Week 9 - Deviance and Youth

Q&A-Journal Entries

In your own words, explain what 'deviance' is?

Deviance occurs where there is an occurrence or a behavior that is outside the norm. The norm on the other hand is what regarded as normal by the society in which the deviance occurred. 

The funny thing about deviance is that what one person regards as a deviance may be experienced as the norm by another. There are many examples: The Moral Majority eg. was an US American organization that claimed leadership in Christian moral issues and representing those who were morally stable in the US. Another example is the extent to which people’s sexual orientation is regarded as outside the norm. While heterosexuality is regarded as the norm in western culture, homosexuality and bisexuality are still regarded as deviant though, the acceptance of devian sexual orientation has increased. An article in the Washington Post (Harris, 1965) showed that in the US over 70% of US Americans thought that homosexuals were more harmful than helpful to American life. Another survey taken in 1998-1999 (Herek, 2002, p. 52) showed that this number has dropped significantly and indicating that men as well as women feel more uncomfortable with homosexual people of the same gender. In my opinion this is an indicator for a more liberalized society. There are many other examples of constantly changing deviant perceptions worth exploring.

Reference

Harris, L (1965), “Public Registers Strong Disapproval of Nonconformity” September 27, p. A2,  Washington Post, Washington, PH.

Herek, G. M. (2002), GENDER GAPS IN PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT LESBIANS AND GAY MEN, Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 66:40–66, American Association for Public Opinion Research, Deerfield, Il.

What is the crucial insight of Becker's 'labelling theory' of deviance? 

Although these people may neither have committed a crime nor done harm in any way, they all have one thing in common – they are labeled as outsiders. Becker defines the outsider as an individual that is seen as a rule-breaker by a social group that the individual had a transaction with.

What is a moral panic?

 Moral panic was coined by sociologist Stanley Cohen’s book, Devils and Moral Panics. The Creation of Mods and Rockers (1972/1987). He defines the condition of moral panic as ‘a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerging to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media, the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible.’

Mass media have plaid a major role in constructing outbreaks of moral panic. The latest I can remember is the release of child molester Dennis Ferguson. Besides the understandable rejection from communities to have an individual around their children, media caused significant panic on his case after he was released from jail. (Gearing, 2009)

Reference

Gearing, A (2009), “A House for Dennis”, The Drum Unleashed, ABC, viewed 29 January 2011, < http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/27244.html>

Do they simply represent 'irrational fears'? 

I guess that by mentioning “they” you are talking about the media. My answer is that they do not simply represent irrational fears. I think that they pick-up on the general opinion of society on subject matter about individuals or groups that deviate from the mainstream and try to generalize the case and amplify it in forms of news and reports to their audience - the broader community. Further my experience specifically with TV-news and reports is that the more provocative the story, the higher the coverage. This seems to be distinctively the case with private TV-channels as they rely on as many viewers as possible in the aim to sell advertising slots, the reaction is more important than the story. 


Contribuion to Discussion Board

According to Davis, there is a struggle between 'baby boomers' and 'gen Xers' that is evident everywhere in contemporary culture. Do you agree with his claim? 

I agree with this claim, but I think this is an ongoing issue that will occur with every generation change. The significance of the struggle especially between these generations may be buried in the fast technological development that baby boomers might not be able to keep up with anymore, while modern technology to generation Xers is a means to an end for almost any situation in life. The general issue I see between any generation of parents and their young ones is that parents have to accept that these young ones are no longer happy about being taught. They want to make their own experience, and quite fankly, I can imagine that they would love to experience failing too, rather than being tucked in cotton wool, to prevent them from being exposed to this bad world full of threats and dangers (Media Panic).   

Why is youth so often connected with rebellion and society's anxieties about morality?

The Davis article perfectly represents what I think. It is tragic that obviously a lot of the baby boomers cannot reflect on their own youth. Otherwise they would have a lot more understanding for those they call Generation X (buy the way: the issues are exactly the same with Generation… ‘please, fill in your character of choice’).

Davis’ book Gangland was published in 1997. That is 14 years ago. Look at today’s problems of the so called Generation Y. It’s a perfect déjà vu of any other generation before them. The Hoodoo Gurus sang about a Generation Gap in 1988. What about Punk? Now, if that wasn’t rebellion? Today people in their 50s have magenta coloured strains in their hair and it’s absolutely normal. And what about 1958, when Bill Haley came to Berlin and rebellious youth turned the chairs of Berlin Sport Palace into firewood? History tells us that every generation has its history of rebellious youth. The differencemight be what they are rebellious about.

