media

Along with the national release of Dear White People earlier this month, PBS recently debuted a series with a unique take on US race relations called The Whiteness Project. Citing a lack of critical examination of whiteness and white identity as its motivation, the program conducts one-on-one interviews with white Americans “from all walks of life and localities.” In part one of the series, participants from Buffalo, NY are shown responding openly, sometimes jarringly, to questions about race, whiteness, and white privilege. Whitney Dow, the producer/director of The Whiteness Project, claims that through these interviews, the project hopes to examine “both the concept of whiteness itself and how those who identify as ‘white’ process their ethnic identity.”

Scholars from numerous disciplines have written thoughtfully and critically about Whiteness and how it pertains to U.S. race relations. Matthew M. Hughey and Matt Wray, both TSP contributors, have also written on the subject.

• George Lipsitz. 2006.The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Monica McDermott. 2006. Working-Class White: The Making and Unmaking of Race Relations. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
• David Roediger. 1999. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. Brooklyn: Verso Publishing.
• Matthew W. Hughey. 2012. White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race. Stanford University Press.
• Matt Wray. 2006. Not quite white: White trash and the boundaries of whiteness. Durham: Duke University Press.

Recent media buzz over two new social networks, each challenging part of Facebook and Twitter’s model, raises questions about how people cultivate connections. Ello launched with a manifesto against corporate social media and drew a number of new users unhappy with Facebook’s “real name” policy. While their stance on selling data is still in question, another new network is proud to cash in. Netropolitan.club, billing itself as the next new elite social network, charges $9,000 for exclusive access to connect with everyone else who paid the admission fee. Their success hinges on a chicken and egg question: do we join new groups that give us what we want, or do our current networks shape what we want in the first place?

Classic network research argues that your ties shape what you want, and recent studies of political activism show how this works. People often join activist groups with personal motives and later learn their political stances through the group’s social ties.

• Bonnie H. Erikson. 1996. “Culture, Class, and Connections.” American Journal of Sociology 102:217-52
• Hahrie Han. 2009. Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics. Stanford University Press.

On the other hand, tastes also shape the kinds of networks we form. Joining up can be a form of “conspicuous consumption” where members buy in to show insider status. “Highbrow” taste in culture also tends to form stronger, more exclusive ties with other members in the network, while “lowbrow” or popular tastes are associated with weaker, but broader ties.

• Thorstein Veblen. 1994[1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Dover Publications
• Omar Lizardo. 2006. “How Cultural Tastes Shape Personal Networks.” American Sociological Review 71(5):778-807

The new season of TV programing is sporting a decidedly more ‘colorful’ look, with non-white creators, producers, and/or lead characters being featured on a number of recently launched series. Among all the major networks, ABC appears to be contributing the most to this trend toward diversity. Not only are they signed on for another new series by famed African American producer/director/writer Shonda Rhimes, titled How to Get Away With Murder, they are also credited with reviving the TV presence of the non-white middle-class family, with new shows about African (Black-ish), Latino- (Cristela), and Asian- (Fresh off the Boat) American families. Most critics, though welcoming of this change, are hesitant to mark this as “progress.” What might social scientists think about this?

Though it’s been a few years, shows like Black-ish, Cristela, and Fresh off the Boat aren’t the first we’re seeing of non-white middle class families on TV. Herman Gray has written extensively, and critically, about television’s discourse on “diversity” and “blackness” and the role played by artists of color in the production process.

• Herman Gray. 2004. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. University of Minnesota Press.
• Hermany Gray. 1989. “Television, Black Americans, and the American Dream.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6(4): 376-386.

Looking more broadly, scholars like Catherine R. Squires write critically about the ways we as a supposedly “post-racial” society now consume those discourses about “diversity” and “multiculturalism” on TV:

• Catherine R. Squires. 2014. The Post-Racial Mystique: Media and Race in the 21st century. New York University Press.
• Catherine R. Squires & Sarah J. Jackson. 2010. “Reducing race: News themes in the 2008 primaries.” International Journal of Press/Politics 15(4): 375-400.

Every year, the MacArthur Foundation releases a list of fellows recognized for “originality and dedication” in their respective fields. 2014’s list honors social psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, whose work on implicit biases showed up on TROT last week. Known informally as the “genius grant,” the MacArthur fellowship offers funds for a wide range of scholars, artists, and entrepreneurs to pursue new directions in their work. But what exactly is a genius? How do we decide who has that special something? Social science suggests we should not only look at geniuses themselves, but also at how socialization and networks among people craft innovation.

