The Media

In sociology the many different perspectives all have different views on our media and the ownership of it, the effects it has on us, how it represents us and its various forms. Post modernists believe that we live in a media saturated society, everywhere we turn there is information and images. We can all be sat with our family in a room and all be using different types of media. No longer do we have the cosy image of a family sat together around a wireless or a TV. Various tablets, phones and other screens provide us with instant access to media. Social media takes up hours of our time now. The printed media is in decline but the titles of newspapers flourish online either free or hidden behind a paywall. There used to be a live saturday evening TV program called Noel's House Party where there would be a device hidden in the TV of a largely unsuspecting family (at least one member would be in on it to give access), at some point during the show they would jump to the family watching them watch Noel's House Party. The fun would be in seeing the family react, usually a dad laid on a sofa shouts out in alarm and recognition. people might flee a room, the audience would howl.  this couldn't really work now as the family may be in the same room but they will be looking at different screens. And do people watch live TV as much?

Post Modernist Baudrillard saw this media saturation as dangerous as it provided clean, often untrue, messages as people clung onto what made sense to them. For example during the first Gulf war in 1990, people believed that this was a clean war as they accepted certain images but rejected others. Baudrillard called this hyperreality. This has grown since 1990.

Pluralist sociologists believe that the media gives audiences what they want, it provides information and entertainment. If an audience wanes the media looks to give another message which they may like. This usually means that the media looks for stories which will catch the interest of as large an audience as they can. So since the virus and the partial lock down the media has reported what they feel people want to hear. No one really wants to hear about illness and death on large scale so the media creates problems and heroes. These may well be justified in the case of not enough testing (problem) and NHS workers. The media encouraged us to clap and cheer on Thursday nights at 8pm. This gives an image of the brave Tommy fighting an enemy. In this case the Tommy is not in military garb but in NHS ware - using safety pins to attach ill fitting masks. On Twitter a friend who is a nurse posted a picture of her colleagues waiting outside their chemo wards, socially distanced apart clutching water bottles and lunchboxes. I cried like a child. Their smiles hiding a bravery I'm not sure I have. When the Prime Minister was hospitalised and then admitted to intensive care, the Sun newspaper asked (or told) its readers to clap and pray for his recovery. This only happened in some areas and was not as popular as the NHS tributes on Thursday nights, silence on our road compared to cheers and horns and fireworks this evening (Thursday). This is perhaps because the newspaper's cynicism about politicians and its shifting political support means the readers are jaded towards a politician and their sympathies lie with the NHS. In some cases because that's what the media has highlighted that they should do.

Another function of the media according to pluralists is to inform us. The traditional media is carrying this out in various ways, from sensationalism in the popular newspapers to factual analysis from the BBC. We are told what is happening, given quantitative data and analysis from experts and commentators. My favourite information point is BBC Radio 4's PM program hosted by Evan Dando. We get the government's briefing then a Q&A followed by Evan speaking to experts and giving the audience the key points. This is done calmly and factually. The program ends with a Covid Diary, a listener sharing their experiences and then a fitting piece of music nominated by a listener. I cried as I listened to this this week, a mother describing how she is bonding with her three sons followed by the theme tune to BBC sitcom The Detectorists. It's been a tearful week for me. The media also is supposed to keep governments in check. To question their actions and criticise. The traditional  media has been doing this as well, especially on the subject of mass testing. Wondering why the government has been so slow in reacting, unlike Germany. 

As I've mentioned elsewhere access to the media is widespread, I mention newspapers and Radio 4. For some people this is analogue, old fashioned. Others find their media on Apps and social media and YouTube. this means that regulation is less tight. People post without consulting lawyers and sometimes not looking for factual evidence. David Icke appeared on a regional BBC news program and made statements about 5G transmitters and called a mandatory vaccine 'fascist'. There are other conspiracy theories out there. Before this interview some 5G transmitters were set alight. Ofcom who regulate the media are investigating Icke's interview and YouTube are removing videos. But it is difficult to regulate something as widespread as new media. It has many nooks and cranies to hide in. It is also becoming the mainstream as this is how people receive their information.

