Social Deviance Application Response

There has been a lot going on in society during the past couple years! And there has been a lot brewing in our nation for the past several years, with movements to recognize behaviors as unacceptable, such as anti-Black racism with BLM and sexual assault and harassment with Me Too. The coronavirus pandemic has also exposed cultural divides with scientific guidelines such as wearing a mask in public or getting a vaccine. The media has been a tool for both information, and mixed messages with the efficacy and trust of information being more and more called into question. 

Social media has played a large role in how bad behaviors are exposed and how social control is managed and upheld. The public spectacle of Foucault’s descriptions of prison torture now plays out as punishment and shame through behaviors caught on cell phone cameras and posted online for everyone to judge and witness. We have become judge, jury and executioner with the rise in the concept of “Canceling” and holding the past as a “measure” of everyone’s actions on both the far right and even the far left. We are all being watched by the Guard Tower of social media and accountability for better and for worse.

Deviance couldn’t be a more powerful topic in 2022.  The Reproductive Rights of women are being handed to Federalist standards (States Make Choices) which leads many women and men who would’ve been Pro-Choice in certain states to be labeled as deviant now, and before not as much. With the idea of Trigger Laws, Control on Reproductive Rights on the tips of the worlds tongues and much more, how can you connect the topics we’ve covered in Adler & Adler as well as Foucaults idea of Panopticon to this?  Are we in a new area of social control?  Can you Spot the Social Control? Moral Entrepreneurism and much more!

How can we analyze how deviance is constructed, rules are made/enforced/followed, and how social media has allowed for more panopticism (see Foucault’s reading) in society today by looking at one or more of these examples? How might social media give more power to ordinary people to uphold and/or change norms?

Particularly, please choose one of these following topics to use as an example:

The Covid-19 pandemic mask-wearing/physical distancing rules and scientific guidelines, choosing to/ or not to wear a mask, not to follow science, or the like

Several powerful men losing jobs, going to jail, and/or being publicly ostracized for sexual assault, harassment and lewd behaviors against women, largely held accountable due to the MeToo movement

Police killings and shootings of Black men and women caught on video and posted to social media, which has brought the issue to the forefront of society. Think about  deaths such as that of George Floyd, the BLM movement, how ordinary people are working to hold authority figures accountable, and how social media has made an impact on this awareness and racial reckoning. (Note, we’ll focus on racial stigma next week, so focus here on rule creation, enforcement, and social media impacts.)

• Canceling… Is it a good thing or is it a bad thing?  What happens when we go to far, or not far enough.  How has streaming changed the conversation, or has it? Dave Chappelle doesn’t want you to stream him

We are in the peak of entertainment, but has it come to far?  What are the hidden messages in the shows we binge, like Squid Games     And how do we separate the deviance associated with many of the themes from truth that needs to be spoken of when it comes to societal stigma as we learn about with Goffman.

• Topics Pertaining to Reproductive Rights, Social Control, Stigma Management and the view of society and how it shifts and Oscillates.

Write your responses on each of the following 5 prompts below, or if you have another original Idea this is okay as well, e-mail me about ideas. You must include theory, course material and connection to the ideas quoted within your response.  The  5 topics above are made to make it “easier” but if you have an Original Idea, Fantastic!  Just make sure you cite, source and connect.

• Explain the idea of Foucault’s panopticism using the optional  excerpt from the Module 4: Read section. How does this connect to the example that you chose from above? For instance, how does social media now play a role in social control and govern-mentality and specifically in the example you have chosen?

Use concepts from the Adler articles and lecture videos on moral entrepreneurship and deviant identities. How does social power provide authority to be either a rule creator or rule enforcer? What happens when this is not seen as legitimate? For instance, you may want to discuss primary and secondary deviance, justifications and excuses, and the like that are explained in the Adler articles for this week. Although these concepts apply to different examples (anorexia and bulimia, rapist motives, etc), how can these larger terms about constructing deviance and social control work in your current example?

• Provide examples of Stigma Management that you’ve read within your articles as well from Goffman.

Provide any additional thoughts in closing, using what you have learned up to this point (cite where appropriate). For instance, how might social movements gain authority?