Everyday Sociology Blog

Space Cadets: Human Society and Its Discontents

By Sally Raskoff

When do humans cease to be human?

I was with some friends and astronomers looking through a telescope the other day and the conversation turned to space colonization. As the astronomers went on to talk about terraforming Mars and other fascinating topics, I wondered how life off the planet would affect humans and human society. 

We have a few examples of real humans living in closed environments for limited time-- the NASA International Space Station, Antarctic science stations, and Biosphere 2 -- and we have plenty of fictional examples of humans in such situations, like Star Trek and most science fiction writing.   

But if we create space communities where human lives are spent entirely off of this planet, we should consider how human societies may differ -– and whether or not we can consider such people still human.

Societies are based on interactions with not only each other but with our environment. When we send people to live in a closed environment, they take their culture with them, yet a new culture emerges the longer they stay in the new place. 

If you have ever gone camping or traveling, you experience a similar phenomenon. As you take your cultural expectations, you set up what feels comfortable in the new setting. You may have a new bed to sleep in and different food to eat but we often seek comfort in familiar clothing or ritualistic behaviors. 

Culture shock, which you might experience when traveling, offers some insight into how we change when immersed in new cultures. However, in a space colony, especially for the first group of inhabitants, the new culture must first be created! Thus some elements of the off-planet culture will most likely retain aspects of our earth-bound society. 

Whether human society is sustainable on another planet remains to be seen. Containing conflict and violence would be one challenge, and there are many other issues that we may not realize until we try it. This is not just a sociological question. 

Biologically, we may not be capable of reproduction in the same manner as we do here on earth. Our bodily cycles are tied to the rotation of the earth and to others. Our physical reality emerged and evolved from our experiences and resources here. If reproduction were possible on another planet, would people born there still be considered human beings? What if their births were dependent on new reproductive cycles emergent in space living and/or technological assistance that replace human gestation?

Current space programs have very specific psychological criteria for selecting space-bound participants. People must be very open, communicative, and flexible to deal with living in such confined spaces with others for any length of time. Clearly not every person is well suited to thriving or even surviving in such a situation.

Would we have a new way of stratifying humans? Instead of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and age, we could use on-planet and off-planet birth distinctions to distribute power and wealth, opportunity and education. 

Do I have a good science fiction story going here? I’m not so sure it’s only fiction, as people have been working on how to live in a closed environment for some time – we haven’t yet figured it out yet and it is dependent upon technology that has not yet been invented. However, technology isn’t the only factor for a successful off-planet venture. Nor is it even the most important.

Setting up an intentional society would prove to be difficult, especially considering the lack of success we have in existing here. Can we really engineer a self-sustaining society without creating a totalitarian culture? 

Different sociological perspectives offer very different answers. Structuralists assume the need for structure, viewing people as interdependent, yet dysfunctions threaten the balance of the system. Conflict theorists acknowledge the potential for power abuses among the different positions and relationships in sustaining their existence. Symbolic interactionists focus on how meaning varies for the human participants and how difficult and exciting such experiences would prove to be. 

How would post modernists weigh in? Since French social theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote that the (first) Gulf War didn’t happen as it played out in the media, would such lived experiences be interpreted as surreal since earthly contact would also play out via media connections? From the perspective of those in the colony, would an earth-bound existence be the unreality?

Can we effectively design a society with a minimum of social problems? Considering space colonization really focuses us on society back here on earth – if we could design such a society, why don’t we do that here on earth? If we can’t figure it out here, how on (or off) earth can we do it elsewhere?

Communication Evolution: Mobility, Cell Phones, and PDAs

By Sally Raskoff

I heard a woman tell her friends the other day she was “playing iPhone.” Do you play with your phone technology? The ways we use new and old technologies can illustrate not only economic trends but social change as well. 

Mobile communication devices have been evolving very quickly since their first appearance. 

Pagers – if you remember them – were ubiquitous in the 1980s and 1990s as one of the first mobile communication devices available to the public at large. The problem with pagers was their limited capabilities beyond simple alerts. I do remember paging my teenagers to “come home ASAP” when they were out past the time we had agreed upon. Paging is still with us although it is now called Instant Messaging (IMs) and is much more interactive with two-way paging capabilities.

Clunky, huge, and limited-range cell phones and wired car phones offered more useful forms of mobile communications for those who wanted to speak to people while out of the office or away from home. We had a friend who would drive a few miles to a mountaintop so that his phone would be able to connect to their system.

Wireless cell phones with larger service areas moved more of us into carrying communication devices with us at all times. People were able to work in more places than just the office – or be paged back to the office – as they could converse and do business from anywhere.

Personal Data Assistants (PDAs, e.g., Blackberry) with phone and email capabilities were first available through one’s workplace as employers sought devices to enable more worker productivity and connection. Address books and calculators were added in to the functionality of many phones.

PDAs and phones now not only include email, address lists, and calculators but many other functions, like music, games, cameras, word processing, spreadsheets. They have so many functions that people can now play for hours with their “toy” since it has many functions previously unavailable or only found on computers or in other separate devices. 

Just a few years ago cell phones used to be luxury items for wealthy or technologically oriented people, but now they are becoming standard equipment—even for teenagers and “tweens.” How many people do you know who don’t have a cell phone? My eighty-something parents both have cell phones! 

There are also many people who no longer have land line phones at home since they rely solely upon their cell phones. Research on mobile communications suggests that seven to nine percent of the U.S. population use only a cell phone and have no land line phone. Since many of these cell-phone-only people are more likely to be younger than older, this percentage is likely to continue increasing. 

Sociologically, one can analyze this phenomenon through many different theories or perspectives. 

Capitalism relies upon us always buying the “next best thing” to keep the economy moving thus we would expect new versions to roll out to the marketplace fairly often. 

Cell phones allow us to do our work and keep in touch with family thus we can get our work done and retain our ties to family and friends. This provides the grease that lubricates the different wheels or institutions of society and supporting the functionality of our interdependence and organic solidarity. However, dysfunctions do occur, as cell phone using drivers do not have their focus on piloting their automobile as much as talking on their phone or sending IMs. Many states have passed laws, not against using cell phones, but against using one’s hands to use a cell phone.

What does it mean for our society that we have become so cozy with this type of technology? As the findings from the Pew study on the left show, these forms of mobile communication are more and more popular and it is harder to imagine life without them! I was surprised to see that, for many people, the idea of giving up television was not as hard as the idea of giving up one’s cell phone or use of the Internet.

When looking at who is using these technologies there are some interesting patterns that may surprise you. For example, as you might suspect the patterns by age highlight that more young people use these devices more often. 

Here’s one more surprising statistic from the Pew study, “[For] English-speaking Hispanics, the cell phone is an oft-used and multifaceted device – more so than is the case for white or black Americans. … Spanish-dominant Latinos are found to be less likely to own a cell phone or use the Internet.”  

I’ve mentioned a lot of the benefits of using these devices but what about the downside? Are there costs, besides a bit more danger on the road by distracted drivers? 

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not see health hazards to cell phone users, some disagree. Dr. Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, recently advised that people be aware of potential cell phone risks and that children not use these devices at all. 

