Society Influences Identity by Jessica Canar

Reality shows – the present of mass media on entertainment which make the big influence to American society. Everybody watched the same stuff, the same old movies, or the same reruns before the cable TV or Internet appeared. For example, the Simpson was a successful sitcom became an institution as important as the cult classic. They poured their shared pop culture experienced into the show. However, the character

person. Without an identity people would not know what kind of person they are. The book

Moreover, the media also influences our identities by creating stereotypes. Taking back to the television show 'The Simpsons', for example. Homer, the father, is stupid, lazy and fat. Marge, the wife, is always nagging him to do work. Lisa, the smart one, is unpopular at school, unlike her mischievous brother Bart, who gets to hang with the cool kids, who are all bullies. Because people see these stereotypes, they begin to make generalizations about other people. People also fall into these stereotypes because it is what society expects of them. These stereotypes created by the media take away our individualism and instead provide us with a common identity which to most of us seems to be the same.

The media has intensely affected society, an effect so immense that people don’t notice its presence sometimes. Individuals become solely

People’s identities are formed by what they hold valuable, at a young age, however, those value can be greatly influenced by his/her surrounding society. In all three essays, Cathy Davidson, “Project Classroom Makeover”, Karen Ho, “Biographies of Hegemony” and Susan Faludi, “The Naked Citadel” the authors share their personal experiences with how different educational institutions operate and to what extent they value and echo their surrounding society. It is evident that those institutions can shape, or in the least influence, their attendees' identities by injecting the surrounding society's belief and influence onto them.

Outside influences have a strong capability to influence and alter our personal identity. Both directly and indirectly, the social contexts in which we live can change the way we think and feel, and by extension how we interact with other people and places. Immediate family, friendship groups and the physical environment are all factors which contribute to our ever changing perceptions of ourselves. Sometimes personal identity can be subtly reshaped over a gradual time frame, as our sense of who we are is modified without personal recognition that we are changing. At other times we may be able to notice our personal identity changing, through important life decisions.

There are many factors that shape us into who we are, and who we will become. Some of these factors we can control, while others we cannot. While we are born into many traits of our identities, much of our other behavior is learned. My identity, for example, is “based not only on responses to the question ‘Who am I?’ but also on responses to the question ‘Who am I in relation to others?’” (Allen, 2011, p. 11). My identity and the question of who I am, are both influenced by many aspects of my life, including my hometown, my family, my friends, and my beliefs and moral values.

Family and Society affects one’s identity. One’s perspective of the world changes based on the impact of one’s family and society. Scout, a young girl who is curious about everything, starts to express her understanding to Atticus: "Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it" (Lee 370)?

According to Jenkins (2014) who we are or who we are seen to be depend on personal, collective, and historical forms of identity. Identity creates a moral system, the formation of likes/dislikes, and the “other” or the “spoken about” (Jenkins, 2014). Identity is produced in a symbolic relationship between people and denotes the ways in which individuals and the collective are distinguished (Jenkins, 2014). The media plays a large role in how identities can be shaped, and this paper will analyze the affects of the American media and how it in turn shaped not only Nazi Party but also how Hitler’s personal and political identity was shaped.

Our identity can sometimes be shaped by the way others see us. As we have seen, the way in which others view us can have some sort of impact on how we see ourselves. There are also other contributing factors such as our years of adolescence, the basic human need of wanting to belong and maturing; all play an equally important part in the forming of our character and who we are. On balance it appears that there is not only one influence in the shaping of our identity, but there are many.

2. That to be most fully "human" requires individual choice and development by cooperative action with identifiable but demanding conditions.

Mass media plays an important role in the society by providing entertainment, information and acting as the government’s overseer. Several scholars have developed philosophies that help people understand how mass media fulfills its roles in the society. For example, Horkheimer and Adorno have constructed theories that explain the functions and impacts of mass media in the society across the globe (Mosco, 2008). The central theme in all mass communication models entails the meaning of media contents, which include the images and texts and their influence on the target audience. The perception of the target audience concerning the text and images in the media are what form the basis of these theories. This essay discusses two hypothetical frameworks: the political economy and cultural studies theories, including their similarities and differences, and how they help in understanding the relationship between the media and society.

Media influence is the force by which ideas are injected into people’s lives shaping the very culture of society. This influence is masqueraded through hidden media message, resulting in a change in its audience which can be positive or negative, abrupt or gradual, short term or long term. Although mass media’s influential effect can reach a wide ranged audience as an agent of socialization the responsibility to contain what it releases has not been of importance. “The media’s socially significant obligations are formally ignored.” (A.S. Zapesotskii, 2011, p 9). Media messages can be exerted through many different outlets such as TV shows, music, movies, commercials, news, magazines, games which are all gravitated to entertain audiences ultimately offering personal gratification that can sometimes blur the lines between reality and

When considering salience of identity and its effect on individual preferences, we could conclude that this phenomenon may be classified as a variation of transitivity. Transitivity is described as “the cornerstone of normative and descriptive decision theories” because it “underlies measurement models of sensation and value” and is a “necessary condition for the existence of a utility scale” (Tversky, 31). If we were to create a utility scale for each identity that an individual holds each scale would reflect the preferences of the primed identity, placing the same items at different places upon the scale. “Observed inconsistencies

The television is also a very important aspect of popular culture that affects the American Identity. Watching television is such a common part of contemporary society, that most Americans adopted it as a part of their daily routine and watch television for at least an hour a day. Stanley Crouch, a poet, music and cultural critic, writes that whenever people pretentiously and proudly announce, “I don’t watch television,” they should follow it up with “I don’t look at America either” (Masciotra 79). Television has become a part of many people’s lives. When the mass population watches the same TV shows, movies, etc. they can all relate to each other, and thus unite them as an American. We look to TV shows to see how other people like us act