. 651) noted in their review of earlier research that television and film often present an inaccurate, stereotyped picture of work and workplace behavior. For example, Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman (1994) found that media portrayals frequently:
- showed characters in constant conflict with their bosses, with few consequences;
- showed characters who had jobs but rarely appeared at work;
- suggested that people spend much of their time on non-work activities;
- emphasized the social side of jobs over the tasks involved; and
- made the exciting parts of work seem glamorous while skipping the routine, tedious duties (as cited in Levine & Hoffner, 2006).
Levine and Hoffner (2006) found that media depictions of work can shape young people's career aspirations. Although young people often doubt the accuracy of these portrayals, the portrayals can still make work seem easier, more enjoyable, or more glamorous than it is. The study also found that parents had the strongest influence on young people's attitudes toward work, teaching them how to find a job, how to behave at work, why employment matters, and the importance of a strong work ethic.
- Misinformation and polarization: Algorithms reward outrage and sensational content, so false claims spread quickly and people end up in echo chambers that deepen political and social divides.
- Mental health: Heavy social media use is linked to anxiety, depression, poor sleep, and low self-esteem, particularly among teenagers, partly through constant social comparison.
- Unrealistic standards: Edited images and curated lifestyles promote distorted body image, consumerism, and unhealthy expectations.
- Violence and desensitization: Constant exposure to violent or distressing content can dull empathy and increase fear or anxiety about the world.
- Shortened attention spans: Endless scrolling and short-form content may weaken sustained focus and deep reading.
- Privacy and manipulation: Data collection enables targeted advertising and political persuasion that people often don't notice.
- Loss of trust: Sensationalism, bias, and "fake news" erode public trust in journalism and institutions.
- Cyberbullying and harassment: Anonymity and reach make online abuse easier and more damaging.
Conclusion
Over the past century, psychologists, sociologists, and other researchers have studied socialization and social development, and their findings have helped practitioners guide people through the process. Social learning theory has proven especially useful for understanding socialization and how best to support it.
Through socialization, people develop a sense of self and learn how to relate to society. They do so by internalizing the values, beliefs, and norms of their surroundings and culture. Socialization is essential to forming an identity and functioning in society, because it teaches people the behaviors their cultures expect and how to interact with others.
People spend a great deal of time with media. Until the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, most research examined how people of different social statuses used media and with what results. Researchers have since turned to how media links people to cultural norms and reinforces existing values.
Researchers are also asking how people actually engage with media. Parents, educators, and sociologists have argued that media leads children to accept sexist and racist stereotypes and to become aggressive and materialistic. Yet studies show that children do not take media in uncritically. They weave media messages creatively into their learning and play, which suggests their consumption is more active and critical than passive (Hadley & Nenga, 2004). Research on young people's attitudes toward work likewise shows that media portrayals contribute but that parental socialization matters far more (Levine & Hoffner, 2006). Researchers have also studied how parents can limit the amount and type of media young children see. Besides discussing content and setting verbal limits, parents can use technology such as passwords and content controls on television and the internet to shield children from possible harm (Gentile, Nathanson, Rasmussen, Reimer, & Walsh, 2012).
Overall, the relationship between individuals and mass media may be more complex than earlier research suggested. If children can engage critically with media messages, media's influence as an agent of socialization may be much smaller than some parents, educators, and sociologists have claimed.