The research has just begun on the possible danger of cell phones. Since the technologies have not been in use for that long this will be an ongoing debate until enough time and research have accumulated to show us long-term patterns. 

Sociologically, will such a warning have any effect upon our use of these devices considering the depth of meaning they have for us?

Sociology on Vacation

 

By Bradley Wright

Last week I took my two sons up to a big amusement park (this is New England, so unfortunately we don’t have Disneyland). Each summer we try to buy season passes to a different fun place, and this year it was an amusement park. The boys really enjoy the rides and the water park. Me? I kind of have fun being a sociologist and watching what goes on at the park because a lot of what goes on fits with sociological principles. These include:

Social Stratification is a social system that ranks people in terms of a hierarchy. Sociologists usually talk about it in terms of class, caste, and intergenerational mobility. Well, this amusement park had its own class levels. At the bottom were the regular people like my family who just buy a ticket and go on rides. Next up is what they call a “super flash pass.” This pass works like magic. When you go to one of the popular rides, and there is a long line, you show this pass and you get put into a much shorter line for the ride.

Cool, but the “super flash pass” starts at $50. At the highest level is the “very important you” experience. With this you go straight to the start of the line, you get to park your car close to the entrance, you get a private tour of the park (though, I don’t know how private it is with thousands of people around you), and you get a private autograph session with one of the park characters. Okay, as far as I can tell, the characters can’t talk, and they are really alienated teenagers dressing up like cartoon animals for minimum wage, so I’m not sure why someone would pay extra for the autograph of an irritated, silent young person. The price for this highest level of “service”? $250 per person with a minimum of four people. That’s $1,000 to be top dog of the amusement park.

The conflict theory of crime holds that laws are passed to favor the wealthy (I know, you probably find this idea shocking), and it too was in evidence at the park. Being rather cheap, I don’t like paying $15 for the regular parking at the amusement park, so I pay $10 to park at a nearby restaurant that is actually a little closer to the main gate of the park. In speaking with the owner, I found out that the city is working hard to make it illegal to park there for the amusement park. So, if you want a bite to eat at the restaurant, go ahead and park your car. But, if you want to walk 100 yards to the amusement park, forget it.

Why would the city outlaw parking outside the park? Well, it’s a small town, and the amusement park is far-and-away their biggest tax payer. The amusement park makes approximately 1-trillion-dollars-a-day (their concession stands are really expensive), but they also want the less than one-thousand-dollars-a-day that this off-site parking place pulls in. The park, having lots of money, has lots of influence with the city government. The city government, eager to please the park, tries to pass an ordinance that doesn’t make much sense and only harms the average Joe looking to save a few dollars.

Another sociological observation involves the young people we saw at the park. Studies of youth culture note how young people find their own, distinctive ways of doing things, and this culture works best when it is different than what boring-old-people are doing.

Well, walking around the park, I noticed a unique style of dress. Scattered about were clusters of high-school-aged kids who were dressed virtually identically. They all wore oversized athletic shoes and relatively new blue jeans. Around their necks, they wore white t-shirts twisted with a bandana. This bandana was folded so that, if they wanted to, they could pull it up over their mouth to hide their features. (“Hey, you guys want to go rob a train?”). The kids had similar haircuts, and they wore brand-new ball caps, turned about 90 degrees to the side.

Now, these kids carried a bit of an “I’m tough” scowl on their faces and had a tough guy swagger to their walk, but to me they looked downright silly. I honestly thought that they were park characters when I first saw them (“Hi, can I get your autograph for $1,000?”) More than anything they reminded me of little kids dressing up like cowboys, which didn’t fit with the tough persona they were trying to project. Okay, if I were younger, a lot younger, maybe I would think they are cool, so I’m not trying to impose some middle-aged standard of appropriate dress. Instead, these “outfits” they wore illustrate the powerful influence of youth culture.

So there you have it; in addition to offering roller coasters, water rides, and overpriced hot dogs, amusement parks serve up sociology as well.

Anomie and the First Day of School

By Karen Sternheimer

Do you remember your first day starting at a new school? A new job? For some of you these memories might be as fresh as a few weeks ago. For me, it’s been a while. But no matter how long it has been since you first entered an institution with set rules, norms, and expectations, the memory of the anxiety is probably still with you.

Each year I volunteer to participate in some of my university’s orientation activities before the school year officially begins. And every year I notice students have similar questions--about the work load compared with high school, what taking exams and writing papers are like at the college level, and what happens if you come to class late. Transfer students will often ask what the differences might be between the school they came from and our university.

Basically, all of these questions boil down to one: what are the unwritten rules here? 

The incoming students know the university’s written policies (or at least are told what they are or where to find them) but tend to be curious about the informal rules. What do people wear to class? Can we eat during class? Should I have a separate notebook for my labs and lectures? How much reading will there be? Are professors friendly? Will anyone care about me?

When students ask me these questions, I try my best to answer them, although I’m sure it is frustrating when most of my answers start with “that depends, every professor and every class is different.” I assure them that within a week or two they will feel like they are veterans here.

But their anxiety is not unfounded. It is similar to what Emile Durkheim termed anomie, literally translated, a sense of normlessness. For Durkheim, societies that have competing norms or a total absence of norms experience more crime, instability, and a lack of cohesion.

Most of the students I encounter aren’t worried that a lack of knowledge of norms will lead to crime and deviance on campus. Rather, they struggle to learn exactly what the norms are so they can conform. On the first day of class, like most other professors, I hand out a syllabus and go over the rules, regulations, and expectations for the course. After a few days of attending classes and living on campus, the same students who were so nervous become confident that at the very least they are learning the norms and expectations of life as a college student.

By contrast, students who refuse to adapt to these norms tend to struggle. Maybe they find less social acceptance if they dress very differently from most other students (on our campus the dress code is casual, with a preference towards any item with the university logo). Students who refuse to do at least minimal work demanded from course syllabi will likely find themselves on academic probation at some point. And students who fail to pay their tuition on time will probably be shut out altogether, or at the very least lose their registration date until they pay up.

We might ponder whether this collective change—an influx of new students—could bring about social change. While certainly campus culture and student norms shift over time, it is remarkable how stable they have been. I have been on the same campus for fifteen years now, and have seen some positive changes in work ethic and ability as the university has become more selective. Yet incoming students first want to figure out how to fit in, not how to create change.

There is something reassuring about being in the same boat as other new students who are also unsure about what the campus norms are. Recently, the Los Angeles Times reported on a new trend of universities offering mid-year admissions. As college admissions have become more competitive, some schools have started admitting students for the winter or spring rather than the fall. 

Some are concerned that these students might miss out on the opportunity to go through the transition into college with their peers, who will be fully acclimated by the time they arrive on campus. The students who entered in the fall will have bonded with each other, leaving the newest arrivals to fend for themselves. Universities that engage in this practice (including my own) say that these students end up doing very well, having spent the fall semester taking classes elsewhere, working, traveling, or just take the opportunity to become more focused.

What do you think Durkheim would have to say about this? Are these admissions policies creating a new form of anomie?

An Appreciation of Skill: The Luddites, Industrialization, and Peace

By Sally Raskoff

A “Luddite” is a pejorative term reserved for describing a person who is afraid of technology or is otherwise avoiding the march of progress. It is also a term that has come to signify someone who is rather dull, stupid, and who cannot consider change. 