Looking at myself as a youth in the mid-70s to mid-80s I hated the idea of becoming just like my parents. I had naïve ideals, wanted to change the world and wanted to do things better than my parents. I went to rallies against nuclear power, against the cold war, squatted empty apartment buildings in Berlin and Hamburg and rejected basically anything that my parents valued. Parents are constantly worried about something. I thought their biggest concern was to be embarrassed by their sons and being rejected for what their children would stand for. This really hurt me and made me even more rebellious. 

More general speaking, I believe envy of youth and the feeling of losing control, over what the kids do outside parents control creates anxiety and concerns about moral in the heads of the older generation.

Week 8 - Journal Entry

READINGS
Joanne Finkelstein (1993) 'The Fashioned Self' in e-Reserve.

Comments: After Simmel (1950/1971), fashion is based largely on an unresolved tension between the desire for personal distinction and the opposite desire for union with others through conformity.

Simmel can find no aesthetic or functional explanation of fashion. ‘There is not a trace of expediency in the method by which fashion dictates, for example, whether wide or narrow trousers, colored or black scarfs shall be worn’ (1971:297). At times fashion dictates that we wear ‘ugly and repugnant’ styles, and the only justification for this is as an exercise in power. Fashion represents the power to make us social: by drawing individuals away from a base nature, it inducts us all into the logics of sociality.

I think this is a point where celebrity stars make an impact on society. In fact they do have power over their audience, the fashion aficionados. As a result we can talk of fashion dictators. People who tell us what we have to wear to receive a sense of belonging. I experience myself reacting cautious on people who dress awkward. I expect these people to be mentally deranged or struck badly by fait. This kind of bias just happens, although I don’t even know the individual.
Indeed, fashion can obscure people’s ranks. Fidel Castro in Cuba as well as Mao Tse Dong in China provided their community with a uniform that did not only reflect on nationality, but also on everybody being equalin their society, including themselves, wearing the same uniform.

One of the pleasures of these everyday gestures is that they are ‘erotically charged’. In addition, at a symbolic level, they ritualise a mastery of biology, that is, they make the body seem tractable. By changing the unclothed, unmade-up body into ‘a self-produced coherent subject’, it becomes apparent that ‘the pleasures of fashion include the symbolic replay of this profoundly productive moment when subjectivity emerges’ (1994:64).

Indeed, as it seems, sex is the most important driver in modern society. If something is sexy, if it stimulates, then it will certainly become popular. Some of it may be accepted as erotically charged by females, some by males and some by both genders.

On fashion magazines, I think they try to fulfill dreams. I would also go to such an extent to say that fashion magazines are attraction barometers for the fashion industry, trying to stir reactions (identifying trends, doing market research on the acceptance of their content etc.).
Silverman (1986): ‘Men’s wear, in particular, has solidified into a uniform sobriety and rectitude, whereas by contrast women’s styles have fluctuated rapidly, thus creating the impression of female flightiness. The few attempts at bridging these differences, such as women wearing neckties and business suits, do not challenge Silverman’s argument, but merely demonstrate again both the instability and eclecticism of the feminine in matters of dress.’



Looking back at Marlene Dietrich wearing men’s suits, hats and ties, I don’t think that we can talk about the instability and eclectisism of the feminine in matters of dress. I think that she made a bold statement in times of suppression and despotism. From a perspective of taste I still think her masculine dress style was ground breaking and would still turn heads today. It would be interesting to find out if she had the idea herself or if there was a fashion designer behind this.

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week 7 - Journal Entry

To what extent is eating food a ritualistic activity?

In my view eating food is a ritual as long as it is not only a means to satisfy a basic need. Through history there have been many ways of ritualizing eating food. The ritual of sacrifice, religious ceremonies around food, the funeral feast, a picnic, BBQs, the Japanese tea ceremony and many others are evidence for the vast diversity of ways to celebrate the act of eating. In her article 'The Meanings of Food in the Public Domain' (1989) Joanne Finkelstein goes to quite some extent explaining the beginning of ritualizing food after the French Revolution, when the bourgeoise were looking for places to celebrate their new status and fortunes. ‘Ci la rinse’, ‘ci la russe’ and ‘ci la francaise’ are just a few of the many ways food could be served and eaten.

 

Elias is talking about ‘The Art of Consumption’ (1983) in his study of the French court society.

 

Finkelstein proposes that 'To enjoy the practice of dining out the individual has learned by observation, imitation and practice how to behave appropriately in the restaurant' (p. 52). List at least five 'rules of conduct' that you think are present in the dining experience.