Marxists believe the media maintains and reproduces capitalism and is uncritical of it. Althusser called it an ideological state apparatus. If we look at the media and the virus from a Marxist perspective we can find evidence of this. The economy is mentioned as often as lives. The virus is often cited as a great leveler, something that we all can get. The Prime Minister is ill from it as was the Prince of Wales. However if we look at reports we see that the poorer you are the more you suffer from the actions of the government and the virus. People without gardens, living in urban areas haven't the space which is needed in a partial lockdown, they are more likely to be in poor mental and physical health. It also crosses ethnic boundaries. In New York black Americans are disproportionately dying. Poverty is killing people. Marxists would point this out. Yet everything I've just said I know from mainstream media, in particular the BBC. BBC's Newsnight Presenter Emily Maitlis went viral last night as her introduction to the program said all this.

However, there is one statistic that was pointed out to me by an old school friend on Facebook, malaria kills 1-3 million people (mostly children) every year. These children are not from European countries. The Marxists would nod towards this. Is this widely reported? If it is, why don't we care?

Classic sociological studies of the media look to folk devils and moral panics. When I was still teaching students face to face in a classroom they asked me if This was a moral panic, something the media becomes obsessed with, then influencing government, causing a widespread panic and changes in the law. The numbers suggest that this isn't a moral panic. But with moral panics came folk devils, people to blame. Do we have these? The media has pounced on people flouting the government restrictions on social gatherings, printing pictures of crowded parks. Some websites blame capitalism, 5G, the Chinese. But at the moment there isn't a single group to blame. This is healthy as blame will lead to true panic.

Hyperreality is present in this. Baudrillard stated that we create simulcra (signs, simple explanations) to understand the confusion of so much media - what do we believe? We all find our own truth through media. That might be blaming something sinister, clapping for the NHS, volunteering to help in some capacity. Writing blogs. All these things are people finding a way to understand This. This has happened in a media saturated society so it is difficult to regulate behaviour. The only way to do so would be a media clampdown such as we see in China. This would be seen as dangerous by functionalists and pluralists. This is not giving the audience what they want. This is not informing them. Who would keep them in check? The reliance here is on a common good. To get out of This. To return to normality. But what if  people have different ideas of what normality is?

The Queen

Emile Durkheim wrote extensively about totemism in his book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. The concept of the totem was based upon his interest in Australian aborigine's and their use of a central object, in some cases a rock which was decorated with drawings, paint and scratches. These totems were pivotal to these clans. They depicted their shared history, their beliefs. Durkheim distinguished between the sacred and the profane. Societies needed something sacred to group together behind, something special, untouchable. The aborigines had their totem as Native Americans had. In western societies we had churches, flags and monarchs. Durkheim was particularly interested in religion, something he believed was a social glue. However he realised that with the advent of scientific research (he himself wanted sociology to be seen as a science) people were becoming more rational, religion was losing its social significance.

A hundred years on and more modern sociologists are claiming that we live in a secular society where religion and its institutions are losing their social significance. So what is our totem now? what does our society hold as sacred? Post modernists would say consumerism and Marxists may have some sympathy with that. But as the partial lock down enters its third week people are meeting in parks, ignoring the government. The Prime Minister is in intensive care, his foreign secretary announcing during a daily briefing that he hadn't spoken to him since Saturday (this was on Monday).  So who or what can be brought forward as a sacred totem. On Sunday evening the Queen addressed her subjects via TV. She spoke for less than five minutes but stressed solidarity and community, recalled British wartime experiences. The Queen addresses the public rarely - at Christmas yes but only several times outside her regular festive bulletin. The hope of the establishment is that this sacred totem in the shape of our monarch would convince the British people to stay at home. But it is more than that. The Queen would reassure those at home, make them feel that they are not alone. This is a shared experience which is faced by us all. She didn't mention her elderly son Prince Charles but the public would be aware that he had symptoms of the virus himself, so This touches all lives. The Queen's sacredness lies in other areas too. I am 48, I've lived through ten Prime Ministers but only one Queen. She is a constant in the lives of all of the people living in the UK. She has always been there. Even non monarchists such as myself have an interest in her. Netflix's big success The Crown is watched not only by die hard monarchists. She embodies our shared experiences, our national story. She is a totem. I'll refrain from saying 'our rock' but others may see her as this.  The Queen is on our money, our stamps and in our subconsciousness.

So the hope is that her message will inspire and comfort the British people in this in a way that the different religions can't, their reach is only for the converted. the problem is that there are other totems. The post modernists talk about agency, choice, the freedom to construct your own identity through consumption, you are what you buy. The police have reported quite simply that some people don't want to stay in, they refuse to social distance themselves from others. The referendum in 2016  which was placed before the public gave the idea that we can govern ourselves and the current government played on that. Sadly now that it needs people to listen it is finding it difficult to get them to do so.