Coming across the term a few years ago, I wanted to know more about this odd word. The explanations given revolve around General Ned Ludd who protested the introduction of power looms for weaving fabric. As industrialization put hand-loom weavers out of business, Ludd and those who joined him protested by breaking power looms, setting fire to mills and textile factories. Mr. Ludd gained a reputation as someone who tried to stop industrialization, which at the time was wresting craftwork manufacturing from the guilds and increasing factory production of fabric and textiles. Such a feat was, of course, impossible, because factory production vastly improves the rate of manufacturing and increases the profit margin by reducing costs and increasing volume (supply).

When you stop a moment and ponder things from the hand-loom weaver’s point of view, it seems more complicated than just trying to stop power looms from taking the work away from hand weavers. Mr. Ludd (if he really existed; there is some doubt) and his colleagues were losing their life’s work – factories were producing less expensive textiles (and other goods) and textile mill factory workers were not as skilled as hand weavers thus they were paid at lower rates. Factory workers did small portions of the overall set of tasks whereas hand weavers did more of the entire process of turning fiber into cloth. 

Mr. Ludd is similar in many ways to the Howard Beale character in the film Network who yelled out, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Both figures stood up to protest apathy and the social trends that were negatively affecting their life and times. They are also not so different from Marx and his attempts to enlighten people about the exploitation of workers in capitalist systems.

My fascination with Mr. Ludd took me further into his story. In industrial production, people do tend the large power looms yet their job is to fix breaks in the fiber (thread) or replace the fiber supplies, as they are exhausted. In early industrialization, children did this job, as their hands were small enough to get into the machinery. In many countries, especially those known for woven rugs, children are still the preferred labor force because their fingers can tie very small knots!

Although hand weaving still does exist, in industrialized countries it tends to have the dual status of a craft and as an art. Weavers are organized into guilds although many guilds have the non-profit organizational status of a club. These present-day guilds serve as an educational center for weavers to learn their craft, yet they do not retain the high occupational status that guilds had until the 19^th century when industrialization changed everything.

Historically, guilds were the forerunners of unions and professional groups as they were organized groups of people who do the same type of work. They were more than worker groups; they were training centers where new workers apprenticed to the older workers, learning and honing their skills as they continued to work.

For hand weavers such as Ned Ludd to be called technology phobic is a misnomer and thus is not an appropriate use of his name. The Luddites were protesting not technology per se but the loss of their profession, livelihood, and self worth. 

Factory production can devalue worker skills because the work is separated into discrete tasks that a machine or a human acting like a machine performs as on an assembly line. This re-organization of work results in higher production rates (more items are made) and, generally, less pay for who do fewer tasks and more simplistic work than their artisan counterparts did. Since industrialization supports the interests of the ruling class, it should not be a surprise that the Luddites and their issue have come to be seen in a pejorative or negative manner. 

In my continuing exploration of Luddites, I took a class in weaving and gained a deep appreciation for the skill it takes to create viable textiles. In the nine years since I took that class, I have continued weaving and joined two guilds. It is clear to me that weavers, both in Ned Ludd’s time and in the present, do not fear technology or technological innovation, they embrace it. 

I’ve just returned from a weeklong conference with weavers that confirmed my belief that technology phobias are not part of that world. Most weavers, myself included, seek or invent technologies that assist us in reaching our goals. We are certainly “gadget” people who love the next new “thing” especially if we can make it ourselves or it replaces some tedious process in which creativity is absent. 

Present day weavers, whether they are weaving fabric on looms or baskets, are keeping alive the skills that Ned Ludd treasured. We assume that few people now make their living with hand weaving and while this may be accurate for industrialized countries, this is not the case across the globe. The meaning of weaving to a society may also differ depending on where and when one looks.

At the weaving conference I attended, Willa Shalit gave a lecture on how basket weaving in Rwanda has not only given women economic security but has helped its post-genocide government move the country towards peace. Two Rwandan weavers accompanied Shalit to speak to the issues and answer questions. Janet Nkubana, one of these two weavers, was teaching workshops all week at the conference. 

During the talk, Shalit mentioned that Rwandan President Kagame supports the new (2002) official coat of arms with its “peace basket” in the center, because his mother wove baskets and these woven baskets are key to the country’s economic viability.

In the U.S., there are still some people whose businesses are based on hand weaving. While they are not producing the vast quantities of fabric that a textile mill can, they are producing unique fabrics and hand crafted art that can’t be duplicated in a factory. They are also providing a link back to Ned Ludd that can remind us to question both the consequences of social trends and our use of language, especially when terms are used in a negative manner.

Facebook and Social Comparison Theory

By Bradley Wright

My high-school aged son and his friends use a Facebook application that is both interesting and horrifying. With this application, the user compares him- or herself to all of their Facebook friends. Once you start this application, it shows random pairs of individuals from your Facebook friend list (which, by the way, includes me), and it asks you to judge them on a remarkably wide range of criteria.

For example, it might show pictures of two friends, and then ask who has the best profile picture or smells the nicest or is the coolest or is the best potential parent or is the most fun to go shopping with. Just think-- if you use this program, you might be able to go to school or work the next day uplifted by the knowledge that you smell nicer than any of your Facebook friends.

This program horrifies me because I’m aware of how incredibly powerful peer-influence is during adolescence and even young adulthood (read: college students). If all your friends are doing something, then you’ll probably do it too--no matter how silly or thoughtless it is. This is why young people will dress funny, have bizarre hairstyles, and listen to terrible music—but that may have just been me growing up in the 1970s disco-era. Thankfully, the program doesn’t have negative categories, in which you vote for who smells the worst. Still, I shutter to think how much power these explicit peer-comparisons have over young peoples’ understandings and feelings about themselves.

This program is interesting because it is a great example of social comparison theory. This theory, developed by well-known social psychologist Leon Festinger (back in 1954, even before Facebook!), assumes that people understand themselves, in part, by comparing themselves to others. In fact, we make these comparisons constantly and in just about every area of our lives—our abilities, opinions, possessions, relationships. If we walk into a room with other people in it, even if we don’t know them well, we have probably already figured out whether we are taller or shorter, richer or poorer, and younger or older than them.

We’re especially prone to compare ourselves to people we view as similar to us. So I usually compare myself to men about my age, especially those in academia. I’m much less inclined to compare myself to someone considerably different, e.g., one of my first-grade son’s friends. The fact that I can run faster than a seven-year old really doesn’t matter much, but I’m aware of how much I publish or earn compared to my colleagues in sociology.

The fact that we compare ourselves to others is pretty straightforward. Social comparison theory gets really interesting when we consider why we do it. Sometimes we just want to know how we’re doing—to assess ourselves—and in that case we compare ourselves to people who are most similar to us. Say you were a golfer, you might want to get a sense for how well you were doing, so you would compare your golf scores with those of people like you—maybe the friends that you go golfing with. (I actually gave up golfing after a particularly difficult experience getting the ball under the windmill).