To make a list of rules it s important to decide for the setting. There is a difference between the rules in a fast food restaurant and those in more sophisticated places. For my list I will choose a more sophisticated place:

·         Formel dress code

·         Using cutlery from outside to the inside (especially with a course meal.

·         Using appropriate glasses for different wines, aperitives, digestives and water

·         Waiting for all meals to arrive before starting to eat.

·         Taking time to eat.

·         Switching off mobile phones

Is McDonaldization exactly the same as rationalization for Ritzer?

On his Web site, Ritzer is cited saying, “I'd like to see a society in which people are free to be creative, rather than having their creativity constrained or eliminated." This is a further aspect of his work around the phenomenon of McDonaldisation. In the chapter about McDonaldisation of society, Ritzer says, “Employees are expected to finish a task with little attention paid to how well it is handled. For instance, IRS agents who receive positive evaluations from their superiors for managing large numbers of cases may actually handle the cases poorly, costing the government thousands or even millions of dollars in uncollected revenue. Or the agents may handle cases so aggressively that taxpayers become angered.”

Further he talks about dehumanization. The experience of eating food in a restaurant equivalent to the McDonalds chain has been robbed of any sensitivity, emotion and experience. As Ritzer puts it, it is only about efficiently satisfying a need before moving on to another activity.

Ritzer also makes remarks about Max Weber’s work on bureaucracy, in which every single task is broken down into a formal structure, each task in the process being standardized. This is also part of the way McDonalds restaurants are run. I think he tries to say that bureaucracy helps to increase rationalization.

What kinds of 'calculations' does the making of a 'Big Mac' entail (see pp. 64-6)?

Make it really big.

In the Weber piece we find a distinction between 'formal' and 'substantive' rationality. Write a sentence about each.

The formal rationality refers to the bureaucratic measure of the calculability. As it seems this measure is not at all related to reality, it is a mathematical measure that provides the highest possible output.

Substantive rationality refers to the effectively achievable outcome, taking all sorts of factors into account that might not be considered in the formal rationality.

Week 6 - Exercise and answers

The art of playing: Comparing kids play in 1971 with today (40 years on)

Question 1: What kind of popular culture did you select for your study? Why do you think ethnography or observation is particularly suitable for studying this aspect of social life?

Although I don’t know if play as in children playing can be seen as popular culture, it is an important aspect of social life, as play is an essential part of learning to interact socially.

I would like to investigate the difference between children playing in the 1970s to children playing in the 2000s. My target group would be adults who were between 5 and 10 years of age in 1971 and children who are between 5 and 10 years old at the time of the research.

Question 2: What setting will allow you to research this topic (for eg, a pub, park, sports arena, restaurant, etc)? How does the setting 'frame' the cultural activity in question?

I would research the place where I grew up myself – a suburban locality: A street in the country town of Morwell, in the Gippsland district of Victoria. Playing in 1971 happened either on the street, in the neighbour’s backyards or in the cow paddock behind the backyard fences. The housing situation has hardly changed since then and I expect to find families in the area that were already local in 1971. This neighbourhood will have their own children and newly arrived people will have settled in as well. There will be children around at the age of 5 to 10 years, but will they experience play the way the kids did in 1971? What are the defining aspects that changed the way kids play?

Question 3: How long do you think you would have to spend in this setting to obtain the data you require?

It would take approximately six weeks from the beginning of the year (summer holidays) to the first two weeks into the new primary school term. School is a place where kids are outside the control of their parents. I would like to investigate if kids interact (play) differently at school.

Question 4: What do you think you can claim or not claim on the basis of the research time and effort you have proposed in Question 3?

I think I can claim that play has significantly changed over the last 40 years. While play in the 1970s was all about kids doing things together, I believe that today’s kids spend more time in isolation with technological devices. I further believe that parents prefer their children to stay at home as they are worried that something could happen as soon as they lose direct contact (see, hear, talk), giving away control to third parties.

In my view two factors have changed the way children play and are allowed to play: Technology and Media
Technology: Modern technology can help parents to keep total control of the kids. Modern communication devices like mobile phones and computers, providing modern communication devices.

There are two qualities of control:
• The active control taken by parents, I regard as a dominant control. This sort of control is aimed at the kids of anxious parents, who try to stay ahead of every move their kids make. Examples are that parents text message with friend’s parents when the kid is over there and make sure that at least one adult always has control over where the kid is. This severely reduces the opportunities for play and social experiences being made outside parental control.

• Then there is what I call the immobilizing control of modern technology. Computers, TV, game devices. Kids no longer have to leave the house to catch up with their friends. Artificial interaction is provided by computer games, mobile phone applications (apps) and in front of the TV.

