Exam 2 Flashcards
What is mass media?
Print or electronic means of communication to carry messages
What is social media?
Website and online applications that enable people to create and share content
What is the Functionalist view on media?
Manifest function is to entertain and inform
4 functions:
* Agent of socialization
* Enforcer of social norm
* Promotion of Consumption
* Dysfunction
What are the 4 functions of media (functionalist perspective)?
1. Agent of Socialization
* Present a common, standardized view of culture
* Immigrants use media to adjust to environment
* Problems: violent video games, use media as babysitter, sets up unrealistic expectations
2. Enforcer of Social Norm
* Reinforces proper behavior - cancelling people
* Confers celebrity status
* Critical role of sexuality
3. Promotion of Consumption
* Hyperconsumerism - buying more than we need or want and often more than we can afford
* Occurs because of advertising and commercials being everywhere
* Advertising functions:
1. Support the economy
2. Provide info on products
3. Undercuts cost of media
4. Dysfunction
* Narcotizing effect - media provides such massive amounts of coverage that audience become numb and don’t act on information
What is the Conflict view on media?
Media reflects and exacerbates divisions in society and the world
3 processes:
* Gatekeeping
* Transmission of the dominant ideology
* Digital divide
What are the 3 processes of division in media (conflict perspective)?
1. Gatekeeping
* Process where a small number of people in the media control the material
* Net Neutrality - internet providers must treat all internet communications equally
2. The powerful transmit the dominant ideology
* Dominant ideology - set of cultural beliefs and practices that maintain powerful social and economic interests
* Media can create stereotypes
* Queer theorists note ways media portrays LGBTQ+ members
* Hyper-local media - reporting that is highly local and typically internet-based
3. Digital Divide
* Lack of access to the latest technologies among low-income, minorities, rural, and people in developing countries
* Reinforces class and educational differences
What is the Interactionist view on media?
Media reflects how people interact and helps us understand everyday behavior
2 interactions:
* Social capital
* Social networks
What are the 2 interactions in media (interactionist)?
1. Social Capital
* Internet provides constant connection
2. Social Networks
* Can make friends through viewing habits
What is the audience in social media?
Can be identifiable, finite, group or a large undefined group
* Primary or secondary group
Segmented Audience
* Once media determines audience - it targets group
* Find the target audience
What are the 2 types of audience behavior?
Opinion Leader
* Someone who influences the opinions and decisions of others through day-to-day personal contact
Influencer
* Social media user who has established credibility in a specific industry
Both manipulate audience
What is censorship?
- Suppression or prohibition of certain books, films, news, etc. that is considered obscene or a threat to security
- Illustrates cultural lag
- Not widely supported in the US
What is cultural lag?
Maladaptation of the nonmaterial and material culture
What are the 4 problems of social media?
1. Highlight reel
* Compare self to other’s fun times
2. Social currency
* Obsessed with likes and comments
3. FOMO
* Fear of being left out of the loop/missing opportunities
4. Online harassment
* Micro harassments can become macro (big impacts)
What is phantom vibration syndrome?
Thinking the phone is vibrating when it’s not
What is social interaction and its importance?
- The ways people respond to one another
- Our interactions shape our reality
- Interactions define a situation
What is the social structure?
- Ways in which society is organized in predictable relationships
- Social interactions take place in a social structure
5 Elements:
* Status
* Social Roles
* Networks
* Social Institutions
* Groups
What is status (and 3 types)?
Social structure
Socially defined position within a larger society
Types of Statuses:
* Ascribed - traits you do not have control over (born with)
* Achieved - traits you develop related to skills
* Master - trait that defines one’s identity (labeling)
What are social roles (and the 3 parts)?
Social structure
Expectations we have based on social positions or status
3 Parts:
* Role conflict - incompatible expectation arises from 2 or more positions held by the same person
* Role strain - when same social position imposes conflicting demands and expectations (involves a single position)
* Role exit - process of leaving one central role to their self-identity to establish a new role and identity
– Four-Stage Process:
* * Doubt
* * Search for alternatives
* * Action stage
* * Creation of New identity
What is a social network?
Social structure
Series of social interactions that link persons together
What are social institutions?
Social structure
Organized patterns of beliefs and behaviors centered on basic social needs
What are the 3 perspectives of social institutions?
Functionalist
* Role: meeting basic social needs
* Focus: essential functions
Conflict
* Role: Meeting basic social needs
* Focus: maintenance of privilege and inequality
Interactionist
* Role: fostering everyday behavior
* Focus: influences the roles and statuses we accept
What is a group?