Other times, however, we want to improve how we’re doing in a given area. In this situation, we consciously choose someone much better than us to compare ourselves with. The idea is that if they are better, any differences between us and them might signal areas that we could improve on. So, a golfer might compare himself with Tiger Woods, correctly assuming that Tiger has a much better swing and approach to the game than he does.

Sometimes, however, we want to feel better about ourselves, and so we might compare ourselves to people who are doing less well than us in a particular area. So, if a golfer is down in the dumps, maybe watching a beginner play might make her feel better about her own golf skills.

The larger point here is that how we define and understand ourselves is an inherently social process, for it stems in part from who we compare ourselves to. Not only that, but we strategically use these comparisons to alter who we are and how we see ourselves. So, the Facebook social comparison application, like so much else in life, becomes a tool for making sense of who we are in the world.

Still, this is little comfort for me not having been voted the nicest smelling person.

Made in America

By Sally Raskoff

Do you think about where your clothes, cars, and other consumer goods are made or where their parts come from? As we hear about jobs moving “offshore” to other countries and imported products that are toxic or are made by children, some Americans have urged consumers to “buy American.”

Buying American-made products sounds patriotic and supportive of the country, but is it as easy to do as it sounds? 

To investigate, I googled “made in America” and “made in USA” and was surprised that not as many sites appeared as I expected. Besides a link to IMDB for the movie Made in America (about a young African American woman who was surprised to find Ted Danson as the sperm donor her mother had “employed”), there were far fewer sites than I had anticipated. 

Most sites claimed to provide a database of American-made products. One site, madeinusa.org was clearly just that, although it included a series of posts from people who had updates on products and retail outlets that buy American products. Another site, usstuff.com, was less a database and more a collection of links and lists. The third was much more graphically sophisticated and very pro-American, asking browsers to register as “patriots” so they could claim that a large number of people are seeking American-made products.

While this pursuit was entertaining, these sites were clearly commercial outlets serving as a directory for various companies or products. To narrow my focus, I decided to search for American-made cars to see what I could find. 

Most of us could name the national identity of many automobile companies, including the U.S. companies of Chevrolet, Ford, and Chrysler, the Japanese companies of Honda, Toyota, and Mitsubishi, and the German companies BMW and Mercedes.

But in reality it’s almost impossible to identify which cars are really American made. It depends in part on whether one defines American made as pertaining to labor or parts. 

The United Auto Workers union provides support for those in the automotive trades and their website details exactly where cars are made and how to prioritize American-made cars. In fact, they have links on their website to find out the origins of many products. 

On their list of cars, they include those made by union workers in the U.S. and Canada. 

The makes of these cars include Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Cadillac, Lincoln, Saturn, Buick, GMC, Jeep, Mercury, Hummer, Saab, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Toyota. They have asterisks marking those that are “sourced from the U.S. and another country” with instructions on how to check the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to see if it’s U.S.-made or Canadian-made. Check the find print on their list (below) as it explains how each model of car may be made in different locations thus workers may or may not be union.  

So, the UAW information is useful if we want to ensure we use American (or Canadian) unionized workers but it doesn’t help if we want to seek parts or products that are domestic in origin.

The Federal Trade Commission website lists its 1997 policy, reiterating that products labeled with “Made in USA” must have been “all or virtually all” made in the USA. In October 2001, events prompted a consumer alert [INSERT BELOW] about the labeling policy and how to report violations.

By contrast, the madeinusa.org site has a different definition: “Made in the USA” means that a product has “51% or more of domestically produced or manufactured parts, labor and or value-added content or any combination thereof.” As you can see, we have different ways of defining what it means for a product to be “American.”

Athletic shoe manufacturer New Balance got into some trouble with the FTC for making false claims about their products being made in America in 1996. That case was closed with an agreement to make appropriate attribution of sourcing and exporting data. New Balance now using of the 70% level to claim “made in the USA”. (The www.madeinusa.com site lists New Balance as using 85% American content).

One thing is clear about “Buying American”: it’s all very ambiguous!

The impulse to Buy American is a patriotic and emotional response to our struggling economy and to our declining international power. Actually trying to Buy American is rather impossible unless one forgoes nationally marketed consumer products and instead buys only locally raised food and other products such as wool and wood to make one’s own clothing, housing, and furnishings.

Sociologically, we can see that our country is embedded in a global world with many important relationships outside our borders. We depend on those relationships for our basic needs such as shoes and transportation. Thinking that we can close our borders or not make use of products from other countries is not realistic.

Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein uses and expands on Marx's ideas about societal change to suggest that we are in the midst of a crucial period of late capitalism struggling with its contradictions. This economic form has had us working our way across the globe in the search for exploitable labor and other resources. Now that those supplies are close to exhausted and the environmental damage may be out of our hands, we can either continue with the same system or change things to a new economic form in the attempt to save our environment, our country, and ourselves. 

If we are successful in creating this new system, it will, of course, create its own contradictions or problems. However, if we don’t deal effectively with the challenges of our time, we will continue to experience the same but more intense versions of these challenges.

Do Sociologists all Look Alike? Homogeneity and Heterogeneity

By Sally Raskoff

I just returned from a sociology conference where I noticed, as I do every time I attend, that sociologists tend to look alike. When I go out into the city to walk and revive my body from the tedium of sitting too long in the meeting, I watch the people I pass on the street. Although I take off my conference name badge when I do this, as do most of the other sociologists, many of us can tell when we pass someone who else is a meeting escapee even if we don’t know the person. In the meeting itself or in the hotel public areas, it is also easy to identify the sociologists among the other hotel patrons. 

This is true for people in most occupational groups. We tend to look like people who do the same job even if our bodies and backgrounds are diverse. Why might this be?

Perhaps the clothing? Many occupations require certain styles or types of dress when working. Lawyers wear suits while many others wear actual uniforms like scrubs, jumpsuits, white coats, company issued pants, shirt, and jackets. When a dress code is not specified, people still may dress alike! A colleague told me years ago that he could always tell who the kindergarten through high school teachers were since they all wore clothing from J.C. Penney’s or Sears. 

Perhaps the income? Our clothes may be similar because the comparable income levels prompt people to shop at particular types of stores. Thus, teachers who make a low to moderate income would shop at stores known for price breaks and “affordable” clothing. And lawyers, whose income on average tends to be quite high, would wear more expensive custom tailored suits. 

This income homogeneity reminds me of a former acquaintance who had an interesting perspective on his home furnishings. Every time he got a promotion at work, he would get rid of his furniture and buy new items from a store “one level up” from the source of his last set of furnishings. 

I don’t remember the exact order but he wouldn’t shop at a store high on his list until he had the job that he felt entitled him to that type of product. When he went into the houses of other people, he would assess their work status by assessing the source and quality of their furniture. His top goal was to reach a position that would allow him to hire a designer to find unique furniture from wholesale-only sources. (He moved away and we lost touch so I’m not sure he ever got promoted to that point!)

But income can’t be the only factor, since in this group of sociologists as in many others, there are some entry-level students and others at the other end of their careers and our incomes are as diverse as our sociological experience.

Beyond income, perhaps social class? Social class includes income but also wealth, education, and occupation, so it ties some of the elements in this puzzle together. People who gain similar levels of education and jobs, and go on to make similar amounts of income and wealth, would also tend to purchase their clothing and personal hygiene products from similar sources. 

