4: MEDIA & DEVIANCE

Question 1

The Functionalist View of Media in Society (Charles Wright)

Answer 1

> Media is part of institutions and plays a role in its working & functioning
Media contributes to the social order by performing 4 functions:
1. Surveillance of the environment: ways it is is collected & disseminated
2. Correlation of parts of society: surveillance plus correlation, it provides prescriptions for behaviour in response to events
3. Transmission of social heritage: communication of info, norms & values from generation to generation
4. Entertainment: communication intended to amuse/relax

Question 2

Impact of Media

Answer 2

> Media defines boundaries between groups and reinforces it
Defines social problems and shapes public debates
responsible for the discrepancy between dropping rates of crime and the perception that youth crime is out of control.

Question 3

The Media Desensitizes Violence

Answer 3

> Provides more exposure to violence (in media and in real life) making us more tolerant to it
Emotional Desensitization: Lower levels of anxiety when watching a violent film
Physiological Desensitization: Lower heart rates when watching a violent film
Moynihan & The Normalization of Deviance: Deviant behaviour is so common that we do not recognize it as deviant anymore

Question 4

Moral Panic (Cohen)

Answer 4

• Heightened concern
• Hostility toward the offending group
• A certain level of consensus that there’s a real threat
• Disproportionality, mass hysteria
• Volatility (threat that marginalized youth posed)

Question 5

Folk Devils

Answer 5

Those who possess characteristics that make them a suitable screen upon which society can project sentiments of guilt and ambivalence (scapegoat)

Question 6

Kerner Commissions Report: scale of riot

Answer 6

Media failed to accurately reflect the scale & character of riots- Scare headlines
- Some reporters staged riot events
- Quoted inexperienced government officials estimates of damage. The facts might be partially accurate, but the impression left on the public was wrong.
- Stacked stories leading to a problematic cumulative effect, disproportionately mentioning other issues

Question 7

Kerner Commissions Report: reporting problems of race relations

Answer 7

Media failed to adequately report on the underlying problems of race relations
“The media’s report and write from the standpoint of a white man’s world”
- The ills of the ghetto, the difficulty of life and the experience of racism were ignored
- Reporters arriving on the scene post-riot tended to emphasize police response & narration rather than those involved
**Absence of voice
Left the impression that it was a race-riot:
- Police agents are overwhelmingly white
- Those who experienced property damage were overwhelmingly white bystanders
- African-American males were then most often seen acting violently

Question 8

Kerners Commission Report: Media post-riot reviews lacking

Answer 8

• Legislation which should be sought to control future rioting behaviour
• Control of riot action/containment strategy
• Post-riot reactions by middle-class African Americans and those who lived in the “ghettos” were not sought

Question 9

Interviews with African Americans (Kerner Commissions Report)

Answer 9

• White bias in the media: police and media

Ex: Failure to report false arrests, how many residents actually helped police

> The arrests were recorded, most released without charge but still sense of delinquency

• Failure to give voice to the community affected
• Journalist were all white and told story from the “white man’s perspective”
• Some reported that they looted because the media was there and had to put on a show
• Encouraged by journalists or the media, police & cameras

Question 10

Critical Approaches to the Media

Answer 10

It frames…
- Individuals
- Health issues
- Social Issues
- Social Group
**Three Types of Framing*
1. Conflict Frame
2. Human Interest Frame
3. Economic Consequences Frame

Question 11

Marxist Approaches to Media

Answer 11

• Ownership of the means of production = power
• Ownership influences content
• Ownership is increasingly concentrated; corporate empires control the message
  > Media goes beyond the minds of individuals whose behaviour may be affected by specific media messages

Question 11

Implications of Social Group Framing

Answer 11

1. Where a social group is not represented
2. Where a social issue is associated with a specific social group
3. Where media presents a singular image
4. Framing impacts social policy

Question 12

Convergence

Answer 12

Individual companies own multiple forms of media

Question 13

Conglomeration

Answer 13

Companies merge or buy out others, creating larger companies

Question 14

Concentration

Answer 14

A small number of companies control most media products

Question 15

Administrative Approaches to Media

Answer 15

Positivist, Objectivist

• Focus on determining what types of messages will result in certain outcomes for individuals
• Focus on cause/effect relationships; the effects of media messages on individuals through thoughts, feelings and behaviours
• Sometimes focused on determining what is needed to change people’s behaviour
  > Media messages influence the behaviour of people whether through purchases or acts they perpetrate
  Ex: What is the best condom promotion campaign? How do we convince people to stop smoking? To limit drug consumption?

Question 16

The Media-Deviance Nexus Relationships

Answer 16

1. Media as Cause of Deviance (A)
2. Media as Socially Constructing Deviance & Normality (C)
3. Media as a Tool Used to Commit Acts of Defiance (Digital Piracy, social control/learning theory)
4. Media as a place for the Deviance Dance (struggle & resistance)
5. Media as Deviantized Itself and Subjected to Measures of Social Control (censorship/regulation policy)
   > 6. Formal or Informal control (informal being family rules
   - Media is deviantized because of its affects on youth
   - Also because it itself if associated with a youth considered deviant
   > The process of deviantization is not really about the youth themselves but rather is indicative of the fear of technological change, the future, and challenges to dominant moral codes in some parts of the world