Biographical studies show that genius and other talents are not born, but rather cultivated through an extraordinary amount of practice, habit-forming, and parenting.

• Joyce Tang. 2005. “Manufacturing Great Scientists.” Sociological Inquiry 75(1):129-150
• Michael J. A. Howe. 2001 Genius Explained. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Daniel F. Chambliss. 1989. “The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers.” Sociological Theory 7(1):70-86.

Institutions and social networks also play a big role. “Genius” level work in the arts and sciences must be recognized by peers and labeled as such.

• Gabriel Rossman, Nicole Esparza, and Phillip Bonacich. 2010. “I’d Like to Thank the Academy, Team Spillovers, and Network Centrality.” American Sociological Review. 75(1) 31-51.
• Gary Alan Fine. 2004. Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Howard S. Becker. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Robert K. Merton. 1965. On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Fears of a “terror pipeline” running from Western countries to ISIL and other militant groups are on the rise. The New York Times reports that at least a dozen men have left Minnesota to join radical Islamist groups. Community leaders and FBI officials suggest that cultural isolation, social discontent, and economic challenges drive recent immigrants abroad to fight, and expert accounts in the media argue solving these local problems is the best means of curbing the trend.

Social science has two things to say about this: first,  sincere religious belief, political ideology, and rationalistic behavior may play a stronger role than the media recognize. Second, Western media and governments may have an interest in portraying the motivations for militancy in particular ways.

Ethnographic research shows that the incentive structures of fundamentalist Islam make militancy an appealing choice. Young men who spend hundreds of hours per year in prayer groups and become leaders in their local mosque communities come to view radicalism as the only sure path to Heaven. They don’t join militant organizations because they are confused, isolated, or have no other choices, but because they sincerely believe that doing so is the right path.

• Quintan Wiktorowicz and Karl Kaltenthaler. 2006. “The Rationality of Radical Islam.” Political Science Quarterly 121(2): 295–319.

This type of radical religious behavior becomes more appealing in times of political uncertainty. Given the instability of Iraq’s fledgling democracy following the U.S. occupation, conservative Muslims may see ISIL’s rise as an opportunity to reclaim the region after a more secular approach to governing failed.

• Robert J. Brym. 2007. “Six Lessons of Suicide Bombers.” Contexts 6(4):40–45.
• Robert Pape. 2005. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Random House.

Western media organizations have strong incentives to blame militancy on local social and cultural problems. In times of moral or cultural panic, audiences look to pundits to see who to blame. “Disaffected Muslim youth” may be one such constructed class.

• Dan Berger. 2009. “Constructing Crime, Framing Disaster: Routines of Criminalization and Crisis in Hurricane Katrina.” Punishment & Society 11(4):491–510.

And, once blame has been placed, media accounts perpetuate that particular frame of the situation through a “fringe effect” where angry arguments from the margins become mainstream.

• Christopher A. Bail. 2012. “The Fringe Effect: Civil Society Organizations and the Evolution of Media Discourse about Islam since the September 11th Attacks.” American Sociological Review 77(6): 855–79.

For more on why people may flee micro-agressions at home, check out this Reading List.

In the latest push against an FCC proposal that would create fee-based “fast lanes” on the Internet, a coalition of tech companies purposely slowed download speeds on their websites. The idea – to demonstrate to users how the new rules might slow traffic on non-paying sites – generated quite a stir: as of September 10th, the FCC received a record-breaking 1.4 million public comments on the proposal.

The coalition of protesting firms includes a roster of sites that rely heavily on user uploads: Mozilla, Etsy, PornHub, Kickstarter, Vimeo, and Reddit all voluntarily slowed traffic. Netflix also joined, displaying a message explaining to users “If there were Internet slow lanes, you’d still be waiting.” Tech giants Google and Twitter added their opposition as well. Protest organizers are asking the FCC to reclassify the Internet as a “Common Carrier” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, thereby granting the government special regulatory powers designed to protect the web as a kind of public commons.

For most of us, the idea of a “commons” calls to mind a kind of protected natural resource, like the public lands that ecologist Garrett Hardin wrote about in his classic article, “Tragedy of the Commons.” The protesters, though, are asking the FCC to create a “commons” from a service that was built in-part by Internet service providers who now want to charge for speed. So, where might the government stake its claim on a proprietary public service? David Harvey and other social scientists have shown how and why capitalist societies engage in this kind of “commoning.”

• Garrett Hardin. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162(3859): 1243-1248
• David Harvey. 2012. Rebel Cities. Chapter 3: The Creation of the Urban Commons. Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books.