However, those at higher levels of social class would have more options for those purchases, thus we could predict more variability in their appearances than for those at lower social class levels since they have fewer options. There are many stories floating around about super rich people who dress like “everyone else” yet they are certainly able to dress up in the latest fashions if going out to a public event.

Perhaps the event? Since the setting for my initial observation is a professional conference, there are some norms about what to wear, which create some standards of dress. However, as with other societal norms, not everyone follows these norms. Actually, there is much diversity in dress at these conferences since it seems that many people do dress as they do at their home institutions. We sociologists may know a lot about norms but that doesn’t mean that we are more likely to conform to them – perhaps we are more likely to deviate from them! While many are wearing suits and other professional attire, many others are wearing anything from all black to jeans. 

Perhaps personality? A relative once told me that she didn’t want to go into a particular line of work because the people she knew in that industry did not represent the type of person she wanted to be. She was noticing that people who do similar work not only may look alike but they may also have similar personalities, mannerisms, and/or behavior! The question then arises as to whether similar types of people go into similar types of work or people who work in similar jobs become similar over time. Does the person make the job or does the job make the person? 

Sociologically, both are probably true. (Life is not as simple as a one-way street!) 

Emile Durkheim’s concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity can help to explain the structure of life in different types of settings. In simpler, agrarian, or small communities, life is more homogeneous -- people do similar types of work, worship at the same types of places, and have similar ancestries or cultural practices. All of this offers a mechanical solidarity that ties people together. 

However in more complex, urban, and “modern” communities, organic solidarity is what holds the society together. As heterogeneity increases in population, jobs, opportunities, technologies, cultural practices and ancestry, it is the similarities that hold the entire system together. Thus, complex divisions of labor create not only different types of people but interdependent types of people in specific occupations. Those occupational groups also bond people within the group together so that their social network includes people from work and not just people in their kinship group. Symbolic bonds are displayed through clothing and other visible signs of membership. 

As our consumer options shrink with the merging of retail outlets, we see more homogeneity across the nation in our clothing and fashion. Would Durkheim say that this is just one way that our complex division of labor and the resulting interdependencies and occupational communities allow more social bonds to be formed to strengthen the society as a whole? Perhaps. Would Marx agree? Would Weber agree? Would Martineau agree? Would DuBois agree?

If we agree that people in related occupations who have similar income and education levels dress similarly because of their consumer limitations and workplace cultures, can we assume that the bonds they have with each other are reinforced by these visible and thus symbolic similarities?

Robert W. Fuller: An End to Inequality and Violence?

By Thomas Scheff 

Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara

I didn’t understand why I found Barack Obama's race speech so moving until I read Robert W. Fuller's comments about it. They seemed brilliant to me, so I proceeded to read Fuller’s other writings. I think they make a powerful contribution to our understanding of the enigmas of our time, and may have the potential to help us surmount them.

Fuller has had an illustrious career; first as physicist, then President of his alma mater, Oberlin College, as a citizen diplomat during the Cold War, chair of the board of Internews, and many other distinctions. The approach he takes to the issue of inequality may be his greatest contribution, though. 

In his approach, there are two main components to the problem of inequality: rankism, on the one hand, and dignity, on the other. The term rankism doesn’t concern rank per se, but the abuse of rank. Some systems of rank are inherently abusive: white over black, male over female, hetero over homosexual, Christian over Muslim, extreme nationalism, and so on. But even legitimate systems of rank, those in most organizations, are often abusive; if not in principle, then in practice.

Fuller focuses his spotlight on dignity and the ways it can be abused. This perspective offers what seems to me to be a distinctive solution to the problem of inequality. That is, it doesn’t concern economic rank or political hierarchy directly, but dignity and its opposite, humiliation. This focus, as will be suggested below, may help with a problem that probably cannot be understood in strictly economic or political terms: gratuitous and/or interminable conflict. 

Fuller’s analysis begins with what he calls micro-inequalities, the withholding of dignity by one person from another. At work, if your boss continually interrupts conversations to take phone calls, it is a slight, a small indignity. But slights add up. If they are frequent enough, one can feel like a nobody. Maybe the boss meant no disrespect, but to be slighted consistently is humiliating. 

Much of the sociologist Erving Goffman’s work concerns this issue. He called it facework, the saving and loss of face. But it also is crucial to his most famous idea, impression management. One seeks to manage the impression one makes on others, in order to maintain one’s dignity, and often, the dignity of others. 

Goffman was concerned only with face-to-face interaction, but Fuller extends dignity/humiliation process to the traditional problem of macro-inequalities between groups. All contacts between persons and between groups have an effect on the bond: the bond is either maintained, strengthened, or disrupted by those contacts. Helping the other person or group maintain their dignity maintains the existing bond or strengthens it. Disrespect disrupts it. There are no exceptions: contact cannot occur without affecting the bond. Secure bonds lead to cooperation, disrupted ones to conflict. When the bond is entirely broken, as is often the case, others can become mere objects.

Fuller’s approach is powerful in several different ways. It is applicable to many ostensibly different issues: race, inter-ethnic and inter-nation relations, gender, sexual orientation, social class, and so on. It also implies a theory that may explain gratuitous and/or interminable conflict between individuals and between groups. 

For example, the Serbian attack on the Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s can be traced back to a defeat of the Serbs by Muslim Turks hundreds of years earlier. The Serbs took this ancient defeat as a humiliation, and harbored vengeance until it became possible. Similarly, France plotted for many years to regain their honor (read dignity) after defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, and Hitler won over the German people by promising to regain the honor they lost in the defeat in 1918. Humiliation spawns humiliation, and it can strike deep. The dignity/humiliation framework seems to reach into the very core of human conduct. 

Finally, Fuller uses terms that are understandable by everyone. Audiences all over the world have responded enthusiastically to his speeches. Indeed, his work could provide the foundation for a social movement to create dignitarian organizations and, ultimately, to build a dignitarian society. For these and other reasons not mentioned in these brief comments, Fuller's ideas are well worth our attention.

Can Sociology Explain American Idol's Appeal?

By Karen Sternheimer 

By now you have probably seen at least one episode of American Idol, and maybe even have a strong opinion about who this season’s winner should be. But have you ever thought about why it is so popular? 

It is certainly not the first talent show to be on television. Remember Star Search? I barely do. Not just because the show has been off the air for thirteen years, but it never generated the buzz of American Idol…a Star Search winner might be an interesting tidbit of  trivia, but Idol winners become household names almost immediately. How come?

Clearly, there are many reasons the show has been so successful. As Bradley Wright recently blogged about, the judges are a key factor. I have to admit that I prefer to watch the early auditions to hear the judges respond to the talent-challenged contestants. Simon’s snappy barbs violate my own sense of kindness and the social norm of “being nice,” yet somehow seeing that violated is entertaining (particularly since I am not on the receiving end). The auditioners reflect a central principle of comedy: a character totally committed to his or her actions while completely lacking self-awareness. And there are plenty of those. 

