Functionalist Perspective: Black American & the Media

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Sociology, Sociological Theoretical Foundations
Year 1
Functionalist Perspective and the media
HI, I am looking for help for a discussion on the portrayal of African Americans and television shows from the Functionalist Perspective. Like how the treatment of Blacks has changed over time and how often they are portrayed as real people vs stereotypes or token walk-ons. Hope you can help. Thank you.
Let's look at the Functionalist perspective and how it would explain the treatment of African Americans over time; including how African Americans are portrayed on Television.
Response:
A good place to start an assignment such as this one is with a working definition of the functional perspective, so we know what criteria we are using to analyze our scenario (i.e., how the media portrays blacks over time).
Functionalism is one of the major perspectives of sociology. It views society as a system, each of whose components contributes to supporting the others and maintaining the whole. Its proponents tend to explain behavior, including social change, and institutions in terms of their function within the social system and, thus, focus on the mechanisms by which society joins together. However, modern functionalism's analytical focus is on the consequences, rather than the causes, of sets of social arrangements. Social conflict (Black's versus Whites), in this sense, is a social arrangement to maintain the equilibrium and continuity of society.
Examples:
For example, according to the functionalists, youth are socialized to accept middle-class values, such as deferred gratification, competitiveness, and verbal rather than physical proficiency. In other words, social change (e.g., the youth's behavior) is due to socialization process and is seen as positive. The effects of social arrangements (youth's behavior, including other types of social change) are seen as positive. Another example can be seen in the sociological term called "stratification" which argues that rewards (e.g., pay, power, and prestige) must be distributed unevenly to ensure that society's most important tasks are accomplished. In both these ...