There are a number of advantages and disadvantages with the participant observation method of research. As an observer as participant, for example, the researcher can involve themselves with the subject and record any events as and when they occur – though this is usually not possible as a complete participant, as the researcher cannot easily make notes in front of the subject without evoking suspicion and/or unease, which leads to the obvious disadvantage of the potential neglect of recording important details. Another advantage is that if, as in the complete participant method, the observer becomes a trusted member of the subject group a wealth of insider information on the group dynamics becomes available. However, gaining trust may take a very long time, and the introduction of a new member will inevitably affect the group's behaviour and functioning in one way or another, resulting in inaccurate information. Similarly, in the observer as participant method, the subjects are highly likely to behave in an unnatural manner if they are aware that they are being observed – an example in this case being the popular reality TV show, Big Brother. Though information can easily be checked in participant observation, in some cases (referring particularly to complete participation) it may be both dangerous and stressful for the researcher – definite drawbacks! The final point that is important to take into consideration is that participant observation relies heavily on the credibility of a single researcher, including their subjective views and judgement. Looking back, it is quite clear that the difficulties and disadvantages of participant observation outweigh the advantages, and therefore I will not be using this method in my survey.
Interviews, whilst not as intimate as participant observation, still maintain a personal level of communication that is absent in some other methods of sociological subject study. Interviewing includes the researcher being face-to-face with the study subject (“interviewee”), asking the subject/s questions and (hopefully!) receiving answers, which the sociologist will then record.
Interviewing has very clear-cut advantages and disadvantages. Being with the study subject as they answer the questions enables the researcher to gauge how seriously the interviewee is responding to the exercise. Also, the researcher has the opportunity to pose questions in such a way that the interviewee will be able to easily comprehend or appreciate more fully. And of paramount importance, in an interview the researcher can directly control the situation, for example, ensuring that the interviewee's responses are not being affected by any outside sources.
However, there are disadvantages with interviewing too that must be taken into account. Interacting directly, tête-à-tête with the study subject may cause the subject distress or anxiety, which may well manifest itself with the interviewee trying to provide answers for the primary purpose of what they think will appease the interviewer. Likewise embarrassment can cause similar issues that perhaps would not be present in less personal, or more discreet, methods of research. Then there is the practical problem of having to record the interviewee's responses. Writing in most situations is not fast enough to record every detail, and audio/video recording equipment would be likely to faze the interviewee. There is also the less obvious issue of the interviewer's misinterpretation of the subject's responses which can potentially serve to provide a very different answer to the one intended by the interviewee. The final disadvantage is in converting the responses – which will on the whole be extended and, to a degree, digressive: the result of “open questions” – into useful, statistical information. This conversion is often complex and in significant danger of being affected by the researcher's personal interpretation and opinions, and this above all the other disadvantages convinces me that interviewing would not be a practical method to use in my survey.
Questionnaires are the final appropriate method of statistical research that I could employ to collect the evidence necessary for my investigation. Questionnaires have several disadvantages. The researcher cannot be sure whether or not the participant has answered questions accurately and/or honestly, and the anonymity of questionnaires means that it is not even possible for the researcher to check with the subject on the validity of any dubious answers. Alongside this, the questions need to be easily and universally understood, which may be difficult yet is absolutely vital for reliable feedback.
Nevertheless, despite these problems, questionnaires have advantages too. They are an inexpensive form of information extraction that can be employed even with large numbers of subjects. The structured questions serve a dual purpose in that they are quick and simple to answer and provide data that is easily handled and transposed – a very important attribute in this kind of survey. Though, as aforementioned, anonymity does have a disadvantage, the distinct advantage is that the element of embarrassment, which can impede honest answers, is eliminated. Lastly, as questionnaires are completed in private and personally controlled situations, there is no pressure of having to provide answers quickly, resulting in less rushed, more accurate answers.
Having considered three methods of evidence collection: participant observation, interviewing, and questionnaires, and weighed out their relative merits, I am forced to come to the conclusion that questionnaires will be the best method to use in my survey. I will distribute 30 questionnaires over seven different age-categories: ages 8-10, 11-13, 13-14, 14-16, 17-19, 20-30 and 31+. My school will provide subjects for six out of seven of the age-categories, and I will seek the help and co-operation of teachers (e.g. form tutors) in the distribution and collection of student-issued questionnaires. The school staff will provide subjects for the highest two age-categories, and a local primary school will provide subjects for the 8-10 group.
4 . . . Analysis and Considering of Evidence
Having now completed gathering my statistical evidence, and having transposed the data retrieved from the questionnaires into a number of graphs, charts, and tables, I must now analyse the data before me and attempt to decipher some meaning from it that will answer the question around which this investigation is centred:
“Does the mass media influence youth culture?”