Social structure
Made up of 2 or more people with shared norms, values, and expectations
Types of Groups:
* Primary
* Secondary
* In-Group
* Out-Group
* Reference Group
* Coalition
* Formal Organizations
* Bureaucracy
What is a primary group?
Small group with a lot of face-to-face interactions
What is a secondary group?
Formal and impersonal groups with little social intimacy
What is an in-group?
Group people feel they belong
What is an out-group?
Group people feel they do not belong
What is a reference group?
People used as a standard for evaluating themselves
Normative and comparison functions
What is a coalition?
Temporary or permanent group to accomplish a common goal
What are formal organizations?
Groups for special purpose and designed for max efficiency
What is bureaucracy?
Rules and hierarchy ranking to achieve goals
What are the 5 characteristics of bureaucracy?
- Division of labor
- Hierarchy of authority
- Written rules and regulations
- Impersonality
- Employment based on technical qualifications
What is division of labor?
Bureaucracy
Specialized people perform specialized tasks
Problems:
* Alienation: estranged from others because doing a very specific task
* Trained incapacity: so specialized they develop blind spots and fail to notice obvious problems
What is hierarchy of authority?
Bureaucracy
Long chain of command and authority
Ex: Catholic church
What are written rules and regulations?
Bureaucracy
Have certain clear rules to follow
Leads to goal displacement - conformity to regulations of bureaucracy (Robert Merton)
Problem: procedure vs efficiency
What is impersonality?
Bureaucracy
- Treat everyone the same
- Does not treat people as individuals
- Meant to produce equal treatment
- Produces dissatisfaction with company
What is employment based on technical qualifications?
Bureaucracy
- Skills is what matters for employment
- Written policies on how to get promoted
- Removes favoritism and provides security
- Peter Principle - every employee rises to their level of incompetence (creates dysfunction)
What is deviance?
Behavior that violates the standard of conduct or expectations of a group/society
Violates a group’s norms
Deviant acts can change overtime
* Groups with most power and status define what is acceptable
What is a stigma?
A label society uses to devalue members of a social group (Erving Goffman)
2 Symbols:
* Prestige symbols - draw attention to positive aspects of identity
* Stigma symbols - debase one’s identity
What is social control?
Techniques or strategies for preventing deviant behavior in society
Uses sanctions to enforce norms
What is conformity and obedience?
Conformity - going along with peers
Obedience - compliance with higher authorities in a hierarchical structure
Milgram’s Experiment dealt with these topics
What are the 2 types of social control?
Informal social control
* Carried out casually by ordinary people
* Through smies, laughter, and ridicule
Formal social control
* Carried out by authorized agents
* Police officers, judges, school administrators, and employers
Need both formal and informal social control to make a functional society
What is a law?
Government social control
What is the control theory?
Connections to members of society leads us to conform to society’s norms
* Explains why people DON’T deviate
* Created by Travis Hirschi
Social bonds are the key
* Ties to family, friends, spouse, and peers to create bonds
* Stronger attachment to others = less deviance
* Involvement in activities and commitment and belief to prosocial life
Bonds give people a stake in conformity
* People fear losing what they have by deviating
What is the anomie theory?
Durkheim - punishment by culture defines acceptable behavior and maintains stability
Anomie Theory of Deviance - deviance occurs as adaptations to socially presribe goals or the means to achieve them
* Developed by Robert Merton
What are the 5 types of adaptations?
Anomie Theory
- Conformist
* Socially acceptable goals
* Socially acceptable means
* Ex: every day people - Retreatist
* Socially UNacceptable goals
* Socially UNacceptable means
* Ex: drug addicts - Innovator
* Socially acceptable goals
* Socially UNacceptable means
* Ex: criminals - Ritualist
* Socially UNacceptable goals
* Socially acceptable means
* Ex: bureaucrat - Rebel
* Socially (un)acceptable goals
* Socially (un)acceptable means
* Ex: militia group
What is cultural transmission?
Argues that criminal behavior is learned from interactions with others
* Learn techniques, motives, and rationalizations of crime
What is differential association?
- The way in which people learn criminal behavior
- Violations of rules results from exposure to attitudes favorable to deviance
- Created by Edwin Sutherland
- Youths become criminal by hanging out with deviant youths
- Later become learning theory by Ronald Akers
What is the social disorganization theory?
Crime occurs due to a breakdown in communal relationships and social institutions
* Developed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
- Shaw and McKay mapped Chicago and found high crime in urban centers
Lacked collective efficacy - bonds of communication and trust
* Coined by Robert Sampson
What is the labeling theory?
