Disorderly behaviour can be defined as people causing distress and disruption to other people’s lives . For example, abusing or intimidating staff in a supermarket or causing vandalism in a church yard. The Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 defines disorderly behaviour in the following way, ‘an anti-social manner, that is to say, in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons ..." (Crime & Disorder Act, 1998 ). In 1978 cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall developed a theory that the amount of crime covered by the media contributed to the belief that there was a crisis in society. The main issue addressed by Hall’s theory is the street crime.
The mass media, such as radio, television, newspaper and the internet, play a large role in mediating disorder, or chiefly, the feelings of disorder by creating folk devils; these are people, or groups of people, who are portrayed as deviant and are blamed for crimes and other social problems (Cohen 1973, cited in Kelly and Toynbee, 2009); in other words the ‘alco-yobs’, ‘thugs’ and ‘muggers’ of the media headlines. Sociologist Stanley Cohen (1973) was interested in fights between gangs of youths in the 1960’s. In his original case study Cohen studied the fights in a local seaside town whereby members of the youth culture ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ would congregate
On the other hand, it is dysfunctional to the society as it erodes moral values and breaks connecting social norms. It destroys and destabilizes the society as it creates conflicts that may extend to both communities of the assailant and defendant. Assault impacts negatively on social cohesion and interpersonal relationships (Nisbet, 1974). In conclusion, assault is a dreadful social deviance whose dysfunctional features of society far outweigh the functional. Therefore, in order to create a stable and cohesive society, the deviance needs to be controlled or eliminated by postulating and devising tough consequences for
The October 6th debate between Clinton and Dole capitalized on the areas of the culture wars that the two disagreed upon, most predominantly being the youth’s drug use and the after-shocks within the education system and national security. Over the course of two decades the culture wars had evolved into an illustration of the clash between post-WWII cultural attitudes and the rebellious attitudes of the Vietnam War youth, a fight between the parents and their rowdy children. The Vietnam War became the initial catalyst in the emergence of the counterculture. The movement was viewed as a fight against the traditionalist views in society (Klatch, 134). Klatch defines the characteristics of the counterculture as the “dress, music, drugs, sexuality and ‘alternative lifestyles” that those involved became known for.
The powerful such as the police have the power to decide what gets reported to the public and use the mass media to enhance control by creating fear within society. This is emphasised by General Director of the BBC Michael Grade who reported that “the effect of crime reporting by the media is almost inevitably to increase fear…the public receives only a distorted impression” (Grade 1989). The term ‘moral panics’ is mainly associated Stanley Cohen. Cohen defines moral panics as “a condition, episode, person, or group persons emerges to become defined as a threat in societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media” (Cohen, 1972.p.9). According to Cohen moral panics are part of a collective behaviour where there is panic over a particular behaviour seen as deviant
The author of this context has used different techniques to suck the audience into believing about this newspaper article. He uses ways of scaring the readers by telling them the truth about what is happening in the very place they live at. He tells the readers that their very teenaged children may be a part of organised crime by buying drugs and getting into a lot of debt to very dangerous people. They may start at about 100$ for a ‘point of methamphetamine’ and then get addicted to the drugs and end up getting into very huge debts. He also states that you may get a knock at 2am at your door with a thug demanding money, and the only way to pay them without getting killed is to sell businesses to pay back the mounting debt that their children have gotten into.
Discrimination can be caused by many factors. As I stated in the previous question, ”Prejudices and stereotyping are the ideas and thoughts people have about other groups of personss without regard to individual differences. I believe these lead to the actions of discrimination. The physical act of prejudice is discrimination.” An individuals upbringing plays a very important role in their outlook on prejudice and stereotypes. Also, television and friends have a hand in the ideas that are placed into an individual’s thoughts.
These effects usually come in the form of stigmatisation and the belief that they contribute to violence in society. It can even lead to them becoming victims of violent crimes. These perceptions are often brought to the forefront of peoples’ thoughts by the media. Before elaborating on how risk impacts on mental health users I feel it is important to try to define the concept of risk, I emphasise ‘try’ because it is a word that is used in many different contexts and has multiple meanings depending upon when and who is using it. It must be noted that ‘risk is not a real thing [...] it is a concept, [i.e.]
The moral panic of heavy metal and its cult ties The term moral panic can be defined as “a condition, episode, person or group emerging to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests” (Cohen, S 1972). A social deviant is a person or thing that violates the social norms of a group and faces disapproval from that group that it has deviated from these people are perceived as the folk devil which is an image that is created for them by the media. This image that is thrust upon certain groups can become a sort of stigmatation or a form of stereotyping. This perceived folk devil than causes a moral panic to ensue. An example of this would be looking at the music genre of heavy metal.
Civil Disobedience in Society People are different. Thus, people have different beliefs, value systems and morals. Furthermore, many people have very specific beliefs regarding certain issues in society. They are willing to risk punishment by standing up for those beliefs by drawing public awareness to issues. In doing so, those folks may be described as being civilly disobedient.