The incredible outpouring of individual action in this protest owes a great deal to the organizing efforts of a number of large corporations, each with its own ideological and financial interests in the final ruling. What do you call a campaign that uses grassroots tactics, but takes cues from big business? “Astroturfing”, says Sociologist Edward Walker – and it’s more common than you might think.

• Edward T. Walker. 2010. “Industry-Driven Activism.” Contexts 9(2): 44-49.
• Edward T. Walker. 2014. Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Caroline W. Lee. 2010. “The Roots of Astroturfing.” Contexts. 

With more video evidence released of Ray Rice assaulting his fiancée (now wife), Janay Palmer, in a New Jersey Casino elevator, the media has been buzzing over Rice’s release from the Baltimore Ravens and indefinite suspension from participation in the NFL. Rice was originally suspended for two games, but the public felt this punishment didn’t fit the crime, especially since other players had been suspended entire seasons for smoking marijuana. After the backlash over the disproportionate sentencing handed out by league President Roger Goodell and the NFL, the league altered its policies towards domestic assault conduct. From Michael Vick’s dogfighting scandal to the relatively recent Aaron Hernandez debacle, the NFL has been under heavy scrutiny over the conduct of its players. How do these big organizations handle such scandals?

Comparisons of arrest rates in the NFL and the general population show that players often have lower rates that the national average for all offenses, including domestic violence. The “NFL criminality myth” is perpetuated when sport is interpreted through a “white lens,” and parallels that of general stereotypes about blacks as crime prone.

• Alfred Blumstein and Jeff Benedict. 1999. “Criminal violence of NFL players compared to the general population.” Chance, 12(3): 12-15.
• Richard E. Lapchick. 2000. “Crime and athletes: New racial stereotypes.” Society, 37(3): 14-20.

Within the NFL, arrests for domestic violence are higher than any other crime, unlike the general population where arrests are higher for other offenses. Few players are successfully prosecuted in the courts for domestic assault, though, and they rarely face sanctions on their eligibility to play.

• Jeff Benedict, J. 1997. Public heroes, private felons: Athletes and crimes against women. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

There is widespread agreement among the general population about which crimes are severe, and what constitutes a just punishment for those crimes (although demographics and victim/offender characteristics modify these effects slightly).  The original punishment handed down to Ray Rice did not fit into our collective conceptions of morality and justice, and public outrage is one symptom of that mismatch.

• Wolfgang, M., Figlio, R. M., Tracy, P. E., & Singer, S. I. 1985. The national survey of crime severity. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
• William Samuel and Elizabeth Moulds. 1986. “The effect of crime severity on perceptions of fair punishment: A California case study.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 77(3): 931-948.
• Peter H. Rossi, Jon E. Simpson, and JoAnn L. Miller. 1985. “Beyond crime seriousness: Fitting the punishment to the crime.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1(1): 59-90.

Sociologists know that when an organization’s reputation and integrity is threatened, they often attempt to fix things by distancing themselves from the problem or the perpetrator (disassociation), and/or implementing policies that attempt corrective action. Sometimes these actions are just symbolic gestures, but sometimes they also show real institutional change. In this case the NFL seems to be following the script!

• Keith Michael Hearit. 1995. “Mistakes were made”: Organizations, apologia, and crises of social legitimacy. Communication Studies, 46(1-2), 1-17.

Miley Cyrus’ VMA activities recently hit the news again – but this time it wasn’t for twerking. Instead, Miley took the spotlight off herself and put it on the issue of homeless youth. Passing her award acceptance on to 22-year-old Jesse Helt, a formerly homeless youth, Miley brought attention to severe social inequality across the U.S. The move raised over $200,000 for Los Angeles homeless youth. However, sociologists show that increasing media awareness of a stigmatized group can have both positive and negative consequences.

Regardless of Miley’s intentions, her effort to give voice to the homeless population is a step in the right direction. Sociologists show that increased awareness of and contact with stigmatized populations can help decrease that stigma.

• Barrett Lee, Chad Farrell, and Bruce Link. 2004. “Revisiting the Contact Hypothesis: The Case of Public Exposure to Homelessness.” American Sociological Review. 69(1).

The media also plays a large role in which issues get deemed “social problems”—problems we feel responsible for helping to fix. Positive media attention given to homelessness at the VMAs, while fleeting, may have some positive impact on social perceptions of homelessness.

