Formal and Informal Social Control - Coursework Example

Crime and Media Introduction Social control is regulated around the idea of legal norms of behaviour. The formal social control applies to the behaviours that are written and applied equally towards everyone, and they can be different in every society. Where formal social control is involved, the groups of people that employ it are usually the government and judiciary. However, the police and the prisons are two tools for social control which are effectively applied to the society and are responsible for the subjected social change. Recently, it has been idealized that media is an important and powerful body for the control of society. It carries out its activities on the basis of certain ideologies and their concepts. Every government in a country operates through certain ideologies through which they dominate the society, and media is the easiest way to spread that ideology as it communicates with a large group of people conveniently; thus media is as much an agent of social control as the police and prisons. Social control is the responsibility of the government and it has turned out to be a problem for every form of government. Government is known as a mechanism which controls the society or culture. Laws are made in order to create a framework for the functioning of the society. It becomes a problem to manage the social control because in a society, every human being is different and unique (Valverde, 2013, p. 65). This can become a problem for the government as it would make no one perfectly happy. What makes on happy would probably make the other totally dissatisfied. This is why it is important that the government makes policies for social behaviour that the majority conforms to and are believed as the best for the society. In order to make the majority conform to the policies, the government policy makers use methods that are socially acceptable to change the behaviour of the populace and make it the desired template of acceptable behaviour. The most successful change of behaviour is through the methods in which the individual remains unaware of the behavioural changes that took place. As naturally all humans are unique, they are not all modified in the way which is considered appropriate by the authorities in control of the society. Government policy makers who are idealists create particular brands of ideology that all members of the society must conform to. Thus the government policy makers realize the power of the mass media in manipulating the thought and opinion of the populace. The mass media has the ability to manipulate the actual truth (Muraskin, 2007, p. 72). The media is a powerful agent for social control. The ideology plays a huge role in defining its concepts and theories. In order to understand the various concepts and theories which are associated with the media, it is important to focus on the definition of ideology, the relationship of ideology to society and power, the dominant ideology, how these ideologies are widespread through the media, and the understanding of Marxist and Pluralist theories on ideology. Ideology is a set of ideas which are set by a political or social group based on the typical ideas. An ideology can be a system of values, beliefs, and attitudes which are held important by a society, group, or individual. The ideology can be a world view which is shared by a society in regard to how the society should function. When it is about an individual’s ideas, it may be replaced with values. Ideologies are used to describe the extreme ideas of others. These ideas of others and individual’s values have a relationship through which they are distributed socially. The ways in which values and their meanings are posed as obvious and natural, rather than being socially aligned demonstrates that people either work with power or against it. Feudalism is an ideology which is based on the land. It tells that the poor has duties towards their landowners. This theory is ideologically justified by the fact that God has made the earth and has placed everything in it divinely in their right positions. Capitalism is a theory regarding the competitive social system which starts from private ownership of the total wealth, the exploitation of the labour to make profit, and then lastly the owners become even wealthier. The ideas of Marxism were seen as linked to social power systematically. In the Marxist theory, the set of beliefs and values that are shared by the majority in the society is the dominant ideology. The dominant ideology is the ideology that frames the thinking of the majority of the population about the society; and thus it means the interests and thoughts of the ruling class are served. The theory has a slogan which says “the dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class’. The ideologies which are repeatedly told to the people of the society by important social institutions such as the government, education, law, church, and media are called the dominant ideologies. Dominant ideologies become those beliefs that we live with, in our everyday lives and often they are not questionable because they have become so natural that they are the common sense things to be done. This makes the people dissuade from rebelling against them and to keep a stability sense in the society. Some beliefs that are included in the dominant ideologies are about the economy, gender roles, and social institutions (Surette, 2011, p. 43). The Marxist theory is a socio-political and economic world view which is centred upon the materialist interpretation of historical events; the dialectical perspective of social change and an analysis of the critique of capitalism development. In the nineteenth century, Marxism was intellectually