Mass media and urban tribes, Analysis of their relations By Viable System Model Stafford Beer´s.

Abstract

In the last 60 years (1950-2010), the influence of the mass media and advertising over individual decisions-making processes has deepened, in terms of age range to which have targeted advertising and that expanded for almost the entire Western world. With this, leading to the culture diversity, naturally given, toward one only culture standardized prevailing in the whole West nowadays.  

Only in the last 20 years (1990-2010) we have been witnesses of how advertising has been directing its efforts toward a public increasingly helpless of resisting the suggestion of advertising, transforming them into the new triggers in purchasing decisions. In the 60's were the women, then the young people during 70's, and then were children in the 80's and during the 90's over early childhood, almost from the when we learn to speak

(3 years). (4) Achieving brand loyalty among very young children and the brands of products for this age group.

From this perspective, urban tribes (5) have taken control of the lives of young people. Offering a false freedom, at moment of choose "How to be yourself" from options given in the market as a "catalogue of predesigned Identities" (6). The short-term vision, characteristic among adolescents, make imperceptible to them, the various strategies of compulsion to consume that the mass media is using on them. Isolated into a vision of short term, the adolescents are prisoners in a system of beliefs (7) predesigned by advertisers in response to emotional shortcomings and / or psychological present in our society and that beats most strongly among adolescents making them highly dependent on the urban tribe than they belong.

The great fallacy of this and abuse in our opinion, is the false freedom that young people, they think have gained at the moment of integrating some urban tribe, because they have used their "freedom of choice" (6) at the choose some option between of the catalogue of available urban tribes, taking decisions that benefit only the tribe in the short term, while longer to decide according to their own benefit in the long term, leaving the studies, breaking family relationships, in short, Mortgaging the future of youth in exchange for an quick existential solution when they choose for a predesigned identity, imposed by the pressure of the group or tribe and that nowadays is offered by the mass media in the "free market."

A phenomenon so complex, it requires a holistic conceptual framework that can make explicit its components and relations between them and the relationship with internal and external environment. In particular, the VSM provides a way to analyze communication’s problems thus clarifying; how, when and where, repair and control into the organization, helping to identify strategies to improve decision-making. Given the recursive nature of the VSM, is possible navigate within the phenomenon, through her different recursion’s levels and all its different components for each recursion’s level. Thereby help to the young population to understand the role than they have adopted, as consumption entity when they assume any of these subcultures. The punctually will be help to define more assertive and effective policies by health authorities, education and government in general and also help to someone person among young people to see themselves inside of a consumption dynamic and thus can leave the domain and enter to a meta-domain, with more wisdom and consciousness.