Interactionist Perspective (amplification of deviance) and overall evaluation Flashcards
By studying deviance amplification - what do interactionists aim to show?
- how attempts made by formal agencies of social control (ie. government, police, media) to reduce crime can ironically lead to an escalation and amplification of it
- then leads to further attempts to control it
- produces higher levels
What do interactionists argue that the police and media as amplifiers of deviance contribute to?
- creation of moral panics and folk devils
Who did Jock Young’s study ‘The Role of the Police as Amplifiers of Deviance’ focus on? What did it examine?
- hippie marijuana users in Notting Hill
- examined the meanings which coloured the police view of the hippies, how their actions were directed by those meanings and the effect of this
How did the police manage to increase the organisation and cohesion of the ‘bohemian’ drug taking community?
- intensive police action united them in a shared sense of injustice at the harsh sentences and the distorted media image portrayed of their behaviour and identity
How did the police manage to make the drug takers more conscious of themselves as a group with definite interests over and against those of wider society?
- interest and activity generated much introspection which caused the group to evolve theories explain the nature of their position in society
How did the police’s treatment manage to result in drugs becoming more central to the community and the creation of a culture around them?
- rise in police action
- increased necessity for the drug user to segregate him/herself from wider society of non-users
- therefore, police action tended to unite them and make them feel different
- began to accept and rationalise their differences
- having been labelled as different, they now accentuated this difference
How did the stereotype that the police originally held finally become realised and fantasy translated into reality?
- drug use was transformed from a peripheral to a central activity
- deviant subculture evolved in which deviant self concepts were reinforced
- drug use became symbol/ representation of ‘bohemianism’ and rebellion against unfair system
Once the deviants had been labelled in such a way and been excluded from the system - what became very difficult?
- to re-enter the system
- label and subculture that developed around the behaviour stood in opposition to gaining regular employment
- thus reinforced the subcultures
Where and when was the spasmodic and isolated incidents of fighting which broke out and was exaggerated and distorted to stress that violence had been caused by the mods and rockers with ‘much hostility’ between then?
- 1994, Easter Sunday
- bored youths in Clacton
How did newspapers manage to sharply polarise British youth?
- produced articles profiling the groups and discussing the culture/ lifestyle of them to generate interest
- according to Cohen, some divisions did exist between the groups but they weren’t of great significance to the groups themselves
On the bank holiday weekend in May, the newspapers had predicted scenes of blood and violence but what actually happened according to Cohen?
- many mods and rockers did come out in large numbers but were unsure as to what to do
How did the media exaggerated interest and sensationalised reporting impact the agencies of social control?
- police and local magistrates became sensitised to events by the newspapers predictions
- Cohen found the police reacted at any hint of trouble and more people than usual were arrested - especially if they fitted ‘mod’ or ‘rocker’
- also influenced magistrates who imposed heavier penalties than usual to combat the perceived ‘crime wave’
- this was actually crime created by the media
What did Cohen conclude?
- the media built up mods and rockers into folk devils ie. groups labelled as troublemakers
How did the media make mods and rockers more significant and pertinent?
- covering and drawing attention to them
- defined the subcultures, publicised them, nurtured the differences
What was the result of the media nurturing and sensationalising the differences between them?
- helped to create the violence that took place
- also confirmed them as troublemakers in the eyes of the public
- resultantly, moral panic developed in which the public, police and magistrates united in their reaction against the perceived threat to law and order and deviance was amplified