The real sociological interest now is what is the most powerful totem. That of collective solidarity embodied by the state and the Queen; or that of the libertarian, the individual, the consumer? let's see.

Capitalism

Marxist sociologists are fairly preoccupied with the role of capitalism in every aspect of life. They expand almost out of recognition from the original writings of Karl Marx who famously once said "One thing I'm not is a Marxist". Capitalism is the route of all evil, it exploits the working classes and deludes them into thinking that they have a fair life. Marxists believe that it is the structures of society that does this - the family, education, religion, the media, the government (they call this lot the superstructure). The pursuit of profit leads to enforced poverty, poor wages and working conditions. The dog eat dog nature of capitalism leads to crime. Gordon, a Marxist criminologist termed this as 'criminogenic'. Companies flout health and safety laws, avoid taxes etc. Gordon also believed that this extended to more low level but still very serious crime such as abuse, violence and burglary. The lack of power in a capitalist society needing to be gained somewhere else. In a consumer society, through the Marxist view, we are compelled to buy our way to happiness, for the wealthy it is a status thing, for the poor it is a form of  escape (Marxists refer to this as false consciousness).

More modern Marxists capitalism survives because it is the thing that we all see as normal. From day one we are schooled into competition and money making. Parents tell us we need good jobs, schools provide us with skills needed according to social class and the media bombards us with adverts and programs such as The Apprentice and Dragon's Den . capitalism is the norm or as Gramsci put it, hegemony.

So how is capitalism doing in all of This? The economy is something that was an immediate concern of the government, stimulus packages have been announced and the state is pledging to help support small businesses and the self employed. Once ignored (or pay frozen) workers are now key workers, applauded as heroes  by politicians, the media and the public. Thatcherites are backtracking ideologically adopting leftist economic policies in order that we have an economy when This is over. It could be argued that the hegemony is changing. The public are accepting that perhaps bankers etc aren't as important as NHS workers and shelf stackers. During the second world war this happened and the NHS sprang out of that shift in hegemony.

Gordon would have looked at the food hoarders as an example of capitalism causing crime. If not actually a crime depriving others of things such as soap and toilet paper certainly could be seen as deviant. Globalisation is capitalism on a worldwide scale and the inter connectedness of our world has helped spread the disease.  Cruise ships are large capitalist vessels, the holiday makers trapped. We ordered a lotus yoga mat from China, I eye it suspiciously now. Racism has broken out in Hull where Chinese people are being blamed for This. Domestic abuse cases are on the rise as people stay at home. The profiling of a domestic abuser doesn't wholly fit with Gordon's image of the powerless but qualitative research suggests that power is a large part of the cause. Scammers are taking advantage, visiting the vulnerable, taking their money for essential goods which won't be bought. Closed pubs are being broken into.

For capitalism to exist we need to buy things. We can do this online making the postal worker a frontline worker. Or we can queue up at the supermarket. I did this this morning. I did a large shop for us and for vulnerable neighbours. The shop was well stocked apart from pasta, toilet roll and tinned goods. I wondered if people were getting their consumer needs from the media. These are the things that we are told people are buying so we stockpile them. Our Costcutter has lots of toilet roll but people have been accusing them of hiking their prices up. They haven't toilet roll has always been more expensive in there compared to Morrison's. It's just that the search for toilet roll has meant people are buying it elsewhere. It could be argued that the dog eat dog  meritocracy of capitalism makes people look out for themselves. This explains the wasted food found in bins last week. People are buying more stuff than they actually need. The government is telling them not to do this. But they didn't say not to do this so that others may have a chance to get toilet paper themselves, they said not to do this as it may limit supplies, they talked in terms of commodity. Marx would recognise this. His criticism of capitalism was that it talked about surplus and commodities and not people.

Easter is a capitalist money spinner like Christmas. I looked at the long displays of chocolate eggs looking unloved. I thought that the shops will be taking a hit this year but then I looked at the large trolleys full of food. It reminded me of Christmas.

The couple who I was shopping for had wanted toilet roll. there was none. on the way home I debated whether I should offer some of ours. The neo liberal capitalist in me thought - no! I need it for my family! when I delivered their food I asked them if they needed any toilet paper. We are all in this together.