The first question which yields useful data in aiding me towards successfully completing this investigation, is question 3, which asks [paraphrased for convenience here, likewise as are all the questions corresponding with the graphs] : “To what extent do you consider yourself influenced by the mass media in day-to-day living and lifestyle choices?” The options the questionnaire participants were offered as answers were: “not at all”; “influenced a little”; “influenced to some extent, but not excessively”; “influenced quite a lot”; and “very influenced”.
The vast majority of all age-groups – unsurprisingly – went for the safe middle option and claimed to be influenced by the media, but only to a reasonable degree. There were none, confirming my expectations, who labelled themselves as “very influenced” by the mass media (hence the absence of chart for that option), yet to my surprise three out of the 30 persons to complete the questionnaire – i.e. 10% – claimed to be entirely unaffected by the media [see Graph 2:1]. Admittedly two out of three of these are between eight to 10 years old and therefore perhaps did not realise the full implication of the answer they provided (and/or misunderstood the question somewhat), but, as the chart demonstrates, the third self-professing naïve is a young adult, in the 20-30 years age bracket. The remainder of the 20-30 year-olds appear in the “influenced a little” [Graph 2:2] and “influenced to some extent” [Graph 2:3] categories, and are conspicuous in the “influenced quite a lot” [Graph 2:4] only by their absence, unlike all the other older age categories. This seems to suggest that the 20-30 year-olds consider themselves to be the least media-influenced age category, with the more predictable exception of the 8-10 year-olds.
It is the 11-13 category that towers above the rest in Graph 2:4, meaning that the majority of this age-group feel themselves to be “influenced quite a lot” by the mass-media. From a sociological perspective, this makes perfect sense. 11-13 year-olds fall in the upper half of an age-bracket (approximately eight-14 year-olds) known as either “tweens” or “aspiring teenagers” – a flood of youngsters with a wealth of disposable cash and still little inspiration on what to spend it all on. These malleable innocents are therefore prime targets for the commercial world to try to make consumers out of, and whilst eight-10 year-olds may perhaps yet be too young to realize they are being bombarded with an incessant blitz of advertising campaigns, as they grow to become older and wiser tweens (i.e. 11-13 year-olds) their eyes will be opened and they will suddenly feel the full force, the relentless pressure, of the powerful mass-media of which they have only recently been aware – hence a possible explanation for this age-group’s response to Question 3.
[For further information on “aspiring teenagers”, please refer to Article A, entitled “Sells like tween spirit”]
Question 4 is the first key in providing hard evidence to demonstrate the length of the mass-media’s arm. By asking whether brand-names of varying success and popularity are recognised or not, I should be able to gauge to what extent the mass-media has permeated the public consciousness. Though this question will not provide an answer as to whether or not someone is actually influenced by the media, it should reveal the different age-groups targeted by different brand-names, which I can then compare with the data on the popularity of that brand-name in the age group/s that is its prime target, therefore unveiling whether advertising is successful. Advertising is a key concept in the mass media which I have chosen to focus on in this investigation for the simple reason that it is the clearest indicator of media-influence.
If we then apply the aforementioned method of using Graphs 3:1-3:8 as indicators of different brand-names’ target age-groups, we come up with the following results:
The eight-10 and 11-13 age categories were the most aware of Peacocks clothing (suggesting that Peacocks had projected any advertising campaigns primarily at this age-group, i.e. their target audience) [Graph 3:1]. Marks and Spencer was the only brand-name known by everyone who took part in the survey, closely followed by Adidas with the only persons being unaware of its existence being a third of the eight-10 year-olds.
Graph 3:4 displays a distinct pyramidal shape. The 14-16 and 17-19 age-categories are the most aware of the brand-name/label Quiksilver, therefore likely to be that company’s target audience.
The eight-10 age-category vanishes completely in graphs 3:6, 3:7 and 3:8, signifying that Lacoste, Ralph Lauren and Alexander McQueen are targeting an older audience. Overall the middle two age groups – 14-16 and 17-19 – seem to be the most brand-conscious, with the most striking exception being Graph 3:8, in which the eldest two age-categories have the highest percentages of persons aware of the designer brand Alexander McQueen, which seems to suggest that this brand has a mature target audience in mind.
