Work in This

The sociology of work is more interesting than it seems. Not many colleges choose the topic in A level because even though the primary reason for students to take A levels is to get into work many students recoil in horror from the very mention of the word. Work is a four lettered word. I tried explaining the concept of paid employment to my daughter when she was five and she literally ran from the room screaming. Yet it is a very important part of our society. Sociologist Keith Grint stated that work was essential to individual and societal survival. Weber believed that the protestant work ethic carved out our national identity as a capitalist country (his idea has had many critics). Durkheim, the founding father of sociology as a discipline believed that work was a form of  organic solidarity meaning that it binds society together. Every job we do no matter what is essential for our society functioning normally. We need people he sociology of work is more interesting than it seems. Not many colleges choose the topic in A level because even though the primary reason for students to take A levels is to get into work many students recoil in horror from the very mention of the word. Work is a four lettered word. I tried explaining the concept of paid employment to my daughter when she was five and she literally ran from the room screaming. Yet it is a very important part of our society. Sociologist Keith Grint stated that work was essential to individual and societal survival. Weber believed that the protestant work ethic carved out our national identity as a capitalist country (his idea has had many critics). Durkheim, the founding father of sociology as a discipline believed that work was a form ofto empty our bins, educate us, mend us, serve us in shops, keep the lights on. Everyone in work has a purpose. Marx, of course, thinks that this is wrong. Society is based on exploitation. Capitalism needs inequalities to survive. If inequality didn't exist how would the owners of the means of production generate profit? Far from binding society Marx believed that work alienated people. I remember Mrs Glasgow, my A level sociology explaining it by saying that we should imagine that in pre capitalist times a man made boats, his family helped. he loved his boats and was proud to sell them. He'd stand on a shore and point out to his children which ones he'd made as they bobbed about in the sea. Once factories appeared and boats were mass produced for profit the workers didn't have much pride in their work as they only put rivets in or painted them, they rarely saw the end product. They got a wage. They were alienated from the product as it belonged to someone else.

When this all started Durkheim's view of organic solidarity was much in evidence. We needed the NHS workers, the shelf stackers, the checkout workers, the delivery workers and many more (many teachers have not had the luxury of home teaching, they've been in the classroom teaching vulnerable pupils and those children of key workers. Some have died.) of what we now term key workers. A friend of mine shut up his bike shop on the eve of lock down thinking that he'd lose his business only to find out he was a key worker and his shop has remained open (he contracted the virus). We clapped the NHS workers, politicians paid tribute to them. Those of us who are not front line key workers worked from home. Technology is important here as I've mentioned elsewhere.

The Prime Minister announced on Sunday 10th May that  people who could not work from home should return to work. The details were confusing but it soon appeared to some people that perhaps Marx was correct. Those returning to work were more likely to be what Marxists term as the working class. Those he believed were alienated from their work. The government told them not to use public transport if possible.

Now, the argument is that our economy needs this. We are all dependent on our economy being strong and vibrant. If it is strong we all enjoy the benefits of it. Our leisure time, our interests, our travel are all tied up with this. If it fails then we are limited in our movement and interests. Durkheim would recognise this. As would Grint. Our survival is dependent on a strong economy. So people going back to work is needed. Schools then must open so that the children of these workers have somewhere to go.

Marxists however would point out that there is an inequality of who goes back and who stays at home. There is a class difference. A middle class family will most likely be able to work from home and not send their children back to school in June (councils have said that there will be no fines until September). Many (not all) middle class incomes will remain intact. Others need to work regardless of safety in the workplace.

Work cannot be divided from leisure. Our leisure choices are dependent on people working. I ordered beer from a pub, the landlord drives to my house. My records and magazines are delivered by the postman. Walking needs good footwear. We are often unaware of the people beavering away in order to make life comfortable for us all. Hopefully This will make us appreciate them. Marx would be sceptical.

Health in This

The newspapers this morning (Thursday 7th May) are full of excitement that some restrictions within the lock down are to be lifted. Underneath the bold headlines there are little facts other than snippets and hints. One constant is that exercise may be extended beyond the half hour allowance. We may be allowed to ramble and sunbathe in a public park. This might be news to some people as they have been doing this anyway. Some people I have talked to have been going on hikes that take them miles away from their homes, social media has many posts of people proclaiming their joy of the delights of nature, selfies taken by moors, reservoirs, aerial shots of towns and cities. these people are the victim of the vagueness of the government messages, the leaflet we all received. One friend told me he had walked miles and saw no one. He felt guilty but claimed he didn't know what the restrictions were, his walk was directly from his house and back to it.  A microbiologist in the Guardian newspaper complained that people who lived in rural areas were abusing the restrictions as they weren't living in cramped over populated urban areas where a walk or cycle can bring you into contact with numerous people. We could argue the rural vs urban implications but sociologists would look deeper. It's social class.

