Constructing Deviance Adler and Adler

1. Constructing Deviance Adler and Adler Part IV

2. I. Moral Entrepreneurs: Campaigning Awareness Moral Conversion Moral Panic Part 4

3. A. Moral Entrepreneurs • Those who construct moral meanings & associate them with particular acts or conditions by drawing on power & resources of: • Institutions • Agencies • Symbols or ideas • Communication to audiences Part 4

4. B. Two Facets of Deviance-Making Process • Rule-creating: politicians, public crusaders, teachers, parents, school administrators, business leaders • Rule-enforcing: police, prosecutors, judges, and other informal agents of control such as dormitory RAs Part 4

5. C. Rule-Creating • By individuals • First Lady Nancy Reagan “Just Say No”; • John Walsh for founding Missing and Exploited Children’s Network and the TV show America’s Most Wanted; • Michael Moore for documentaries about big business and violence • By Groups – • Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) • Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP) Part 4

6. C. Rule-Creating • Moral entrepreneurs manufacture public morality through a multi-stage process, beginning first with the generation of awareness of a problem • Claims-making: danger-messages are generated about specific issues such as drunken-driving, hate crimes, second-hand smoke, outsourcing, school violence • In this stage will draw upon experts and employ several rhetorical methods including statistics and particular case examples Part 4

7. D. Second Stage Involves Moral Conversion or Convincing Others • Claimsmakers must draw on elements of drama, novelty, politics and cultural myths to gain visibility for their issue • They seek to attract media attention through hunger strikes, demonstrations, civil disobedience, marches, and picketing • They seek support of sponsors and opinion leaders – celebrities for public endorsements Part 4

8. E. If Successful, Campaigns May Foster a Moral Panic • Temporary but widespread concern about an issue, promoted by much media attention and sometimes legislative attention, takes center stage • Triggered by specific event at right moment, draw attention to a specific group as a target, have provocative content revealed, and supported by formal and informal communication outlets Part 4

9. II. Differential Social Power: Labeling Money Race and ethnicity Gender Age Part 4

10. A. Some Groups Have More Social Power to Construct Definitions of Deviance & Impose Labels on Others • Money: can be used for campaign contributions to sway politicians to favor and disfavor new laws, to fund favorable research, and to fight restrictive lawsuits • Race and ethnicity: dominant white group behaviors less likely to be defined and enforced as deviant • Gender: women have less social power than males are more subject to labeling • Age: Younger and older people hold less respect in our society Part 4

11. III. Differential Social Power: Resisting Labeling Part 4

12. Differential Social Power • Same powerful groups have greater resources to avoid being labeled • They may hire media and legal experts to foster positive collective images: • gun owners are “upstanding” citizens, drug or alcohol companies promote favorable images Part 4

13. Review Questions • How do powerful groups avoid being labeled? • How are rules created and implemented? Part 4

14. The Social Construction of Drug ScaresReinarman Part IV Chapter 15

15. I. Drug Scares and Drug Laws Part 4: Ch. 15

16. Drug Scares and Drug Laws • The cultural origins and nature of anti-drug appeals must be understood • Drug wars & anti-drug crusades involving marked public concern about a specific drug or drugs are not simply reflections of problems people are experiencing: • Such drug scares are a recurring social phenomena in their own right Part 4: Ch. 15

17. A. Major Drug Scares, Anti-Drug Crusades • Alcohol: Temperance Movement to Prohibition; primarily led by middle-class, Protestant, white (WASP) Americans reacting to drinking behaviors of Catholic immigrants from Europe Part 4: Ch. 15

18. A. Major Drug Scares, Anti-Drug Crusades • Anti-opium den laws of San Francisco in 1875 directed against Chinese immigrants • Anti-marijuana laws of Great Depression directed at Mexican Americans and later connected to drop-out, hippie counterculture that was corrupting morality of the youth • More recently in 1980s the crack cocaine scare, directed against urban, poor African- Americans Part 4: Ch. 15

19. B. Seven Elements to Drug Scares • A kernel of truth • Media magnification • Politico-moral entrepreneurs • Professional interest groups • Historical context of conflict • Link a form of drug-use to a “dangerous class” • Scapegoating a drug for a variety of social problems Part 4: Ch. 15

