4: MEDIA & DEVIANCE Flashcards
The Functionalist View of Media in Society (Charles Wright)
> 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
Impact of Media
> 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.
The Media Desensitizes Violence
> 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
Moral Panic (Cohen)
- 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)
Folk Devils
Those who possess characteristics that make them a suitable screen upon which society can project sentiments of guilt and ambivalence (scapegoat)
Kerner Commissions Report: scale of riot
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
Kerner Commissions Report: reporting problems of race relations
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
Kerners Commission Report: Media post-riot reviews lacking
- 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
Interviews with African Americans (Kerner Commissions Report)
- 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
Critical Approaches to the Media
It frames…
- Individuals
- Health issues
- Social Issues
- Social Group
**Three Types of Framing*
1. Conflict Frame
2. Human Interest Frame
3. Economic Consequences Frame
Marxist Approaches to Media
- 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
Implications of Social Group Framing
- Where a social group is not represented
- Where a social issue is associated with a specific social group
- Where media presents a singular image
- Framing impacts social policy
Convergence
Individual companies own multiple forms of media
Conglomeration
Companies merge or buy out others, creating larger companies
Concentration
A small number of companies control most media products
Administrative Approaches to Media
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?
The Media-Deviance Nexus Relationships
- Media as Cause of Deviance (A)
- Media as Socially Constructing Deviance & Normality (C)
- Media as a Tool Used to Commit Acts of Defiance (Digital Piracy, social control/learning theory)
- Media as a place for the Deviance Dance (struggle & resistance)
- 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
