Disscussion

Discussion Week 6-Pushing the Boundaries

Agents of socialization have an enormous impact on awareness of self. In early life, the family is the most intense period of cultural learning, however mass media also has an extraordinary influence on individuals. From an early age, children are exposed to a myriad of mass media influence including television, video games, movies, books, magazines and comics. This influence continues into adulthood – you are influenced by mass media much more than you’ll ever likely realize.

The reflection hypothesis states that “the mass media reflects the values of the general population.” Every generation has experienced “shocking” TV/mass media events that often elicit debate on whether or not this event is appropriate. By looking back on specific shows, one can get a glimpse of the societal norms of that time period and gain a greater understanding of what was acceptable and what was “pushing the boundaries” of social acceptance. In this discussion, you are to select ANY music video, book, podcast, video game, toy, magazine cover, clothing item (shoes), hair styles, etc and describe what is being reflected during that time period. For your initial 250 word post, you should describe your selection and explain how it was reflecting the time period. If you think back on your childhood, think about the popular items and how “everyone” wanted to get it and why. For example, in my child hood we had parachute pants (YES they are a thing) See below. 1980s at its finest! Everyone in school wanted to have them and you could hear the swish in the hallways. These became popular because of the break dancing and they were easier to slide. This reflected music culture as well as breaking of gender roles as everyone wore these. Another item was the Air Jordans as this was a VERY popular reflection of basketball culture and putting famous people into product lines.

After your original post, you are to respond and react to at least 2 of your classmate’s post over a total of 3 days and discuss whether or not you are aware of the items that they described and how influential it was in your life. Also, you can discuss how you feel about the item now. These items have shaped culture. Many shows such as the Wonder Years, The Goldberg’s, Abbott Elementary etc are set in the past or discuss the past and they go through trends that have occurred. If you are uploading a video, please make sure it has closed captioning so everyone can access it. If you are from another country, please feel free to add pictures, etc and include more details if the ad or show is not in English. Overall, this should be a LOT of fun to share about each other

You MUST post by Wednesday *your original response needs to be at least 200 words and your follow-up posts need to be 100 words each. You MUST post 3 days in total. PLEASE NOTE: ANY use of AI, will result in failure for this assignment and class. This assignment will go through plagiarism checker and AI checker. Also, all discussions have been run through Turnitin each semester and if you are caught submitting someone else’s work, you will fail immediately