This paper examines the major theoretical approaches to the study of socialization, with an emphasis on media effects. The three major bodies of literature studied are the major theoretic approaches utilized in the general area of developmental psychology, the theoretical paradigms evident in studies dealing more specifically with child socialization, and the research evidence related specifically to mass media and socialization. The more common of theoretical approaches has been to designate three major models: (1) mechanistic, in which man is seen as primarily reacting to external forces which mold his behavior and personality; (2) organismic (structural or cognitive-development), in which man is seen as an active rather than reactive organism; and (3) psychoanalytic, in which emphasis focuses on a combination of drives, thoughts, and emotions in conjunction with basic psychosexual stages. These approaches to the mass media provide conceptual and empirically derived research schemes for the study of the media's influence in the socialization process. (SE)