Social Distancing

Social action theorists spend a lot of their energy in explaining society through interactions. They look at how people's behaviour is influenced by others, this could be a teacher, a friend, a police officer. They also look at how we interpret signs. these signs could be facial, body language or actual signs. They are bottom up theorists who believe that people influence social change. Weber believed capitalism was caused by how Lutherans interpreted the Word of God. Their belief in a puritanical lifestyle, not spending money on luxuries, led to vast wealth which was invested in work. I see some truth in this as the now rare trip to the shops shows me how much we actually spend on wine, biscuits and various other items.

So how then is the idea of social distancing going to affect us? How do we live within this framework. How do we interpret the fact that people are giving us a wide berth? this week there was talk of 'green shoots' , a plateau in confirmed cases. This was followed by a hike in deaths which was always going to be the case. Away from the arguments over testing and the timing of these we will look at the basic message from the government and the NHS - social distancing saves lives. The basic quantitative data makes sense, if you stay at home you are unlikely to be infected or infect someone else. If you continue to come into contact with lots of people you may be infected, then if you infect two others and they then go onto infect two others and so on. It makes sense. Stay at home. Some people do not have that choice as we have seen.

But what is the interpretation of this simple message? On my daily walks at 6am I rarely see anyone. Before This I saw regular dog walkers and runners and one very angry man marching as if to war. I don't see them now. So the message (even to the angry man) has been interpreted as 'stay in'. Yesterday we needed some essentials. I put on a rucksack and went to our Costcutter. On the way I saw several people all out exercising (mostly walking but a few runners and lone cyclists. I  crossed the road several times to give people space and at one point two women who were talking to a man across the road moved for me. But I did see some young lads on bikes and a car of young men smoking. Again the interpretations are different. I've heard of some people being shouted at in woodland walks to 'stay clear' but I've not experienced this. I did go onto the road at one point as a young dad and his child in a large pram approached, he thanked me. I smiled back. I decided this would be my approach, thank people thus showing that social distance is not through fear on anxiety but as a courtesy, an act of solidarity. Social distancing was soon put to a test in the shop. Our local Costcutter has been heroic these last two weeks, stocking its shelves, delivering to the vulnerable. Essential service as many local shops have been across the nation. They have chalked out distances and allow only three people at a time. I failed totally here. I panicked, forgot things on my list, backtracked and at one point lost my basket. The young women stacking shelves suffered me kindly, found flour and icing sugar for me and sent me on my way.

Social distancing happens in case someone coughs on you. Droplets as a microbiologist says in today's Guardian newspaper. that's how we can pass This on. The microbiologist is interesting, she washes her apples in soap. She deals with microbes and virus in her working life, she studies it. Her interpretation is much stricter than most.

It is inevitable that people will interpret social distancing based on their own experiences. Some will respect it, understand it. Some will fear it and some will ignore it. helicopters flew over my house last night as I washed up. Our house looks over Halifax, the helicopters were flying around the valley. They reminded me of Northern Ireland where I grew up. It occurred to me that  my obedience to social distancing may come from my upbringing. As a boy and teenager I was used to strict movement both official and sectarian. Soldiers walked the streets, you were searched in Woolworths. Road blocks prevented you leaving town without documentation. My interpretation of social distancing is based on that. Others may be sceptical of government and science, seeking their knowledge and experience from the internet or books. Or they may see their sense of liberty being over curbed. i remember the anger over healthy eating in schools in the 2000s. Mothers passing pizza and chips through school railings.  Others will interpret it through their own anxiety , shouting at people who are too close. These people will be afraid. Social distancing will be a literal thing.

Some people will be lonely. Human beings are social animals, we like to socialise. Social media is a way on doing this but does it replace the actual human contact. A student contacted me and said they were lonely, they missed the actual classroom, other people helped them to learn. Older people may be on their own without contact. Women in their 70s and 80s are most likely to live alone. Social distancing may be a very negative thing for them to experience. This is perhaps why the rainbows in windows and clapping NHS workers is an important sense of community. It may not be enough but it is something. The radio, the television is important. Churches giving out CDs of services a way of helping. Experience tells some of us that this is yet another 'thing' something that we will remember like 9/11. We will interpret social distancing in that way. Others will see it as a much more fearful thing. We should all interpret it as a necessary evil so that we can return to social action soon.

Structures and This

People are people and they have individual needs. But society needs order so it can breathe and function. Talcott Parsons talks of functional prerequisites that society must provide if it is to function orderly. these are basic needs and requirements that need to be met if society is to  continue.
One is to provide goals for the members of society - money, work, qualifications. Government must provide the means to achieve these goals through schooling, employment etc. Society also has to provided an adequate standard of living for its members (Parsons called this Adaptation), it also has to provide harmony and integration, make people they feel part of a bigger picture, they belong to something. parsons completed this list with a word 'latency'. This meant that everyone needed to believe that society was being well looked after, maintained.