• It would be interesting to further investigate at a later time in the future if these kids develop social deficits.

Media: As I already made clear, I believe that media is responsible for modern parents constantly panicking about the security of their kids. This makes it hard for them to leave their kids unobserved. I believe the reason for this irrational behavior is irrational news coverage as we know it and artificially produced fear and worry through so called reality soaps. The biggest questions constantly asked in the media are focused on fear: ‘Do we have to be scared?’ ‘Can this situation repeat itself in my family?’ Although times are safer than ever, parents are worried more than ever about everything including the safety of their kids.
I would like to proof that both technology and modern media have a severe impact on the way that kids are brought up. Children’s understanding of play has changed dramatically.

To prove my thesis I will design a questionnaire and…

…interview local members of the neighbourhood who were in the age group of 5 – 10 in 1971 upon their playing habits. Interview teachers and parents who brought up kids between the age of 5 – 10 in 1971 and ask them how kids behaved in their surroundings and what hey did during breaks at school. Ask parents which measures they took to keep control over their kids when they were playing.

…interview local kids from the neighbourhood who are 5 – 10 during observation time upon their playing habits. Interview teachers and parents who are bringing up kids between the age of 5 – 10 today and ask them how kids behave in their surroundings and what they do during breaks at school. Ask parents which measures they take to keep control over their kids when they are playing.

The results will then be analysed, allowing to confirm or to rebut my thesis.

Week 6 - Ethnography

Comments on lectures and readings:

Joanne Finkelstein (1989) 'The Meanings of Food in the Public Domain'

For God’s sake, thank you to Erasmus of Rotterdam for inventing basic table manners and also to Catherine de Medici for inventing the fork. Otherwise we might all still be spitting stuff under the table, ripping flesh from a bone with one hand and ripping of a piece of bread supported by the guidance of a large knife. We might still be burping, farting, scratching our scrotums and poking stuff out from between our teeth with the aid of the same knife we might use to prong another piece of steaming flesh.

As Mary Douglas (1972:61) has pointed out: ‘If food is treated as a code, the messages it encodes will be found in the pattern of social relations being expressed. The message is about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the boundaries.’ This is brilliantly expressed in the Pizza scene within Wog Boy, where Steve is invited to dine out with the Government people, but cannot relate to the posh food served. As a result he rings his friend Frank to order a number of Pizzas for himself and guests who are looking for a hearty meal rather than a pompous dinner. Frank shows up in his singlet, balancing a pile of Pizza cartons, while his friend Steve is dressed in a smoking. Frank doesn’t realize the situation and addresses his friend in a casual way and Steve politely asks him to leave as he disturbs the mood. Frank – of course – takes it as an insult. This is a brilliant scene to demonstrate class as it is perceived in a restaurant.

‘Sennett (1976:23) has described how previously women were not well accepted in public: In the restaurants of the nineteenth century, a lone, respectable woman dining with a group of men, even if her husband were present, would cause an overt sensation, whereas the dining out of a bourgeois man with a woman of lower station was tacitly but studiously avoided as a topic of conversation among any of those near him.’

Joanne Finkelstein (1994) 'Dining Out'

...no comment.

Margaret Visser (1991) 'Ritual'

…can’t find reading

Comments: Lecture 11 – MP3

What kind of material would you use for a research on how the Shane Warne scandal broke? Newspapers – they are there in the library. Trace how a scandal unfolded (use different sources of newspaper).

Find out how women’s magazines deal with a scandal.

Readers are men or women or from different social background – newspapers will try to address their target group.

In your assignment move beyond pure description. Make clear how narratives are related to each other. 

Who’s cast the role of hero and villain? How are women presented?

Research methodologies:

·         Ethnography: Take a notepad and/or a camera with you. "Hawthorn experiment": Do workers increase their output under different lighting? Hawthorn effect.

·         Semiotic analysis: Images, clothes and fashion – studying Goths and finding out about symbolic etc.

·         Narrative analysis: About how stories are told – find out about the pattern. Relation between characters – what do we actually learn from the film, play, radio show?

·         Tabulated data (ABS, data I already have in my course reader, A.C. Nielsen). Clearly identify the dependent and the independent variable. Independent variable is doing the explaining.

Present your finding as clearly as possible.

Ethics: Get an ethics clearance for the kind of research that you are doing. Awareness about the impact of the researcher on the research is crucial.

Observation rather than interviewing. For an interview you will need a permission from UNI.

Reflexivity – being aware of your own self, your own emotions and prejudices as a part of the project.

Getting on to the next chapter - Food

Prior lessons were about popular culture – now we will dig deeper into examples of popular culture.

