The theory I chose is the Social Learning theory. I believe this theory is greatly applied in television. Since the beginning of television only wealthy families could afford having one. Neighbors of those families gathered to watch TV and they winded up saying: "ohh that's cool, I want to have one." Every time a new TV gets in the market, such as plasma or LCD TVs a few years ago, people tend to like them and wind up buying them because they saw other people having them.
Several TV shows portray behaviors and attitudes that viewers might find interesting and want to copy them. The first TV show that pops in my mind is "16 and pregnant", which made a lot of controversy. In my opinion, this show represents everything you do not want to go through while been a teen; therefore, it makes you have a negative perception of getting pregnant while been a teen. On the other hand, there are girls who get influenced by what they watched and believe it is ok to be sixteen and pregnant. There are also girls that are dying to become reality TV stars. Girls that are influenced in this way are likely to adopt that behavior, such as the case of the ninety girls that got pregnant at Frayser High School in Memphis, TN. I do not know if the show directly influenced those girls, but I believe it had something to do with it.
Other shows that come to my mind that are likely to have influenced viewers behaviors are Jersey Shore, Charm School and True Life. Violence is one of the primary behaviors that people adopt after watching some of this shows.
Another example of this theory is that once, I saw a friend playing Just Dance 2 for Wii. It looked fun so, I went to a game store a few days later and bought it. Even if I had not bought it, learning happened. As a result, this theory enables the adoption of new technologies.
As time pass by and people get more educated, it is likely that the practice of the Social Learning theory might reduce. As education increases people know better, making them likely to know which behaviors they should copy or not.
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