Deviance occurs due to negative societal reactions to individuals
* Process of actions-reactions (societal-reaction approach)
* Based on work of Cooley and Mead
Main thinkers: Edwin Lemert, Howard Becker, and William Chambliss
Saints and Roughnecks - Chambliss
What is the conflict theory?
People with power protect their interests and define deviance to suit their needs
* Developed by Richard Quinney
Crime defined by rich
* System of differential justice
Theory explains why laws against victimless crimes exist
What is the feminist theory?
Suggests prior theories were developed to only explain deviance of men
* Need to address how women have different experiences
* Developed by Freda Alder and Meda Chesney-Lind
What is crime?
A violation of criminal law for which a government authority applies a formal penalty
What is mala in se crime?
Crime is wrong in very nature
Immoral
Ex: murder, rape, assault, etc.
What is mala prohibita crime?
Offenses prohibited by law but not wrong in themselves
Illegal
Ex: marijuana use, gambling, etc.
What are the 3 different types of crime?
1. Felonies
* Serious crimes punishable by 1 year or more in prison
* Go to state or federal prison
2. Misdemeanor
* Less serious offenses punishable by one year or less incarceration
* Go to jail or probation
3. Infractions
* Minor violation of law punished by a citation and release
* Pay a fine
What are the layers of the criminal justice layer cake?
I Celebrated cases
II Serious felonies
III Less serious felonies
IV Misdemeanors
What are the 10 categories of crime?
- Visible crime
* Violent crime
* Property crime
* Public order crime - Victimless crime
- Professional crime
- Organized crime
- Hate crime
- White-collar crime
- Cybercrime
What is visible crime (and 3 categories)?
What public sees as criminal and majority of CJS resources used here (street/ordinary crime)
3 categories:
* Violent crime - death or injury occurs to individuals
* Property crime - acts that threaten property by individual or state
* Public order crime - acts that threaten general well-being of society
What is victimless crime?
Crimes that involve willing participants and exchange of illegal goods and services
Violate moral code
What is professional crime?
Crimes committed as day-to-day work
What is organized crime?
Criminal enterprises involved in illegal activities
What is hate crime?
Offenses committed because of bias against race, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation
What is white-collar crime?
Illegal acts committed during business activities
“Crime in the suites”
What is cybercrime?
Illegal activities conducted through use of computers
What are the 2 main sources of crime data?
Official statistics - kept by criminal justice agencies like the FBI
* Uniform Crime Report (UCR)
* National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
Surveys - ask individuals about past offending and victimization
* Self-report
* National Crime Victimization Survery (NCVS)
What are the 8 part I crimes of UCR?
Violent:
* Murder
* Rape
* Robbery
* Aggravated Assault
Property:
* Burglary
* Larceny-theft
* Auto Theft
* Arson
What are the benefits of UCR?
- Collected yearly by police
- Has large coverage
- Best measure of homicide
What are the weaknesses of UCR?
- Dark figure of crime - unreported crime to police
- Hierarchy rule - only counts most serious crimes
- Lose victimless crimes
- Voluntarily submit
What are the benefits of NIBRS?
- More crimes covered
- No hierarchy rule
What is the goal of NCVS?
Finding unreported victimization
What are the benefits of NCVS?
- Understand the dark figure of crime
- More info on victims than UCR
- Info on cost of crime and CJS contact
What are the weaknesses of NCVS?
- Lies and forgetfulness
- Telescoping - traumatic events seem sooner than it may have been
What is the Great Crime Decline?
The massive reduction in crime that was experienced from the early 1990s to 2020
What is the age crime curve?
A reason for the decline in crime - aging population (baby boomers aging out of crime)
What is stratification?
Structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in society
Breeds social inequality - members of society having differing amounts of wealth, prestige, and power
What are the 3 systems of stratification?
Slavery - system of enforced servitude where people are owned
Castes - hereditary rank that tends to be fixed and immobile
Class system - social ranking based on economic position
What is the 5 class model of U.S.?
- Upper - passed down through generations
- Upper-middle - doctors, lawyers, etc.
- Lower-middle - teachers, nurses, small business owners
- Working - blue-collar jobs
- Low - disproportionately blacks and hispanics, single mothers, and people who can find stable work
What are the 3 components of stratification?
Identified by Max Weber
- Class - group of people with similar level of wealth and income
- Status
* Status groups - people who have the same prestige or lifestyle - Power - ability to exercise one’s will over others
What are life chances?
Created by Weber
Opportunities individuals have to improve their quality of life
What is the objective method of measuring social class?
Measures social class based on criteria of job, education, income, and place of residence
What are prestige and esteem rankings of jobs?