developed by two German philosophers named Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Marxism is an ideology which encompasses an economic theory, a revolutionary perception of social change, and a sociological theory (Graber, 2011, p. 52). In the Marxist economic theory, the basic idea is related to the production and the superstructure is what denotes the dominant ideology which is the political system of the society. When the basis is the economic production, the dominant ideology of the society is the political system (Altheide, 2002, p. 185). The superstructure of the theory which is the dominant ideology is determined by the interests of the ruling class; this is because the ruling class of the society controls the production means. For example, in a production mode of the feudal, the religious ideology is the superstructure ideology, while in capitalist mode of productions, superstructure ideologies are the social democracy and liberalism theory which tend to dominate. The ruling class tends to affect their social reproduction through the representation to every social economic class that their economic interests are the economics interests of the whole society (Chriss, 2010, p. 10). Pluralism theory is used across a variety of topics in different ways to indicate diverse views as it stands in opposition to a single method or approach to interpretation. In mass media, the main aspects of the Pluralist theory is that like the society of UK which is democratic and political power is divided between a range of political parties and pressure groups. The citizens still have the right to exercise their rights in various ways. Disputes may also occur frequently but they are resolved through the political institutions. Since the state if neutral, there is no need for a political change in order to resolve the problems. The State does not favour some groups over the others but it aims to make decisions in the national interest. Within this framework, the role of the mass media increases and they contribute greatly to maintain the democracy. The media is free from the state control and is privately owned which gives media far more freedom to criticize the government and show a public viewpoint which is different from the case in previous communist societies (Wykes, 2000, p. 34). For example, broadcast media has independence as censorship is occasionally applied but it is within the limits. The government is regularly criticized by the reporters and combative radio and television interviewers who do their jobs to keep the public informed. The national press has the responsibility to reflect a moderate range of political opinions but these are merely public opinion reflections, not public opinion creation. There are also fundamental newspapers that appeal to the more fundamental minority. Through letter writing and open door programmes individuals can give their personal views. They can also set up their own newspapers even though this would be expensive. The television news is considered to be more politically unbiased than the newspapers. Pluralists criticize mass media but not radically. Texts reflected by the media show certain ideologies though most of the times people are unaware of it (Couldry, 2003, p. 53). Media is the best carrier of ideology as it reaches to a wide audience. Media allows the society to question the dominant ideologies and find ways for implications of different value systems and ideologies; something which is atypical. When a person studies a media text they look for the dominant ideology which is present and tend to question the world view represented and the associated world view which is not represented. Media may often concentrate on texts and news from different ideological perspectives such as feminine perspective. Media has been used by ordinary people and the governments at times of war and peace (Blomberg, 2003, p. 10). The current media environment still consists of ideology as the major force. There are many new media techniques through which the construction of ideology has a main impact. The new media has clashes and conflicts of different ideologies more intense, direct, and diverse (Sharma, 1997, p. 291). There have been many superstructure ideologies that the media is proposing since decades consistently. In traditional media, the higher the value of the society, the closer the information source was. However, in the new media, the closer the consumer media lifestyle, the more likely is the formation of value. The present world is experiencing an endless variety of media which is shaping the changes in political, social, economic, ethical, cultural, and other fields. This era is known as the network era where the internet is another aspect of media which uses digitalized and personalized networks through which people can interact and communicate anytime, anywhere. Media is used as a tool for social control through the guidance and supervision of public opinion, consolidation and establishment of beliefs, education, and social cues to achieve the function of social control. Where media has a positive function of social control, it also has a negative function (Conners, 2012, p. 74). Social control of the mass media negative function will be having a negative impact which is reflected in the additional involvement of the social policy undermining the acts of the formal social control forces. There is also uncertainty in the direction of public opinion which would affect the social control effect. Public opinions may be uncertain because people can be easily misled by the unreasonable social cues. The social control function of the mass media along with its negative impact on social control contributes to realizing the social control function better and to