But beyond the bad singers, one of the key elements to Idol’s success is its interactivity. The audience can have a stake in the outcome by voting for their favorite right away by phone or text message. In our Internet age, media that don’t allow for our input and interaction seems dated. Even some national news programs encourage viewers to post comments online during the program. This challenges old complaints about television being a “passive” medium (see books like The Plug-in Drug for example). 

What’s interesting now is how books from the mid-twentieth century made interactive media seem apocalyptic. Did you ever see the 1968 film based on Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Hal the computer takes over? It still freaks me out.

2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

Another example is the 1966 movie based on Ray Bradbury’s great sci-fi book, Fahrenheit 451, which some interpret to be about how television destroys interest in reading. In this dystopia, “firemen” burn books, and an underground society springs up where people memorize books so that the world’s great literature doesn’t disappear. The film is being remade for release in 2010, perhaps reflecting renewed concerns about our digital age (or a lack of creativity on behalf of studio execs…or both). 

Fahrenheit 451, 1966

This Fahrenheit 451 clip really resonated with me when I first saw the film in the 1980s. It seemed very Orwellian, that Big Brother would no longer allow us to watch television peacefully without demanding something from us. In contrast to the mostly utopian beliefs about computers and technology today, before we got to “the future” it seemed like it could destroy freedom and maybe even society itself. 

But this has not exactly happened, at least not to the extent portended in these two novels. In fact, we might argue that interactive media technology has significant social benefits beyond the obvious ones. 

Emile Durkheim, often called the father of sociology, might even say that interactivity and involvement with shows like American Idol promotes social cohesion. For Durkheim, problems emerge within any society when its members feel a sense of disconnection and separation. Solidarity, by contrast, promotes stability and conformity, which is often difficult for large, heterogeneous societies to create. 

Sociologists Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz write in their book Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History that events which generate a lot of media attention can have the impact of uniting large groups of people who otherwise might have little in common. Do you think American Idol promotes social cohesion? It may give us a sense of shared culture, and something to bond over by talking about favorite (or least favorite) contestants. 

Beyond American Idol, a thought-provoking Los Angeles Times op-ed piece suggests that Americans might even be happier about paying taxes (yes, “tax” and “happy” in the same sentence) if we could designate exactly where our money goes: 

Love national parks? Give the Department of the Interior a generous slice. Against the war? Zero out the Department of Defense.

Individual income taxes account for slightly less than half of the roughly $2.4 trillion the IRS collected last year. So the less-sexy programs (crop research, say, or U.S. Mint operations) could still be funded by Congress with other revenues. And because some taxpayers inevitably wouldn't designate any choices, there would still be a little slush fund for Congress to spend on pet projects. What about really critical things like Social Security or education? There's the beauty! Taxpayers decide what's really critical. And if we don't like what we achieve, well, we get to decide again the next year.

Would you feel better about paying taxes and our federal government if you could tell them how you wanted your money spent, much like a donation to the Red Cross? I wouldn’t try this at home unless Congress agrees, and I’m guessing they won’t. And while voting for your favorite American Idol contestant won’t necessarily make you a better citizen, do you think it promotes a sense of connection to something bigger?

Everyday Sociology Talk: Can Sociology Explain $4 Gasoline?

As  you can see, gas in Los Angeles has risen above the $4  mark. Can sociology help us understand why?

Karen Sternheimer and Sally Raskoff discuss a few ideas of how sociology explains rising gas prices. What are your ideas? (Yes, the steering wheel symbolizes consumers being choked by high gas prices...or it just got in the shot accidentally).

Stand By Our Man

By Sally Raskoff

Have you noticed that when politicians get into trouble for something they’ve done, more often than not, their wives appear with them for the public apology? This is particularly evident when the trouble is sexual. (Whether the husbands of politicians in trouble would show up isn’t clear since we don’t have as many women in office, let alone getting into trouble.)

Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, had his wife by his side when he acknowledged hiring prostitutes. Jim McGreevey, former governor of New Jersey, had his wife by his side when he acknowledged having an affair with a man and that he was gay. Hillary Clinton also appeared on 60 Minutes with her husband during his 1992 campaign for president when he was accused of having an affair.

We hold our elected officials to a very high standard. We require those who hold power in this country to display a “normal” life where they look and behave in accordance with our societal expectations. Historically and even now, most (nationally) elected officials, are male, white, protestant, heterosexual, married, and from the middle/upper class.

When these politicians deviate from these norms, typically through sexual activities with someone other than their wives, we call into question their character, their ability to hold office and to be effective leaders. Especially if politicians do not disclose this information prior to taking office and we find out about it later, they are not likely to keep their position and/or their political aspirations are severely impaired. 

Jim McGreevey and Eliot Spitzer both resigned their governorships. Senator Larry Craig resigned from his committee positions after public disclosure of his legal troubles stemming from public bathroom behaviors with an undercover cop. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick acknowledged an affair with his female chief of staff (who subsequently resigned), yet faces legal action and may lose his position pending the legal outcome. (Mayor Kilpatrick and President Clinton both faced legal action, not for their infidelity, but for lying under oath. However, their lies were in reference to their sexual liaisons.) Jack Ryan lost his candidacy for Senate in Illinois when his atypical sexual activities were disclosed during divorce proceedings. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa admitted an affair with a reporter and, although he kept his job, his divorce is pending and there is no longer talk of a run for governor.

Looking at these and the many other politicians whose sexual activities have ended or limited their careers, it is fascinating that upon first disclosure, the wives are there for the public apology yet later they may distance and/or divorce themselves from their partner. They stand by their man for the media frenzy yet after the public attention fades, they may not stay with their man.

When the wives appear, it is comforting to the public and reassures us that he may not be all bad since she’s staying with him. When the wife doesn’t appear, as with the L.A. Mayor’s situation, it can signal bigger problems that then may derail the politician’s career entirely.

Erving Goffman’s concepts of Front Stage and Back Stage can be helpful for understanding this dynamic. In this theory, we have front stage behavior to manage what we show to others and back stage behaviors to prepare the front stage and/or to deal with what we really feel or think. Back stage issues may be shared with others or they may play out with the one person alone. 

The politician and his wife have a lot of experience with the front stage; they need to perform their political roles no matter what happens. Back stage is another story. If the politician is having sexual affairs with people other than his spouse, the same may be true for the politician’s wife—although since their back stages are not public, we can speculate but we may never know for sure. In the cases above, we do find this out—yet they are both compelled to maintain the front stage as devoted companion and spouse.

Let’s think about the politicians who have had sexual affairs with other women, those who paid prostitutes for sex, and those who allegedly had affairs with men. 

Both politicians who prefer same-sex partners and their wives might suffer the greatest tension between their front and back stages. They feel that homophobia prohibits them from living their lives “out” and maintain public office. They therefore have to do a lot of back stage work to keep the public (and their wives) from finding out and moving the behavior to the front stage. 

Those who pay prostitutes get into trouble for illegal activity and work to keep this back stage (and from their wives). Politicians who have affairs with other women may keep their office although they may lose their wives. On the other hand, there may not be as large of a difference between what both spouses know back stage. Theirs may be a political marriage in which one or both partners seek any sexual liaisons are sought outside the relationship. 