As I teach this virtually to students online, I wonder if Parsons's prerequisites are being held up as we venture under This. How are the structures in our society coping? parsons was a structuralist, he believed in top down societal management. So lets look at the government. This is a huge job for any government to manage. The goals are obvious - get through This. The Prime Minister has tried to use his election winning slogan Get This Done to little avail. He is now ill and his ministers are meeting with him virtually. But the goal remains, get through This. The strategy has ramped up, gently removing the right for free movement and consumption. This has proven difficult for them in a number of ways. As I've stated before ideologically they are not used to curbing liberties (unless you are an immigrant), especially economic ones. They have to decide what is a key worker, no longer the banker or hedge fund manager but now the NHS worker, the shelf stacker, the corner shop owner, the social worker, the probation officer, the police officer, the refuse collector, teachers, the list goes on. The list provides another difficulty for this government. These are the people they have been cutting or freezing the wages of since 2010 in a war on austerity. There are also huge concerns with the self employed and small business holders. Exactly the people this government would champion. To help maintain the goal we all share regardless of political beliefs there have been huge promises of financial aide. The sort of spending this government have won several elections opposing, in fact much more than even Labour's ambitious 2019 manifesto promised. This could be seen as adaption, and necessary to maintain society. the government has had to look at reality and it needs to maintain society as best as it can.

To reach the goals the government want to promote we look to education. Now mostly in a hiatus. Teachers trying to continue to educate, motivate and dare I say it inspire pupils and students at home. We do this without knowing the situation that our work reaches. Adaption may be necessary even if schools reopen in September, can we really expect GCSE and A level students to achieve the same as they would have if they'd had a term and a half on in school teaching? But our workforce needs these skilled workers. As I say adaption may be needed. There is a worry that children from lower income families may lack the tech that is required, may have poor wi fi or even none. There's also the problem that their parents may not know exactly what is needed to home educate. The Marxist Bordieu called this cultural capital. It may seem patronising and of course many working class parents will be strong home educators, but research shows that a barrier for learning for some pupils is that their parents cannot afford or know how to help with their education. I remember years ago in Coronation Street a deeply moving scene where Toyah Battersby was struggling with college work and her mother Janice broke down and said "I want to help you but I don't know how". i have heard this from many parents over the last twenty years. But teachers will continue as all workers will as we share the same goals. We all must adapt and play our part.

The summer brings many cultural and sporting events mostly cancelled. These would have been part of Parsons's harmony prerequisite (he called it Integration). The Euros, Wimbledon, Glastonbury, the Olympics have all been cancelled or postponed. Holidays are cancelled, gigs or parties all cancelled or moved to what looks like a really packed autumn. This is worrying in ways because these things and TV shows such as Love Island provide a focus point for people. calendars are set by them, they are things to look forward to, to talk about. if they are not there people might feel marginalised. However, the wireless of our modern globalised times is social media, pub quizes, gigs and chatrooms are ablaze keeping people connected. I miss my daily newspaper and  find the online version not as adequate. Older people are having there's delivered, again  by heroic corner shop workers. We are connected and the media in all its forms is helping with adaption. You could worry that the darker more conspiratorial side of the web full of plots and criticisms might be dangerous but I feel that Parsons would see this as keeping such people who need to make sense of This in their own way connected. It's only dangerous when it makes people feel they can have house parties (no virtual) or behave normally socially. Again the worry is what if you don't have this tech?

Religion is suffering, holy places largely empty. People praying at home. The media plays a role here too. I'm not religious but I listened to a church service on BBC R3 and the choir removed me to tears. DVDs and CDs are being delivered to isolated parishoners.

What of the cornerstone of our society? the first structure we experience? The family? The family is all important to realise goals, maintain harmony and help with integration. Many families are now compact units, spending time together. The worry is those family units which are not compact, those which are poor or abusive or simply malfunctioning. Parsons believed in resocialisation, if a family unit is broken other structures can help fix it - education etc. But what if these structures are closed. Some schools are still open to the vulnerable and children of key workers. But how do you operationalise these?

The government have these problems to solve. As well as managing the virus. They may not know it but they are working within the framework as provided by Parsons.

Observation: this morning I saw a neighbour talking to another from their upstairs windows, both gable windows.