The interactionist perspective focuses on individual's behaviors and the rational behind their actions. I feel that this perspective is strongly involved with the mass media. Gatekeepers portray information that greatly influences individuals throughout the life span. They attempt to misconscrew information to whatever it may be that they want to persuade the public to believe in or it may be a new trend they want them to follow. I feel that certain that certain things the media portray may protect individual or lead them to avoiding possibly harmful substances. An example of this may be a commercial that persuades individuals to stop smoking by showing a person that is in the worst condition from smoking, which may or may not happen to other individuals. The point they get across is that smoking may result in a horrible disease process or diminished quality of life among other complications. On the other hand, the media may portrays other things that can lead to harmful behaviors or negative actions. For example, the media may portray that the new trend of the year is to be a size zero. This effects vulnerable individuals, especially teenage girls that may have the desire to "fit in". This leads to harmful behaviors when the teenagers become anorexic which may also result in negative behaviors related to the lack of necessary nutrients in order to function properly. I feel these are the same behaviors and actions that the interactionist perspective incorporates …show more content…
Functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives are all similar in the fact that they are different ways of analyzing sociology. The functionalist perspective is a positive method of analyzing a society and the individuals that work together in order for the society to fucntion properly. For example, a person has multiple body systems and each system must work together in order for the body to function properly. On the other hand, the conflict perspective focuses on individual's behaviors and the factors that may contribute to their behaviors or actions. Conflict focuses on the different classes in a society and the struggles the society may face. I feel that the functionalist and conflict theories are very different in the aspect that one view focuses on a society functioning properly and the other focuses on the differences and struggles of the society. I feel that the interactionist theory fits in the middle of the functionalist and conflict theory. This is due to the fact that the interactionist perspective focuses on the individuals and the individual's understanding or rationalization of certain categories. I feel that the interactionist theory does not label, it is a way of learning and understanding individuals based on their definition of things. Overall, all three views focus on analyzing socioloigy, but i feel that each theory is very different in the approaches and methods that are