Week 7 SOC

Lecture notes:

  • Meaning is something we bring to objects or phenomenon

    • Subjectivism

  • We construct things as meaningful

    • We label something

  • Why are some phenomenon considered problems while other things are not

    • Why did climate change become a serious problem? Why wasn’t it a serious problem before?

  • Why are some phenomena considered a certain kind of problem and not another

    • Eg. drinking and driving

      • It is a problem

      • Many people have promoted it as a problem and society agrees

      • Its labeled as a personal choice problem; framed as a “personal problem”

        • You should decide against driving

      • Why is it not an urban planning problem?

        • You could walk to a bar if there were more options and closer to residential areas

        • Free public transit?

        • Problem could be partially solved

      • Why not a technology problem?

        • You could install a breathalyzer in every vehicle that allows the car to drive

  • Squeegee kids

    • What kind of problem; poverty or crime

    • Torontonians decided it was a crime problem

      • Why did one side lose? What did they say? Who has more money?

  • Blumer (1971) “social problems as collective behaviour”

    • Sociologists don’t have the skills to solve the problems they are studying

    • His concerns were the following

      • We analyze problems from an objective perspective

      • We analyze a problem after its been defined as such

        • Always show up late

    • His suggestion

      • You job is to figure out how a condition or phenomenon gets defined as a problem

      • Don’’t assume its deviance, figure out how society created it and what they did

    • Whether a condition is physical, genetic, physiological, psychological, medical, or technological, the process by which it becomes the focus of attention and defined as a social problem is social (spector and kitsuse 1977)

  • “Claims makers”

    • Human beings who make claims about a problem

    • People convincing society that things are problems

    • Understood and promoted

    • They use rhetoric, charisma, connections, resources

      • Convincing speech

    • Study claims makers

    • Two forms:

      • Primary claims makers

        • Individuals who have first hand experience with the condition (problem)

        • Anyone trying to claim something is a problems that does have first hand experience

        • Crime victims and anecdotal evidence

        • Associated with authenticity

      • Secondary claims makers

        • The person who wasn’t victimized but still trying to convince someone this is a problem

        • A media personality

        • Anyone trying to claim something is a problem that doesn’t have first hand experience

      • Hierarchy of claims-making

        • Scientist

        • Police (depends on the community)

        • Celebrities

        • Children

        • The poor

        • Criminals

      • Claims makers are all in a competitions with each other

        • Attention and support

        • Dominant construction of reality

          • Establishing taken for granted meanings

          • Turning the construction of the problem as common sense

      • Successful claims makers

        • Salience

          • Construct the “condition” as relevant

          • Can be done through rhetoric

            • “It could happen to anyone”

            • Random violence

              • Not possible

        • Scope and size

          • “This problem is huge”

          • Establish the condition as wide spread

          • Can use rhetoric

          • Usually requires statistics

        • Morality

          • Somebody is breaking the moral code

          • Establish a moral imperative to act

          • Good vs. evil

        • Good victim and good villain

          • Good victims have innocence and morally pure

            • No contribution to victimization

            • Children are the ultimate victims

          • Good villains are identifiable and directly responsible

            • Kinda creepy looking

            • Eg. harvey weinstein

        • Call to action

          • Avoid inconvenient solutions

            • Reluctant to invest too much time and energy

          • Feasible

            • Have to be able to do it; can’t be complicated

          • Ask for a simple donation

    • Social problems industry

      • Vested interest and promotion of cause

        • Coalitions, institutes, lobby groups, professions etc.

