In a social experiment conducted by Solomon Asch of 1951, Asch studied the impact of how social pressure from the majority can affect a person to conform (McLeod). The experiment consisted of one participant in a group of actors and all were asked to match the test line to a line most similar. In revealing their answers, the participant was asked to answer last out of the group while the actors all purposely answered incorrectly. With over 12 trials of the experiment, nearly 75% of the participants conformed to answering the question incorrectly at least once. This trend of conformity is also seen in today’s social influence. The increasing use of media has encouraged and aided society’s transition to conformity through social media and forms of propaganda which, in the process, ends up taking away individualism as well. As seen in Brave New World, Aldous Huxley also describes a world in which the expansion of media conforms their citizens through the means of conditioning from an early age to promote identical thoughts and understanding, as today’s society is also conditioned by media like TV and social media from an early age.
…show more content…
Huxley argues that the use of media is leading to conformity resulting in the loss of individualism, which is relevant to contemporary society because citizens are conforming through the influence of social media and propaganda. When considering the relevance of media in society, one of the issues about social media is the impact of beauty standards on people. With social media promoting certain appearances and images people want to follow, more people are likely to be influenced to change their appearance to fit these standards. In national study of girls aged 13-17 by the Girl Scouts Research Institute in a research article known as Children, Teens, Media and Body Image, “nearly half (48%) wished they were as skinny as the models they saw in fashion magazines” (Common Sense Media). With three quarters of teens having a social media profile, this provides a platform for self presentation and social comparison. People wanting to look a certain way displays society moving towards conformity as people are less likely to embrace their individuality if others are not. In the same article by Common Sense Media, it found that “8o% of teen girls compare themselves to images they see of celebrities” and “almost half say the images make them feel dissatisfied with the way they look” (Common Sense Media). Using images of others from social media, individuals are wanting to change their image to fit the “ideal standard”. One might argue that media is an outlet for self expression which promotes individuality, however, social media further encourages trends that people want to follow. With more people wanting to follow these trends as others around them are, this shows another form of conformity within social media. As a result, adolescents are conforming more to be like each other rather than unique due the impact of media in our society. The society in Brave New World also exhibits the growth of conformity due to the impact of media through the means of fetal conditioning. From an early age, children were conditioned through “sleep teaching” or hypnopaedic training to accept …show more content…
There is a government office dedicated to the marketing of views of the World State to its citizens which promotes their use of propaganda. Inside the office of the Bureaux of Propaganda, there “were the search laboratories and padded rooms in which the Sound track writers and synthetic composers did the delicate work” (66). Similar to how today’s society receives information from sources of media, the citizens of the World State received information from synthetic music, sleep teaching and more. Nonetheless, the propaganda is heavily regulated by the World State as seen through Helmhotlz Watson, a psychologist and teacher at the College of Emotional Engineering on propaganda. While giving his lecture on propaganda, Watson attempted to “give them one [he’d] just written himself”, although it was “pure madness, of course; but [he] couldn’t resist it” (180). By writing his own propaganda, Watson was reprimanded and threatened for going against the approved material, therefore, displaying how propaganda is controlled by media sources. These sources of propaganda in both societies have been used to condition citizens to believe information that supports a certain goal or point of
Huxley argues that the use of media is leading to conformity resulting in the loss of individualism, which is relevant to contemporary society because citizens are conforming through the influence of social media and propaganda. When considering the relevance of media in society, one of the issues about social media is the impact of beauty standards on people. With social media promoting certain appearances and images people want to follow, more people are likely to be influenced to change their appearance to fit these standards. In national study of girls aged 13-17 by the Girl Scouts Research Institute in a research article known as Children, Teens, Media and Body Image, “nearly half (48%) wished they were as skinny as the models they saw in fashion magazines” (Common Sense Media). With three quarters of teens having a social media profile, this provides a platform for self presentation and social comparison. People wanting to look a certain way displays society moving towards conformity as people are less likely to embrace their individuality if others are not. In the same article by Common Sense Media, it found that “8o% of teen girls compare themselves to images they see of celebrities” and “almost half say the images make them feel dissatisfied with the way they look” (Common Sense Media). Using images of others from social media, individuals are wanting to change their image to fit the “ideal standard”. One might argue that media is an outlet for self expression which promotes individuality, however, social media further encourages trends that people want to follow. With more people wanting to follow these trends as others around them are, this shows another form of conformity within social media. As a result, adolescents are conforming more to be like each other rather than unique due the impact of media in our society. The society in Brave New World also exhibits the growth of conformity due to the impact of media through the means of fetal conditioning. From an early age, children were conditioned through “sleep teaching” or hypnopaedic training to accept …show more content…
There is a government office dedicated to the marketing of views of the World State to its citizens which promotes their use of propaganda. Inside the office of the Bureaux of Propaganda, there “were the search laboratories and padded rooms in which the Sound track writers and synthetic composers did the delicate work” (66). Similar to how today’s society receives information from sources of media, the citizens of the World State received information from synthetic music, sleep teaching and more. Nonetheless, the propaganda is heavily regulated by the World State as seen through Helmhotlz Watson, a psychologist and teacher at the College of Emotional Engineering on propaganda. While giving his lecture on propaganda, Watson attempted to “give them one [he’d] just written himself”, although it was “pure madness, of course; but [he] couldn’t resist it” (180). By writing his own propaganda, Watson was reprimanded and threatened for going against the approved material, therefore, displaying how propaganda is controlled by media sources. These sources of propaganda in both societies have been used to condition citizens to believe information that supports a certain goal or point of