• Joseph Gusfield. 1989. “Constructing the Ownership of Social Problems: Fun and Profit in the Welfare State.” Social Problems. 36(5).
• James Forte. 2002. “Not in My Social World: A Cultural Analysis of Media Representations, Contested Spaces, and Sympathy for the Homeless.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 29(4).

However, raising awareness of what many see as a deserving segment of the homeless population—white, healthy, homeless youth—may also detract from what many sociologists call the “undeserving poor.” This equally important group of minority populations and welfare recipients will have a much harder time finding its way into an awards show.

• Michael Katz. 2013. The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty. 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press.

While President Obama is hosting an economic summit with African leaders this week, the Ebola outbreak is overshadowing major economic news. Experts argue that the epidemic can be curbed, but note rampant distrust toward aid organizations in rural communities makes treatment and prevention difficult. Social scientific research helps explain how media and governments shape the way citizens respond to outbreaks.

We usually think media fans the flames of mass panic, but research on previous Ebola shows media sources actually turn toward a “containment” narrative, emphasizing that it’s hard to catch Ebola and the outbreak is “somewhere else.”

• Sheldon Ungar. 1998. “Hot Crises and Media Reassurance: A Comparison of Emerging Diseases and Ebola Zaire.” The British Journal of Sociology. 49(1): 36-56

It isn’t that local communities “don’t understand” that aid workers are there to help. Epidemics often manufacture misunderstandings and mass panic. Recently, in New York City’s Chinatown, Asians were “stigmatized during the SARS epidemic despite having no SARS cases.”

• Laura Eichelberger. 2007. “SARS and New York’s Chinatown: The Politics of Risk and Blame During an Epidemic of Fear.” Social Science and Medicine. 65(6): 1284–1295

Political context also matters, including the actions of national governments and international NGOs. Comparative work on Uganda and South Africa’s approaches to HIV/AIDS has shown top-down strategies don’t calm the infection rate. Bottom-up approaches, like changing hygiene behaviors, are more effective at the local level. However, this tactic requires an environment of “representation and democratic participation” that governments and international organizations have to build and frame.

• Justin O. Parkhurst and Louisiana Lush. 2004. “The Political Environment of HIV: Lessons from a Comparison of Uganda and South Africa.” Social Science and Medicine. 59(9): 1913–1924
• Yu-Ju Chien. 2013. “How Did International Agencies Perceive the Avian Influenza Problem? The adoption and manufacture of the ‘One World, One Health’ framework.” Sociology of Health and Illness. 35(2): 213–226

Last Friday—in another chapter of a tragic pattern—22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and wounded more in Isla Vista, California. Rodger also left a manifesto on YouTube in which he laid out his plan to take revenge on women who “shunned him.” The video sparked national conversation over the weekend, including the twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen to share stories of daily gendered and sexual harassment women face. Mass shootings are rare, but the culture that creates them is not. Researchers find strong elements of masculine gender performance in many of these acts—with young men attempting to assert power through violence.

The kind of attack carried out by Rodger closely matches researchers’ profile of other shooters—a clear, sustained pattern of challenges to their masculine identities. They do not just “snap,” but are shaped over time by the way our society polices gender.

• Katherine Newman,  Cybelle Fox, David J. Harding, Jal Mehta, & Wendy Roth. 2005. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. New York: Basic Books.
• Jack Levin & Eric Madfis. 2009. “Mass murder at school and cumulative strain: A sequential model.” American Behavioral Scientist, 52, 1227-1245.
• Michael Kimmel and Matthew Mahler. 2003. “Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence: Random School Shootings, 1982-2001.” American Behavioral Scientist, 46(10): 1439-1458
• Adam Lankford. 2012. “A comparative analysis of suicide terrorists and rampage, workplace, and school shooters in the United States from 1990 to 2010.” Homicide Studies, 17, 255-274.

Feelings that lost masculinity can only be reclaimed through violence are tied to a broader pattern of threats against women. While there have been declines in violence against women and other crime over the past generation, violence against women remains an enormous problem in the United States and around the world.

• Manuel Eisner. “Long-term historical trends in violent crime.” Crime and Justice (2003): 83-142.
• Michael Planty, Lynn Langton, Christopher Krebs, Marcus Berzofsky, and Hope Smiley-McDonald. 2013. “Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994-2010.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
• Claudia García-Moreno, Christina Pallitto, Karen Devries, Heidi Stöckl, Charlotte Watts, and Naeemah Abrahms. 2013. Global and regional estimates of violence against women: Prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland.
  • Summary Infographic

For more on the sociology of mass violence, check out this TSP Roundtable.