A Study on the Affects of Mass Media on Women's Political Socialization

Kim, Choon-Hee Majored in Journal Graduate School of Chung-Ang University

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mass media and women's political socialization, According to this purpose, the following problems were suggested : Firstly, what correlation is there between mass media and women's interests, recognition and participation in politics? Secondly, how will the aspects of media contact and political socialization by the social and economical backgrounds be developed? Thirdly, how will the aspects of political socialization by the political information media, reliance media and affect media be developed?

For the design of this study, it has been theoretically studied by the following three parts ; the concept of political socialization, mass media & political socialization, and mass media & women's political socialization, The media of political socialization was simplified to mass media, reference group and the primary group, In the study of mass media & political socialization , the role of mass media in the women's political culture and women's political socialization procedure was studied.

The subjects of this study were 480 30s or 40s year-old children's mothers of primary schools in three district, Seoul, The instrument of this study was a questionnaire which was classified into 4 categories ; women's political sense & participation attitude, media contact & media affect and reliance, growth environment, and the present social and economical background, And, to settle some problems in studying, political interests, political recognition and participation in politics were set up as directing posts.

By using the social science statistic manipulation method (Package SAS), percentage(%), mean(M), standard difference (SD) were obtained, and the significances of differences were obtained by t·F test. And also. Chi-square test was used to catch the correlation between variables.

The results of this study are as following :

1. There was a significant difference in media contact by social and economical background. That's to say, the contact with news papers was directly Proportional to the educational status of women and husbands. Women with some experiences in Professional part, administration part and management part showed high news paper contact, Middle class women in living level formed the highest percentage. Television contact did not have any statistically significant correlation with social and economical variables. The primary-group contact showed statistic significances only in the correlation with job-experience part, and women with office work showed the highest contact.

2. The aspects of political socialization by media contact appeared differentially, That's to say, women with high news paper contact was higher in the directing post of political socialization than those with low news paper contact, Women with low television contact were higher in the directing post of political socialization than those with high television contact, but there were no statistical significance. Women with the high primary group contact were high in the directing post of political socialization and there was statistically very high significances.

3. There was, at length, statistically no significant difference in the types of media selection by social and economical background, That's to say, when it was considered the types of media selection in the level (1) of mass media, the primary-group, and reference group and in the level, (2) of news papers, television, radio, magazines and books, only age had statistically significant correlation with the selection of information : media in the level (1), and age had statistically significant correlation with the selection of Effect media, "and the husband's educational status with the selection of reliance media.

4. The aspects of political socialization by media selection types appeared differdentially. That's to say, Interests and recognition in politics were the highest when reference group was used as information media, reliance media and affect media, And also, when radio and magazines were used as information media, recognition, interests and participation was high, and when magazines and news papers were used as reliance media, the directing post of political socialization was high and when radio and books were used as affect media, the directing post was at length high.

5. The aspects of political socialization by growth environment appeared differentially. That's to say, women with any family or relatives related to politics showed high interests, recognition and participation in politics, but only interests recognition showed statistically significances. From the above results of this study, there couldn't be found any strong effect of mass media on political socialization. Furthermore, there couldn't be found any effect of media that had been almost generalized as affective media in the previous studies. On the contrary, reference group had influences more, This point is noted is a different result, compared with previous studies, However, there is a question why the affects of news affects and television couldn't be found in this study, although they had been preferred as information media, reliance media and affect media by women. It is desirable to implement this weakness by more scientific method.