Prestige - respect and admiration that an occupation holds
Esteem - reputation that a specific person has earned within an occupation
What is socioeconomic status (SES)?
A measure of social class based on income, education, occupation and many more
What is the functionalist view on stratification, inequality, and the wealthy?
Purpose of strat: facilitates filing of social positions with appropriate skills
Attitude towards inequality: necessary to some extent to motivate to fill important positions
Analysis of wealthy: talented and skilled, creating opportunities for others
What is the conflict view on stratification, inequality, and the wealthy?
Purpose of strat: facilitates exploitation
Attitude towards inequality: excessive and growing
Analysis of wealthy: use the dominant ideology to further their own interests
What is the interactionist view on stratification, inequality, and the wealthy?
Purpose of strat: influences people’s lifestyles
Attitude towards inequality: influences intergroup relations
Analysis of wealthy: exhibits conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure
What is absolute poverty?
Live under poverty line
What is relative poverty?
Floating standard of deprivation by which people are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison with nation as a whole
What is the feminization of poverty?
Trend that women constitute an increasing proportion of poor people
Contributed by increase in single mother households
Who are the underclass?
The long-term poor who lack training and skills
Coined by William Julius Wilson
What did Herbert Gans argue?
Used functionalism to explain poverty
Argued that society benefits from poverty
Poverty’s functions:
* Presence of poor means dirty work is performed
* Poverty creates jobs to serve the poor
* Punishing poor upholds conventional social norms
* The poor guarantees the higher status of the rich
What is social mobility?
Movement of individuals or groups from one position in society’s stratification system to another
What are the 2 types of stratification systems?
Open system
* Position of each individual is influenced by his/her achieved status
Closed system
* There is little to no possibility of individual social mobility
What are the 2 types of social mobility?
Horizontal mobility
* Movement of person from one social position to another in the same rank
Vertical mobility
* Movement of person from one social position to another of different rank
What are the 3 types of vertical mobility?
Intergenerational mobility
* Changes in social position of children relative to parent
Intragenerational mobility
* Changes in social position within a person’s adult life
Occupational mobility
* Relatively minor - generally only 1 or 2 levels higher than parents
What are the 4 ways to measure nation development?
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
* Total value of goods purchased and services provided in 1 year in a country - Standard of Living
* Degree of wealth and comfort available to people - Level of Industrialization
- Technological infrastructure
* Amount of power, transportation, mobility, internet/cybersecurity
What is inequality?
A system that provides opportunites and bars others
Poorest of poor don’t know of opportunities
Inequality is determinate of behavior
What is industrialization?
The move from agricultural to industry
What are the 3 reasons for the global divide?
Colonialism
Multinational corporations
Modernization
What is colonialism?
Foreign powers maintain economic, political, social, and cultural dominance over a people for a long period of time
What is neocolonialism?
Continuing dependence of former colonies on foreign country
What is the world system analysis?
Global economy is interdependent and rests on unequal economic and political relationships
Conflict perspective
Developed by Immanuel Wallerstein
Core nations have exploitative relationship with noncore nations
3 types of nations:
* Core
* Semiperiphery
* Periphery
What is the dependency theory?
Contends that industrialized/developed nations continue to exploit developing countries for their own gain
Conflict perspective on a global scale
What is globalization?
Worldwide integration of government policies, culture, and financial markets through trade and exchange of ideas
World Bank and International Monetary Fund became big plays because of this
What is a multinational corporation?
A commercial organization that is head-quartered in one country but does business throughout the world
What are the functionalist and conflict perspective on corporations?
Functionalist: Corporation = good
* Bring jobs
* Promote rapid development
* Cheap products
Conflict: Corporation = evil
* Exploit workers to maximize profit
* Promote moving factors out of US
* Move to nations with repressive antilabor laws to restrict unions
What is modernization?
Process of periphery nations moving from traditional less-developed institutions to those characteristics of developed societies
What is the modernization theory?
Proposes that modernization and development will gradually improve the lives of people in developing nations
What are mobility differences between developed and developing nations?
Developed:
* Intergenerational
* Mobility opportunities shaped by structural factors - shaped by labor market
* Immigration shapes intergenerational mobility
Developing:
* Substantial wage difference between urban and rural
* Migration to urban areas where jobs are limited
* Biggest mobility is out of poverty
What are the gender differences in developing countries?
- Women are exploited
- From birth - fed less, denied education, and not hospitalized unless critically ill
- Women often 1st laid off from work
- Female infanticide - female babies are often killed in China and India because they are no as desirable as males