If, however, sexual behaviors outside marriage or other non-normative behaviors are disclosed before taking office, do the dynamics change? It seems that they may, since then the non-normative behavior is already public, not secret, and not subject to surprise disclosure or legal action (for perjury). 

David Patterson, the new governor of New York, admitted upon Spitzer’s resignation that he and his wife both had affairs, received counseling, and have repaired their marriage. During his first presidential campaign, George W. Bush admitted his alcoholism and many polls found that this increased support for his leadership among some. His drinking and poor grades in college resonated with some and made him seem more accessible to them. 

If politicians admit to non-normative behaviors that are relatively common or otherwise familiar to us before they take office, we may respond by supporting them rather than condemning them. The difference seems to lie in whether or not they have been keeping such information secret or not and just how acceptable such behavior is in the public eye. 

We elect our politicians to use the power we give them wisely and do what we think is right. Thus when they behave outside those expectations, they act in ways to calm our responses, to let us know theirs are problems much like our own. Their front stage presentation is meant to reassure us that they are human and aren’t different from us and/or people we know-and not to question the job they do wielding the power we give them.

What other sociological theories can you apply to these situations of politicians in trouble for sexual activity and the ubiquity of wives standing by the men whom we elect?

Do You Believe in Your Community?

By Sally Raskoff

How many people do you know in your community? Beyond your friends and family, how many people can you name or at least recognize? We may see some people repeatedly if we visit the same places regularly. Though we might recognize them, we may not know their names or think to introduce ourselves, even if we see them every week. 

In my neighborhood, because people walk their dogs regularly, we know most of our neighbors by sight as they walk by our windows: the guy with the Great Dane, the gal with the lab, the guy with the two schnauzers. I may not know all of the names of these neighbors, but their presence helps make my neighborhood a community rather than just a place to live. I like to think that we’d all come together if something were to threaten the community.

If you haven’t yet seen Be Kind Rewind, see it as an example of how neighbors can rally together for their community. This movie has many levels of complexity that make it perfect for sociological analysis. If you haven’t seen the ads or the movie, the main story involves two neighbors, Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black), who ruin Mr. Fletcher’s (Danny Glover) video rental business by accidentally erasing all the tapes. Mr. Fletcher’s character is away on a journey to see if he should revive his business or give it up since his building is about to be demolished. Mike and Jerry attempt to save themselves and the store by re-taping their own short versions of the movies that people want to rent.

Although I’ll try not to give everything away, if you want to keep the rest as a surprise, read no further until you’ve seen it. 

Before the clerks erased the tapes, Fletcher’s video store was not doing well; his crumbling building and business are a symbol of the dysfunctional community. The few people who do come in for videos here (rather than go to the larger chain video store some distance away) are angry, rude, or not entirely functional, which is another reflection of the disintegrating community life.

Mike, Jerry, and Alma (Melonie Diaz, a neighbor who joins their adventure) discover that their film process, which they call “sweding,” takes off after Miss Falewicz’s (Mia Farrow) nephew and his friends find the new versions entertaining. When Fletcher returns and decides to close the store, the whole neighborhood is in line to rent the sweded movies.

The building itself is a central character in the film, as the supposed birthplace of jazz pianist Fats Waller. Mike proposes that developers make the building an historic landmark because of the Waller connection. But Mr. Fletcher tells Mike that he had just made that up years ago to help him feel better; not deterred, the neighborhood comes together to make a sweded movie about their history as Fats Waller’s birthplace. 

There are many other movies that use a crumbling community as a backdrop for a storyline, and the community is saved by 2some action of the lead characters. For example, in Two Weeks Notice, Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant bicker but eventually save her parents’ neighborhood center. In Life Stinks, Mel Brooks’ slumlord experiences homelessness and brings the community together. 

In those two movies, the main characters purposefully organize the solution to saving their communities. However, in Be Kind Rewind, the entire community knowingly fabricates the “fact” that their building/neighborhood/community is the birthplace of Fats Waller. This is an example of self-fulfilling prophecy and the social construction of reality.

Robert K. Merton defines a self-fulfilling prophecy as a false belief that is acted upon and becomes real in its consequences. When we believe something is real and we act accordingly, we make that thing real because “it” changes our behavior. If we didn’t act as if it were real, it wouldn’t exist as more than a thought. 

The social construction of reality is a theory that members of a society create (or construct) for that society, and then forget that they do so. Society then seems like it has a reality outside the people, and the society then perpetuates itself by creating (socializing) more members. The members and the society are busy creating or maintaining each other, although the members are not conscious of their part in the process.

The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy is typically applied at the micro level, focusing on people’s behavior, while the social construction of reality is a macro theory focusing on entire societies and their overall structure. However, both of these are apparent at the community level in Be Kind Rewind. 

The community decides to believe that Fats Waller was born there. They pursue historic status and once they do so, it appears that it becomes “true.” The once distant and demoralized community rallies around that idea and becomes a vibrant community once again (at least for the closing scenes).

Social Movements and Your Attention Span

By Bradley Wright

There are countless social movements in society, and they want you to pay attention.

In a social movement, a group of ordinary people come together to advance a social cause, and there are countless movements in society. In the early twentieth century, women activists banded together to promote women's suffrage —the right to vote. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement promoted justice for African-Americans. The anti-nuclear movement protests the development of nuclear energy. Mothers against Drunk Drivers advocate tougher laws against drunk driving.

A common goal of most social movements, whatever their focus, is to get the public’s attention. Sociologists understand this via resource mobilization theory-- how being in the public’s eye helps movements accomplish their goals. It brings in workers for the cause, it helps collect money, and it might result in changed laws. In fact, more than a few social movements have as their explicit goal raising public awareness about their cause. For example, the National Children's Cancer Society (NCCS—a worthy cause if ever there was one) explicitly states the importance of raising public awareness. They write:

“Take action against a disease that has been ignored for too long. Raising awareness in your community about childhood cancer and the survivorship issues surrounding it is critical to our mutual mission. Awareness can inform and change minds. It can change public policy and raise more funds for crucial patient services. Awareness of the programs of the N.C.C.S. can give hope to families facing the chaos of a diagnosis of childhood cancer.”

As a result, social movements work hard at having distinctive approaches. The movement for breast cancer awareness has the ubiquitous pink ribbons. Not to be outdone, other movements have adopted their own ribbon colors. For example, white ribbons are for lung cancer and violence against women. Yellow ribbons are for deployed soldiers and suicide awareness. Blue ribbons are for child abuse and Hurricane Katrina. Purple is for lupus and showing religious tolerance. Green is for environmental awareness and Lyme disease. Puzzle-piece ribbons are for autism. Ribbons with the words “publish me” are for untenured faculty--okay, I made up that last one.

(As an aside, some have criticized ribbons and wristbands as “slacktivism”—doing things that make us feel good about helping others without actually spending any of our time or money in doing so).

In addition to distributing ribbons, social movements do lots of other things. They can hold demonstrations. The million-man march in 1995 brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to Washington D.C. to promote unity and political participation among black men. They also get celebrity endorsements. For example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) regularly features actors and actresses in their commercials, sometimes taking off their clothes (a time-honored method of getting attention). Sometimes they just advertise on television and in print, similar to a business seeking customers.

