The Social Utility of media is very complex, and it varies from medium to medium.
1) Giving "false connections"
As we mentioned in the Roles of Mass Communication, linkage creates a connection between the media and the viewer. We connect with TV personalities as though they are real, and expect real people to act like people on TV.
One of the most powerful tools at the Media's command is our need to be part of something ("Be Like Mike").
This is rooted in a deep fear of being alone. We'll study in detail later, how advertisers make us want material objects by preying on this fear.
How many of our magazines encourage us to make comparisons between ourselves and someone in the media?
"The shorthand suffices because the great majority of readers are up to date on the handful of luminous beings that constitute the raw material in most mass magazines, whether the focus is entertainment, fashion, music or sports (or more commonly, some mix of all those things). Celebrities have become the people that everyone has in common, and as long as
images give the hoi polloi a sense of intimacy, the readers are more than happy to supply both text and subtext."
In both film and TV, we invite the people we see into our homes, our families, and our hearts. You've heard about people who think the actors on the street are the characters they play in movies or TV? It's not a joke. People really do identify that strongly with figures in the media.
Your local and national news anchors are chosen not for their journalistic ability but for how well we "like" them. Stations pay thousands of dollars on focus groups to explain why they like and not like certain on-air talent.
The "Q scores" are an advertising research rating that gauges how easily a celebrity is recognized -- and how well the celebrity is liked -- by the public. And these ratings also play a major role in marketing and advertising.
Marketing Evaluations / TVQ, home of the "Q scores"
3) Creating the "water cooler connection"
Media creates an experience we can share. Programs like The NFL, The Bachelor, and Game of Thrones provide a focus for face to face discussion.
Often, consuming the media can be more important that the media itself. Being part of the crowd to see the latest hit film or buy the latest hit song can be more important than actually watching the film or listening to the song.
This humorous spot for HBO reflects a very real social experience.
4) Overcoming loneliness
Traditional media can be a lifeline, providing connectivity for those who, for physical or other reasons, cannot connect with others in real life.
But the Internet is replacing traditional media, creating actual connections through a virtual community. Whether through a chat room, listserv, or on-line discussion group, the Internet is providing real, social relationships far more satisfying than the artificial parasocial relationships fostered by traditional media.
"...the rise of social media has affected such things as work, politics and political deliberation, communications patterns around the globe, as well as the way people get and share information about health, civic life, news consumption, communities, teenage life, parenting, dating and even people’s level of stress."
This long article explains, in detail, how fans are using the Internet to create linkage and parasocial relationships with musicians and bands. It also looks at how this linkage can affect the musicians.
"Along the way, he discovered a fact that many small-scale recording artists are coming to terms with
these days: his fans do not want merely to buy his music. They want to be his friend. And that means
they want to interact with him all day long online. They pore over his blog entries, commenting with
sympathy and support every time he recounts the difficulty of writing a song. They send e-mail
messages, dozens a day, ranging from simple mash notes of the 'you rock!' variety to starkly emotional
letters, including one by a man who described singing one of Coulton's love songs to his 6-month-old
infant during her heart surgery. Coulton responds to every letter, though as the e-mail volume has grown
to as many as 100 messages a day, his replies have grown more and more terse, to the point where he's
now feeling guilty about being rude."
Social critics often site withdrawal as the most harmful effect of mass media.
"People who say that TV is their "primary form of entertainment" volunteer and work on community projects less often, attend fewer dinner parties and fewer club meetings, spend less time visiting friends, entertain at home less, picnic less, are less interested in politics, give blood less often, write friends less regularly, make fewer long-distance calls, send fewer greeting cards, and less e-mail, and express more road rage ..." - Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
The blurring between reality and fantasy coupled with increasing withdrawal and isolation is an ongoing theme of media criticism. The commercial below shows one possible result.
However, other studies on the use of the Internet, "second screen viewing" and even video games show that such forms of media encourage social activity - just not face to face.
In television, the much derided "couch potato" has been replaced by an active "second screen" experience. The new way to experience television is to interact online with friends and peers while viewing programs. Applications such as "GetGlue", Twitter, and even Facebook encourage this behavior as a way to strengthen their own media channels. This becomes a type of virtual "Social Utility"
"People were tweeting about Miley, going, 'I gotta see this,' Dauman said. 'It's a great symbiotic relationship where we drive the conversation on Twitter, and that conversation on Twitter drives people back to watch our shows."
The show altogether generated 18.5 million tweets, accounting for 90 percent of the Twitter conversation about TV that evening, according to Social Guide, the unit of Nielsen that measures social media. The show's ratings were up 53 percent over the previous year as well, Nielsen found.
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