Introducing Margaret Visser. Sociological significance of food. Finkelstein quotes the classic people discussing gastronomy. “Tell me what you eat and I tell you what you are.’

What is elegant food? French cuisine e.g. – is meant to be more refined. 

National symbols: Vegemite, Pies, BBQs (the rituals around it)…

Authentic and Fake Food.

The sociology of eating might look at nutritional discourses (the way we talk about/discuss something).

How do reasonable or sensible people eat?

Eating has become sexy through the media.

Food tends to become prototyped. Why would you have a particular red wine with a particular red meat?

Gastronomic knowledge is a source to find out about how and why we eat the way we do.

Taboos derived from religion have an impact on the preparation and presentation of food (kosher, Halal…)

Comments: Lecture 11 – MP3

Case studies on food and shopping.

The phenomenon of Dining out and is there a reaction on fast food.

Classification of people into different society groups based on the food they eat, also, what sort of people go to fast food restaurants?

On Margaret Visser: She goes to dinner with one of her colleagues and the colleague brings her son, who picks up the spaghettis with his hands. Embarrassment: child doesn’t know the ritual codes of eating in a restaurant.

What is a ritual? Morning Prayer, going to church – defined in the social sciences as any social event that as a clearly defined beginning and end and appears over time.

Habits are things that we repeat more unconscious and there is less magic associated to it. 

What is ritualized about dinner? Invitation, arrival, the order of the dishes, when one can begin, how much to eat…

However, formal and casual dinners are rituals: Even a picnic or casual dinners are rituals (it is the way we prepare us for it)

Why are codes important in the discussion of food? The child who picked up the spaghettis with its hands didn't know the codes. Codes become more explicit when people don’t confirm. Codes are very important when people don’t follow them. When people don’t follow them they become very clear. The ritual and its codes can be used by groups to determine who you let into your socal circle. This is plain snobbery. Different groups have different ways of snobbery, subculture will consume a beverage or a drug in a different fashion than others, defining whether or not you fit this particular subculture group.

It’s not just enough to know the rules. Acceptance can only be achieved if the candidate is confident to obey to the rules in an easy and confident way.

Emily Poster's etiquette book explains exactly what to do with your mouth at the table. Interestingly today we still keep to this etiquette unconsciously as we were brought up with this sort of etiquette, in the aim not to offend anybody else at the table with gross behavior.

Visser says that the mouth is a boundary line between the outside and the inside of the body. The gate through many substances may pass in, but shouldn’t come out again.

On Elias: Visser has a more micro-interaction observations. Elias goes on more generic aspects – the macro observations. Looking at the society in general.

He looks at etiquette in books from the 1500s. Eg Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wrote a book pitched at young males of the upper class, cultivating them to be a civilized individual. On the other hand it’s fine to fart at the table in his times. Erasmus calls the change in behavior or the trend in society at the beginning of the modern age, a civilizing process: Human beings trying to show that they are human beings by acting less and less like animals. To have the capacity to control your urges. Suppression might also be the reason for pornography, alcoholism, drug abuse etc. These habits cause embarrassment if people find out about it. 

Elias talks about the internalization of manners.

On Dining out

Finkelstein….

Fastfood: McDonalds atmosphere is very easy to recognize. It is the same all over the world.

Finkelstein says that there is a trend away from home prepared food. Pizza Hut, McDonald, Hungry Jacks are becoming dominant in popular culture. They are now becoming nutrition conscious (Subway).

In pre-industrial society the whole family might have engaged in producing harvesting and preparing food, while nowadays it grows across the counter, warmed up and ready to eat.

Finkelstein suggests that we are loosing sociability through this trend.

McDonaldisation (first coined by Ritzer in 1993): .Forget about modernism and postmodernism, forget about technological society – we live in a McDonaldised society.

The principals of fast food restaurants increasingly dominating western society and the world.

What is the logic? What Max Weber coined the rationalization of society. Calculative or instrumental rationality. The most efficient means for achieving a given end.

We not only see it in food, we also see the trend in leisure like popular music (which is sort of standardized).

Following Weber, bureaucracy would be the key to modern society. Interstingly, following the lecture and the description of Webers thoughts reminds me of Brazil, a 1985 film by Terry Gilliam of Monthy Python’s fame.

Hint on the way sociologists use terms:

If words end on …sation, it means that everything is moving into one direction, a trend.

Unidirectional accounts like McDonaldisation tend to ignore counter tendencies. So they also grossly generalize, which means that they should be carefully discussed.

Good counter tendencies in terms of Fast Food would be the desire to eat healthy, also the desire to have authentic food experiences.