There’s a problem, however—there is only so much public attention to go around, and there are a lot more movements wanting attention than there is attention to give. As such, movements compete with each other for the public’s attention. In this sense, groups like the National Children’s Cancer Society are fighting against not only the disease but also against other disease-related groups. If, for example, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation does a particularly good job of raising awareness, then there may be less to give the NCCS.

This puts social movements in a bind. On one hand, they are probably sympathetic to the causes behind their competing social movements. I suspect that members of the NCCS are also against juvenile diabetes. On the other hand, these other groups are their competitors, taking resources from them.

It’s in this context that we can understand the following commercial. Pandarescue.org is group dedicated to saving 

wild pandas and their habitat. It’s a small group—I’ve never heard of them before this commercial, and so I imagine that they struggled with how to get their message out. They came up with this commercial that explicitly recognizes the resource mobilization model described above. As implied in this commercial, the problem for panda bears is not just deforestation and poaching, but also the public support for whales. Yes, Greenpeace and others portray whales as beautiful, noble creatures, but this video shows the shocking truth! (My guess is that baby harp seals and cute little kittens are also harmful for pandas. Hopefully future commercials will get at that as well).

 

Well, what did you think? In a way, I appreciate its honesty because I imagine that a lot of social movements think that they are more important than other movements. Still, it is so, so tacky. It certainly does exemplify the social mobilization theory of social movements.

Organizational (In)consistency: Twelve Feet Make a Big Difference

By Janis Prince Inniss

In a previous post, I recounted the horrors I experienced when my mother was hospitalized. These difficulties could have been prevented if the hospital staff—the nurses and technicians—had done their jobs! (Two nurses were notable exceptions). Unfortunately, I have been able to observe a lot more in that same hospital ward, as my mother has been hospitalized twice more since her surgery. Stunningly—and mercifully—these two later experiences have been as different from the first as chalk is to cheese. 

The ward floor is separated into “East” and “West”. I suspected that there was a substantial difference in the quality of care between East and West when I heard the surgeon request a specific side after Mum’s surgery; if they are the same, why ask for one and not the other? 

I remembered that during her initial hospital stay Mum did not get a room on the side he requested. After that initial stay I thought that the lack of care must be endemic to that hospital and likely an indication of the state of medical care in the U.S. (The lack of data to make such broad generalizations did not faze me in my traumatized state!) It was inconceivable to me that a room a few feet away would result in different care. 

Stay II has made me a believer in the differences between East and West! The night before Thanksgiving Day, Mum experienced such excruciating pain that her doctor admitted her to the hospital. Out of her sight, I wept, remembering the lack of care awaiting her in the hospital. Recognizing that I could neither provide her relief, nor did I have the ability to diagnose the problem, we headed for the hospital. By the time we arrived, Mum was looking better than she had in the hours since her ordeal had begun and I fantasized that she no longer needed medical attention. Although reluctant, I escorted her to admitting.

When we got up to the ward floor, I realized that Mum’s room was “on the other side”. In an effort to orient her nurse staff to Mum’s needs, I began with the truth—that her last hospitalization had so traumatized me that I cried upon learning that she was to return to the hospital. The nurse was sympathetic, and promised that they would take very good care of Mum. The staff seemed to encircle Mum and in less than two hours all of the x-rays and other tests had been completed, an NG tube and an IV were inserted and Mum was resting comfortably.

I had never seen such responsiveness during Stay I. I went home that night feeling surprisingly relaxed based on the care being shown to my mother. As was my practice during Stay I, early the next morning I called the hospital to “orient” the new nurse (I knew that most of the nurses work 12 hour shifts – from 7 to 7) to my expectations and concerns and was told by that nurse that she had read about my fears in Mum’s chart! Again, this nurse was reassuring. When I went to visit the next day, I was disappointed that one of the nurses I knew from “the other side” was assigned to Mum. To my surprise, Mum said the nurse had actually nursed her: touched her, gave her pain medication promptly when it was requested, visited the room without being called, and even scolded Mum for going to the bathroom without calling for her help. I became so comfortable with the care Mum was receiving that I no longer kept my detailed field notes about her stay and even stopped logging the name of every single nurse and technician assigned to her. Mum came home that Saturday afternoon—and I was filled with nothing but gratitude for the staff!

In case I was fooled into thinking that the Stay II staff was unusual, I have had a chance to observe that unit for an even longer period. Mum returned to the hospital and remained there for four weeks. The staff has been wonderful, but when Mum underwent surgery again all of the anxiety I felt about her care during Stay I resurfaced.

The vision of her chapped lips and yearning for ice chips haunted me from Stay I, but my silent concession to going home was to call and orient her night nurse to my expectations. “To Do List” in hand, I called, but before I could complete my warm-up chat, the nurse was smoothing my feathers by saying, “Don’t worry I’ll take good care of her.” I recognized the nurse’s voice and demeanor from Stay II and with a word of thanks, hung up, crumpling my list. I slept well that night and the next day Mum looked great! She said the nurse was in her room all night, moistening her lips, swabbing her tongue with cold water and attending to all her other needs.

How are such enormous differences in one unit, let alone one institution? Theorist Michel Foucault highlighted the idea that organizational architecture is related to authority. Foucault noted that subordinates are easily seen and supervised when under surveillance. As is typical of many organizations, hospitals are designed with many open spaces, although there are private ones such as patient rooms. Indeed, the open nurses’ station where I saw staff congregate was the site of much time wasting on “the bad side”. The fact that staff did not try to hide their time wasting is an indication that floor staff conformed to what was expected and accepted within that side’s culture.

Structurally, a few factors have created and reinforced the differences between East and West: Staff is assigned to one or the other side (although they may go to another side when there is a shortage); they socialized separately and even had separates staff meetings. Although there has been no predictability across the two sides, for the most part there is predictability within each side—one side is predictably poor the other is predictably good. A change in unit leadership has meant challenging the low performers of “the bad side” to step up their work ethic and tearing down of structural factors to create one predictably stellar unit.

Reality Life

By Karen Sternheimer

Confession: I am fascinated by reality shows. Not the game show kind, where there is a contest or people get eliminated (although I was into them at first). My weakness is for the ones that follow people around and promise to give us a glimpse into their everyday lives. I don’t admit this very often, but I have often thought about the significance of shows like The Osbournes, Hogan Knows Best, Hey Paula, My Life on the D-List, and Newlyweds. (Yes, I have watched several episodes—okay, every episode—of all of these shows…and others like them).

Most of these programs feature the daily lives of people at various levels of celebrity, or people who become celebrities based on their appearance on their show. We get an inside glimpse of what it is like to be one of “them” and temporarily feel like members of their inner circle. There’s a bit of a paradox working here: on the one hand the shows present their everyday behaviors that make them seem more like “us,” but the fact that they even have a reality show reinforces (or creates) their celebrity. 

If you’ve ever seen the Geico insurance ad, you might have noticed that in spots like this one they pair a “real person” with a celebrity, as if the terms were mutually exclusive.

Even though some of the shows, like The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Hills, and My Super Sweet Sixteen focus on people who are not famous (at first), they do have one thing in common with “celebreality”: all the people we are watching are rich.

Are the lives of wealthy people really more interesting than everyone else’s?