Response 5

Social Control

Social control has a big influence on how we as people are socialized in society. Social control is what stops people from performing deviant acts. The way social control can be imposed on a society is in two ways, informal and formal social control. Throughout my first semester here at Kean University I can observe how both of these forms of social control are evident and how they work to socialize me and other students. An important part of social control to take note of is deviance. Deviance is the behavior done that goes against what a society’s or group’s expectation with norms.

The syllabus a teacher puts out on students one very evident form a formal social control. The syllabus has very specific guidelines which could be seen a mores written out for the class. The reason I view the guidelines on a syllabus as mores is because it specifically tells students how their grade will be helped or harmed by following the formal norms the Professor expects to have in the classroom. Following the syllabus’s advice and warnings for the class or disregarding it would lead to a sanction of either getting a good or bad grade in the class. Possibly in a professors’ viewpoint, students who are not abiding by the syllabus to try and maintain a good grade are committing a deviant act.

Another mechanism of formal social control at Kean University is having your diploma withheld from you if there are outstanding fines you have not paid yet. If the fines have not been paid by the time you are ready to graduate, the sanction against you will be not receiving your diploma. This form of control insures for Kean University that no student will be able to leave without paying the money they owe.

Informal social control at Kean University is much harder to point out compared to formal social control. One example I was able to take note of is when a table at the library is occupied by few people where there is still room to seat more people. Unless you know them as friends or are acquainted with the people sitting at the table you probably would not go and sit down over there.

One mechanic of informal control at Kean University is underage drinking. At fraternity parties it is the norm there to have alcoholic drinks served to the people attending. The informal norm of the acceptance that underage drinking will occur at fraternity party conflicts with the formal norm of underage drinking which is a written law saying it is illegal. When arriving to the party students who do not normally drink will likely be more inclined to drink when seeing their peers have alcohol. In this case students decide to violate the formal norm for an informal norm. From the viewpoint of professors, other faculty, and parents, underage drinking is a deviant act. Since they are not within the same circumstances of the students and deviance is a very subjective matter, not many older adults would be pleased to learn about students underage drinking.

Formal methods of social control at Kean University are much more effective than informal methods. This may not be the case everywhere but in the facility of a school everyone has the same objective: Earn their degree. In order to earn our degree we must perform well enough in our professors’ classes. The school and the faculty (professors) are aware of this and impose necessary means of formal social control such as mores like a syllabus or rules not allowing us to earn our degree. In other places informal methods of social control would be more useful.

Mass Media Perspectives

Tara Estrella and myself both met up in the library to discuss our views on mass media.

Nancy Thompson Library

10/7/2011 – 2:00 PM

The sociological perspective on the media that I agree with the most is the interactionist view because I often find myself making friends with people because of similar interests in different media such as television, movies, and games.

The sociological perspective on the media that Tara agrees with the most is the feminist view because she frequently sees women portrayed as weak, unintelligent, and too sexual on television. (e.g. Two and Half Men)

Response 3

Ralph Papillon

Intro to Sociology – Response 3

Socialization is a process taught in sociology that helps explain the formation of our own personalities. Attitudes, behaviors, values, and norms are all part of the process in which we are socialized. Ultimately socialization is how different aspects of society ends up forming our individual personalities. The aspects of society that help do this are: families, schools, peer groups, workplaces, religion, government, mass media, and technology.

In the last two days I have been exposed to a plethora of media that has attempted to socialize me. The first media that I was able to take note of were several insurance commercials I have seen such as State Farm, Geico, and Progressive. All of them socialized the norm of the importance of finding cheap insurance to me. Although I myself do not pay for car insurance yet, seeing these commercials makes the experience of viewing auto insurance commercials as anticipatory socialization. A sanction that can be observed with Progressive Auto Insurance is their accident forgiveness policy. The formal norm that would be performed for this sanction is having avoided accidents for a period of time. The positive sanction for this formal norm of driving safely would be getting much lower insurance rates. Since Auto insurance commercials are found so frequently on televisions across most channels, I consider owning auto insurance to be an informal norm, it is simply expected that everyone would have it.

Another way media socialized me was a cell phone advertisement through a best buy commercial. The commercial was advertising the use of 4G enabled phones and the many uses it could have when you are on the go. Some of the additional uses that the advertisement mentioned were watching sports, browsing the internet, and using a GPS. Even if I did not plan on owning one of those phones, I would simply accept it as a norm to see someone using one of those phones. If I never saw advertisements socializing the idea of 4G enabled phones, I would find it strange to meet people who were using those phones, maybe even feel a bit culture shocked because the idea would be so strange to me. The rapid growth of smartphones can be viewed as a subculture since the devices affect the lives of the owners in some ways. Right now 4G phones are not owned by many people but slowly the phones will be diffused over to all phone users as it becomes more popular.

Another interesting advertisement I observed from a sociological stand point was a new exercise machine called The Rack. The commercial emphasized the importance of helping the consumer get the body they want, abs and more muscle throughout their body. This ad shows that a lot of people probably put a lot of value on their own physique and the creators of The Rack are targeting that mindset.

Direct TV, Sunday ticket promotion is an advertisement that shows an obvious subculture. The promotion allowed customers to have access to Sunday games that are not even playing in their region. The subculture that can be observed from the commercial is the religion-like fanaticism of Sunday football. The norm within this subculture is the big hype of Sunday football games. The norm of watching football every Sunday falls under the category of a folkway. It is simply expected that all football enthusiasts will be watching a game on Sunday.