Now if we look at the data gathered from Graph 4 and 4:1, and compare it with what we already know from Graphs 3-3:8, we should be able to get some idea of whether targeted advertising has worked. If we start by comparing Graph 3:1 with the appearance of Peacocks on Graph 4:1, there is really little if any correlation. Indeed, at first glance there seems to be no correlation between Graphs 3:1-3:8 and Graph 4:1 at all, suggesting that targeted advertising has not been successful. However, there are a number of small snippets of information we can glean. For example, a quarter of those over 31 years old have a preference for Alexander McQueen clothing. The 31+ age category was also that which was most aware of that brand-name. If we move on and compare Graph 4:1 with Graph 6:1, looking specifically at the 17-19 age category, we can see that Lacoste is the most preferred brand-name with 17-19 year-olds (alongside fcuk) and is judged as the most widely advertised by that age-group, indicating that Lacoste has had some degree success in its advertising. Likewise there is a relationship between Graph 4:1 and 7:1 – the majority of 11-13 year-olds share the same preference for fcuk as they believe their friends to. The 11-13 year-olds in Graph 8:1 clearly label themselves as the most brand-name conscious out of the age-groups, hailing back to earlier references on aspiring teenagers [see page 6, paragraph 4 and Article A].
5 . . . Evaluation
Self-criticism is a key skill for any academic undertaking any kind of investigation, and sociology and sociologists are no exception. It is vitally important to recognise any potential shortcomings, to learn from previous failings, and therefore improve the standard of any future investigations.
The most basic way in which I could have improved the accuracy of my results – and something that will improve the accuracy of any statistical research – is simply by enlarging the figures: in my case distributing questionnaires to a greater number of people. This should smooth out any abnormalities, and result in more precise averages.
Another way in which I could have improved my methodology would have been to ask an equal number of persons for each age-group. In my case, the highest number of persons I asked was nine for the 14-16 year-olds, and a third of that number, three, for the eight-10 year olds. As well as this simply not being fair, it would have also been helpful for me when transposing my data to have the same amount of persons in each age-category, as to compare the statistics from the categories I had to first convert them into percentages.
Looking again at the original question I was given more closely, I can perceive a number of points that I could have done to keep my investigation more relevant to the question. The question refers to “youth culture”, implying all youth cultures as a whole globally, not just locally. Had it been practical, I would have needed to represent youth from countries and cultures from all around the world, to truly test youth culture as a single entity.
Something else I could have done to be more relevant to the question would have been omit some (in retrospect) meaningless questions from my questionnaire. For example, it felt rational and natural to include Question 1 – “Are you male or female?” – in my questionnaire, when in fact there was absolutely no need to as there is no mention of gender in the original question, and youth culture in this investigation is treated on an androgynous basis.
I think it would have been advantageous for me to collect evidence in ways other than questionnaires, i.e. through interviews and participant observation [as discussed on pages 3 and 4]. This would have provided more specific and targeted information, which I could have used alongside the more general data collected from the questionnaires. Similarly, I could have asked questions on other aspects of the mass-media, apart from clothes brand-names and advertising, and then collated all the different information to provide an answer on the mass-media’s influence as an entirety.
However, I did work towards maximum accuracy and precision to the best of my abilities for this investigation, and I do not think that any of the limitations mentioned above significantly affect the validity of my results.
6 . . . Conclusion
Finally we arrive to the point where I must provide the answer to the question I have been given, as supported by evidence from my investigation. So – the moment of truth -- does the mass-media influence youth culture? My answer: yes. To the best of my knowledge, all the evidence my investigation has thrown up [for details refer to pages 6 and 7, under Analysis and Considering of Evidence], indicates that the mass-media does have a significant influence on youth culture, suggesting my hypotheses were correct. Were I in any doubt about this, the work of many respected sociologists, also studying the mass-media’s influence on youth, support the results of my investigation. A couple of examples:
“...individuals actively and creatively sample available cultural symbols, myths, and rituals as they
produce their identities. For teens, the mass media are central to this process because they are a convenient source of cultural options.”
“[young people] use media and cultural insights provided by them to see both who they might be and how others have constructed or reconstructed themselves... individual adolescents... struggle with the dilemma of living out all the “possible selves” (Markus & Nurius, 1986), they can imagine.”
(Brown et al. 1994, 813)
These two quotes clearly illustrate the points that I have tried to make in my investigation. However, to my mind the most poignant quote is the one below – on which I think it is appropriate to conclude this investigation – which reminds us once again of the vast amount of power the mass-media possesses, and the way it can influence ordinary people, especially youths, and affect normal lives.
“Not too long ago a young boy in the United States was killed for his famous-name tennis shoes; tennis shoes that his mother had scrubbed floors to pay for. Manufacturers of less prestigious tennis shoes cost a fraction of the $100+ that she paid for her son’s tennis shoes, and would have probably been about as good. But in her son’s mind he had to have this particular (widely advertised) brand of tennis shoes because of status attached to them – status that in the minds of other boys was important enough to kill for.”
(, 2004)