20. II. Toward a Culturally Specific Theory of Drug Scares Part 4: Ch. 15

21. A. Drug Scares Seem to Occur More Frequently in American Society: Why? • First, claims about evil of drugs provide a welcome vocabulary of attribution and something to blame for social problems • Second, American society, predicated on Protestantism and capitalism emphasize self-control; • As a result loss of such control is to be avoided at all cost! • Third, we live today in a new consumer culture that exacerbates the issue of self-control; • It is this on-going dynamic between self-control and self-indulgence that empowers our drug scares Part 4: Ch. 15

22. Review Questions • Of the drugs that are classified as illegal, which ones are thought to be the most serious or dangerous? • What are drug scares and in what ways are they correlated with minority groups? Part 4: Ch. 15

23. Blowing Smoke: Status Politics & the Smoking BanTuggle & Holmes Part IV Chapter 16

24. Status Politics & the Creation of Deviance • Deviance is socially constructed • The ability to define and construct reality is closely connected to the power structure of society • Status conflicts, and resultant status degradation ceremonies of behavior characteristic of a lower status, enhance the status of those who condemn and abstain from such behavior • Deviance creates political competition in which moral entrepreneurs originate moral crusades aimed at generating reform • Such moral crusades are dominated by members of upper social strata of society Part 4: Ch. 16

25. Status Politics & the Creation of Deviance • Moral crusades may be either assimilative or coercive reforms • Assimilative: sympathy for deviant engenders integrative efforts aimed at lifting the repentant to higher moral plane of the upper status group (education) • Coercive: deviants viewed as denying moral and status superiority of reformers (law and force) • Moral entrepreneur cannot succeed alone: must enlist broader public support Part 4: Ch. 16

26. The Status Politics of Cigarette Smoking • Political dynamics involved in construction of deviance may be seen in the efforts to end smoking in public facilities • Cigarette smoking universally accepted in 1940s, 1950s and 1960s until surgeon general’s report on health risks of smoking in 1964 • More people today see smoking as socially deviant, unclean and intrusive to others Part 4: Ch. 16

27. The Status Politics of Cigarette Smoking • Abstinence and bodily purity are key to nonsmoker’s claim of moral superiority • Antismoking movement has targeted a lifestyle typical of the working classes; • Moral entrepreneurs crusading against smoking are of higher social status, the “knowledge” class of educators, therapeutic and counseling professions • Early remedial efforts focused on publicizing the perils of smoking, reflecting a strategy of assimilative reform through education: • Resulted in decline in smoking Part 4: Ch. 16

28. The Status Politics of Cigarette Smoking • Remaining smokers have become redefined as enemy • Focus of social control efforts to ban smoking in public places as evidence mounted on adverse effects of smoking on nonusers • Success of antismoking crusade rooted in moral crusaders ability to mobilize power, aided by government campaigns, and widely publicized health risks of smoking • Success of this moral crusade also related to deviance being connected with lower social status groups, whose stigmatization reinforce existing power structure Part 4: Ch. 16

29. Research Study • Study hypothesis: supporters of smoking ban would be of higher social status than those opposing it • Site of research: Shasta County, California • Referendum to ban smoking in public places passed by 56% majority; special election by those opposing it lost again by 58% majority; • Ordinance went into effect July,1993 Part 4: Ch. 16

30. Analytic Strategy • Interviews with five leading moral entrepreneurs and five status quo defenders • Primary concern of moral entrepreneurs was health but three also made negative comments about smoking, thereby degrading the status of smokers Part 4: Ch. 16

31. A. Findings • “Smoking is no longer an acceptable action” • “Smoke stinks” • “It is just a dirty and annoying habit” Part 4: Ch. 16

32. A. Findings • Status quo defenders also had two arguments: a person’s right (freedom) and business profits • Smoking viewed as a constitutionally protected right of free individuals • Worries about loss of smoking customers with a ban Part 4: Ch. 16

33. Summary and Discussion • Debate between proponents of ban to prohibit smoking in public places versus those defenders of individuals’ right to decide where to smoke reflect a difference in social power • Winners in moral and stigma contests generally represent higher social classes, involve symbolic dimension, and this was reflected in current study Part 4: Ch. 16

34. Review Questions • Is the association of tobacco with lower-status persons a factor in the crusade against smoking in public facilities? • Compare anti-smoking campaigns to those of the tobacco company and its glorification in the movies. How “mixed” are the messages? Part 4: Ch. 16