promote the development of the society. Media is developing continuously and promoting new and consistent ideologies in various different ways. With this information network and communication technology, media is the biggest contributor in the social life of the people and is gaining an important effect. Media silently impacts the society and contributes as a social control agent as it is a network which continually regulates ideas and public opinions which result in control and development of the society (Demers, 2007, p. 114). Media can be used to control the public personal ideals and promote good deeds and revolutionary characters through television, film, newspapers, and radio which are used as forms of communication to establish good social ideals. The propaganda of advanced deeds and characters that encourage innovation is used by media to guide the formation of values and beliefs. Media plays a major role in spreading ideology; and ideological control is the key to social control. In any country, the ruling class and party do not give up to speak of ideology in order to maintain the political order. The combination of the ideological position is achieved through the implication of media. The media has the capability to carry out repeated communication for the public to spread the ideology of the ruling class and party interests. In doing so, the media structures the cognitive structure of the people and maintains the existing social order. With the continuous development of communication and media technologies, the communication means have been constantly enriched and media has thus become an important source of education. Media has expanded its role in the scope of education and has promoted the education innovation such as multimedia learning and distance education. Media has a broader participation in the public education process and thus also bears the social control function. Mass media also works as a cultural product and it shows the people ideal scenes through television and film (Deflem, 2010, p. 18). According to the above content, it is evident that media and ideology are two very important factors for the implementation of social control. The present media situation shows television as the second media and internet as the first media. This is because television media mainly reflects the government voice instead of the voice of people. However, television is also an agent for social control as it promotes different ideologies and theories through news, entertainment, public opinions, films, etc. The new media advancement shows that television media acts as a social control agent just as the police. Police functions as an authoritative or formal social control agent which helps the members of the society to obey the controls that are implemented by the morals of the society, not only the laws. Similarly, prisons were also created in the 19th century America as a tool for social control. They restricted the criminals to act amorally and illegally in the society and constituted to deterrence (Devon, 2012, p. 7). Social media is the first media which creates a consciousness in the masses and serves as a focus on the day-to-day factors of life rather than other societal subjects that need thought and attention. In the entire history of humans and society, there has been no other source of media which has contributed to such large numbers of sharing and recording every day. Today every person with a Smartphone can share every detail in a fraction of a second. Thus this form of media greatly enables the social change at a high level. Social media is known to be the means to social control as it allows the minute to minute sharing of the details which distracts the people from grander political and social issues (Surratt, 2001, p. 32). Conclusively, it can be said that similar to the prisons and police who allow legislative formal controls over the society, media imposes a rather more informal approach of social control. It has the tendency to promote ideologies and regulate new theories and concepts in the society and impact a greater number of people. Social media and television are two important types of new media which are advancing technologically and playing a major role in promoting political, economic, legal, and social ideologies; both traditional and modern. References Altheide, D. 2002. Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis. NY: Transaction Publishers Blomberg, T. 2003. Punishment and Social Control. NY: Transaction Publishers Chriss J. 2010. Social Control: Informal, Legal and Medical. UK: Emerald Group Publishing Conners, J. 2012. The Harms of Crime Media. USA: McFarland Couldry, N. 2003. Media Rituals: A Critical Approach. USA: Psychology Press Deflem, M. 2010. Popular Culture, Crime and Social Control. UK: Emerald Group Publishing Demers, D. 2007. Mass Media, Social Control and Social Change: A Sociological Introduction to Mass Communication. USA: Marquette Books, LLC Devon D. 2012. The Prison: “Humane Alternative” or A Tool of Social Control? USA: Global Research Graber D. 2011. Media power in politics. 6th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press Muraskin, R. 2007. Crime and the media: headlines vs. reality. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall Sharma, R. 1997. Social Change and Social Control. India: Atlantic Publishers and Distributers Surette, R. 2011. Media, crime, and criminal justice: images, realities, and policies. 4th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning Surratt, C. 2001. The Internet and Social Change. USA: McFarland Valverde, M. 2013. Law and order: images, meanings, myths. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press Wykes, M. 2000. News, crime and culture. London: Pluto Press Read More