Question

You are to watch two hours of television. For one hour, you are to watch a children’s television show to see what is being advertised (the commercials). For the second hour, you are to watch a sporting event to see what is being advertised (the commercials). As you are watching these two hours, you are to study advertising as the agent of socialization. You are to identify at least 4 “cultural lessons” (the viewer of this program should or should not …) that are constructed in these advertisements. Tell me what you observed, what did you learn and what does this convey about socialization? Explain.

Answer 1

There are four cultural lessons that can be studied on the basis of watching television shows containing advertisements like violence, prosocial behavior, eating disorders, sexual experiences and emergence of world views about the people living in the society like gender, minorities, political attitude and school learning. Watching children series or sports has a tremendous impact on the mental and physical health of a person associated with obesity and binge eating as a person tends to eat a lot while watching television thus losing consciousness on one's health which is a priority in life. One tends to get more social, communication and interactive with the other people after watching television series. Socialization through watching television impact the physical and the mental development process with the analysis of the tasks and gaining tremendous experience in life. The behavior and attitude of a person is shaped according to the type of viewing by a person on television. It is a type of mental experience that allows a person to follow and experience life in different forms along with enjoyment. It directs a person to behave after observing others on television. If one observes children on television then the children on the family viewing the other children tend to behave in a similar way after observing the advertisement that tends to make a person aware of the things and events happening across the world. Every family has a set of social beliefs, traditions, customs and moral understandings that have a serious impact on the type of programs viewed on the television. Watching children television show has a tremendous impact on the stages of the psychosocial development of a child as a child learns to follow the things that are represented in the serials and tends to follow them. Watching sports serials also has a strong impact on the life of a person as a person tends to play and adapt to the type of the sporting events observed in the television. One can recreate, rejuvenate and get entertained by observing the different types of sports events observed on television. One beliefs, languages and rich tradition of cultures are shown in the different types of children programs that are adopted by children and affects their stages of development from childhood to the adult stage. There is activation of a consumer behavior in a person after watching children serials as a person gets motivated to obtain a family and children as observed in the serials and marketing advertisements. A person tends to observe the brands shown in the advertisement and hopes that his children also get accustomed to such advertisment and marketing products available in the market for entertainment and enjoyment.