      • Ownership

        • Institutions want to be associated with solution of the problem

        • Police and crime

        • Guns and nra

        • Dui and madd

        • Claim makers are pivotal in shaping how you think about a condition and the solution required

        • Constructing something as a crime problem rather than a religious or poverty problem ; constructs the solution

      • The existence of my program and future career is dependent on social problems

  • The role of society in the construction of a problem is paramount; it doesn’t even matter if the condition has transpired

    • Eg. the issue of daycares killing/sacrificing children and drinking their blood

      • All over the news

      • Major social issue

      • The condition didn’t exist

        • There was no evidence that this happened anywhere

    • Battered men syndrome

      • Nobody cared

      • Real condition but society didn’t label it a condition

      • Issue with gender perceptions and the claims makers

  • Claim makers are pivotal in shaping how you think about a condition and the solution required

    • Constructing something as a crime problem rather than a religious or poverty problem ; constructs the solution

  • The case of Deven Guilford (constructing deviance)

    • Flashed his lights at the cop to show them to turn off their high beams

    • Sergeant insists his lights were not on

    • Claimed he needed to provide ID or he would go to jail

    • Sergeant claims his lights are too light because they new; still a hazard and ahas pulled other people over

    • Forcibly removes the samaritan out of his car

    • Deven was unarmed with no criminal recorded and he was forced out of his car and laid down on the ground

    • Threw his phone

    • Tased deven

    • Sergeant claims that deven punched him the face

    • Sergeant shot deven seven times and deven died

    • Sergeant frost wasn’t reprimanded and is currently in active duty

    • Obedience over public safety

  • The true deven guilford case

    • Deven was under the influence

    • He didn’t have his ID

    • The claimsmaker cut important clips out where the officer was deescalating

    • The claims maker referred to driver as a young boy and good samaritan (good vs. evil, morality play) said he was attacked, bound and kidnapped by somebody (victim/villain), ties to broader problem of tyrannical violent police using data (scope/size), and a call to action and police accountability

  • Constructing deviance in the traditional media

    • Social and organizational factors

      • Revenue

        • Social problems need to get views before a news network will talk about (needs ad revenue)

        • Quest to make money has a impact on what society sees as a social problem

      • Newsworthiness

        • A story that is relevant

        • Claims need to make it in the public dialogue but if the editor thinks its not good enough its unlikely to be perceived as a social problem

        • Powerful people are newsworthy (the bigger they are the harder they fall)

          • Eg. diddy

        • Dramatic content

          • Infotainment

          • Must be interesting and entertaining

        • Human interest

          • Grabs your heart strings

          • Relating to the story

        • Simplicity

          • Easy to read and understand

          • Dumbs problems down to make them more simplistic

        • Thematic

          • Similar stories connected overtime

          • Easy to read

      • Newsworthiness determines what claims are heard and in what form

      • Time and space

        • More time they spend the more expensive

        • Organizational constraints

        • Only so much space to print and the pages are money

          • Shorter and digestible will be more likely to get printed

      • Sources

        • cost/efficiency, news wire and investigations

        • Fast 

        • Prepackaged

          • Industry doesn’t want to think about anything

  • News 2.0

    • Anyone can be a claimsmaker

    • Citizen journalists as claimsmakers

      • Fewer organizational constraints

        • Go fund me

        • No editor

        • No worry about money

        • You do care if people are watching but it doesn’t make or break 

        • No organizational hierarchy (no boss)

        • Inexpensive and simple to use

      • Speed and reach

        • Its in your hands

        • Instantly post and instantly read

      • Challenge power/authority of traditional sources

        • One post and you can attack the authority of the police

        • Can call out CEOs

        • Never have to worry about someone else controlling the narrative

    • Example

      • Nypd posted a campaign to let citizens post about the NYPD and improve public relations

      • Claims makers used the campaign to call out the authority of the NYPD

  • Squeegee kids appear as a problem (1995-2000)

    • How did it get constructed and why?

    • Emerges as a human interest story

    • A crime problem

      • Why this kind of problem?

    • Conservative “crackdown”

    • Following “atrocity tales” claims making intensifies

      • “These kids are beating the elderly when they don’t pay”

        • Not sure if this actually happened but it caught everyone's attention 

    • Criminal side

      • Squeegee kids as criminal 

        • Size scope: 100s or 1000s

          • This problem is so big they are like locusts that swarm innocent drivers

          • Like canadian geese

      • victim/offender

        • Victimizing innocent women and children

      • Morality

        • Victimization is always wrong

      • Salience

        • Symptom of overall decline

        • Youth of the nation are in moral decline

        • Broader idea (just a hypothesis)