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“The development of self is a lifelong process” (Brym and Lie, 1978: 69). Self-socialization is when one chooses socialization influences from the wide variety of mass media offerings (Brym and Lie 2012: 67). Mass media in today’s generation has an enormous impact in terms of communicating, passing a message across, knowing what’s right and what’s wrong. Self-socialization and mass media can create a very strong tie which makes one believe what they need in their life will be learned merely from media. When I was 10 years old, I started to build an interest in foreign modeling. I started to dress up, walk and talk similar to what I saw on the television and magazines. This influenced me to make my identity in the western field of modeling and to stand out as an individual. However, my parents were not satisfied with the idea of following the western modeling trends, they preferred for me to enrol myself into the Indian modeling industry where it was easy to get in but not very rewarding. I chose to develop myself into a higher status where my talents could be more appealing and successful. With my example, I think conflict theory best fits because it addresses the “submission and struggle between people of high and low social standing” (Brym and Lie 2012:12). Moreover, it can be related to feminist approach as well when gender roles play a large part as they are “widely shared expectations about how males and females are supposed to act”(Brym and Lie 2012:67). The feminist approach in India made me realize that my dreams were not acceptable since the country is not developed and considered as the “third-world”.

Conflict theory in terms of mass media conveys “how members of privileged groups try to maintain their advantages while ...

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...ppropriate in the society we live in, however, if we look at the good side of what media is trying to portray, one can achieve their goals, similar to how I achieved them.

In conclusion, the process to create one’s identity can lead to drastic changes in life. Yet we overcome all the obstacles and face them with no fear to achieve our dreams. We constantly use self-socialization in our everyday life and at times we can be trapped or informed by media but that is the first step to develop a norm where everyone’s beliefs come together. My experience with modeling helped me to understand what I really wanted in life and in the process I learned various ways to achieve them. Hence, sociological imagination helps me to realize that media can influence both macro and micro structures, but when family is in support with you, one can par hurdles in any situation of life.