An old headteacher of mine in a school I worked in once asked why A Level sociology still used Marxism as a theory - "It's irrelevant now," he said, "class is no longer an issue." This was in 2006, two years later the recession started and four years later the Coalition government introduced austerity measures, fourteen years later the Guardian newspaper published this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales

Sociologists observe that as far as health is concerned the main model is the biomedical model - this means that the body is seen as a machine that must be kept working. Functionalist sociologists see this as a leveler. Regardless of who you are your body is the same and will be treated the same by professional organisations - the NHS in our case. This has led to medicalisation - our doctors and nurses become experts in how we should eat and live. We are advised on diet, alcohol intake and exercise.  Parsons saw this as part of his functional prerequisites - adaptation: providing an adequate standard of living for its members.  Parsons also saw being sick as performing a social role - people would act in a particular way when sick - in accordance to the norms of the society that they live in. The NHS performs this role well - advising rest, giving prescriptions, health has become a way of our life. When I have a cold (as a teacher this lasts from September til May - when the virus broke out I was coughing a lot but was it the common cold or This?) I buy Lemsip and vapour. I buy tissues - this is my social role - abate my illness and try to contain it. If it gets bad we are encouraged not to work in case of infection.

In March before lock down this social role was encouraged, if you had the symptoms isolate yourself for two weeks. People obeyed this as they were willing to perform their social role. Unveiling the Covid 19 App the Health secretary said it was our duty to download it. Our social role. The media backed the government's advice. I watched a BBC Breakfast report on how to isolate where a doctor showed his home. It was like a grim Through the Keyhole - spacious hall - downstairs den and small toilet, upstairs kitchen, livingroom, bedroom, upstairs a large bathroom, another two bedrooms - one with ensuite loo and shower, attic bedroom. Count how many 'upstairs'. This was in London. The advice was to cut yourself off, use a separate toilet, have a separate bin. When I watched this the death rate was non existent, schools and shops were open.

The Marxist approach to health is different, they do not see it as a leveler. As the statistics in the Guardian link show - disease is linked to social class. The poorer you are the more likely you are to be ill. However this is not just restricted to the ideology of Marxism. Cultural deprivation theorists and many middle of the road sociologists say the same. In fact as far back as 1980 The Black Report showed that the poorer you are the shorter your lifespan - this report looked at social selection and cultural differences - the working classes were less healthy due to their lifestyle and economic differences lead to increased or decreased life expectancy.

The working classes in 1980 were more likely to be in work, if not they were on benefits. There was no minimum wage so they would have worked long hours in manual jobs. Little has changed. It could be argued that there is more choice now, supermarkets of all types have a wide and varied selection of food.  But wages are still low, the Sure Start centres begun by New Labour and severely reduced in size under austerity reported that people in low income areas didn't know how to cook from scratch or couldn't afford to, or didn't have the time to. families on lower incomes are larger in size, more mouths to feed on less money. Their homes are smaller and the areas have less room for exercise. GP surgeries in poorer areas struggle with appointments. Wealthier areas are easier to get appointments as people are more likely to be healthy. The middle classes have more leisure time and this leisure time can be spent in pursuit of exercise, they can afford the equipment, the travel if needed. But they also have the know how. It's part of their culture. The middle classes are diverse - they can earn from £18,000 to £250,000 according to profession. But one thing they all share is what sociologists call 'deferred gratification' they all recognise the importance of education and the future. They will have risen in the class system or their relatives have and they want to keep rising. Kate Fox talks about this in Watching the English the middle classes are worried that their status may be taken away from them so they aspire to rise higher, high enough to be comfortable. Looking to the future means being healthy. But to be healthy you need the knowledge. In lessons on class I show the BBC's documentary Trouble on the Estate about a housing estate in Blackburn during austerity. One family have two children. The mother had left a low paid job to look after the young children, the dad used to work in a factory but it shut and he then took up two cleaning jobs. The film shows them shopping in Iceland, getting frozen food based on price rather than taste or desire. In short they bought what they could afford rather than what they wanted. The dad explained his expenditure, he got paid on a Friday and after bills and food he had five pounds til the next week. Sociologists call this 'immediate gratification'. This is all processed food. The work patterns mean little time for leisure and what free time there is will be more likely spent socialising.

Statistics for the virus also seem to be hitting ethnic minority people hardest - again from the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/racial-inequality-in-britain-found-a-risk-factor-for-covid-19

Now, this has lots of links to the class system as well. We see that ethnic minorities who do less well in education and are unemployed tend to be from the lower social classes. there is a cultural theme too - some Asian families live together, generations under one roof. If someone is infected in these households it will go up and down the generation scale.

Sociologist Parker looked at leisure between the social classes, the middle classes see it as a way of succeeding, it's an extension of their work. Therefore they socialise with work colleagues - witness pubs near courts full of solicitors and barristers drinking together. Or they exercise so that they are fit for work. the working classes or lower paid workers see leisure as a release from work, they want to forget work and enjoy themselves. So exercising is easier for them to adapt to in a lock down.

To go back to the functionalist approach, the numbers may be higher for the lower paid but people from all social classes have lost loved ones. The biomedical approach is the frontline.

Remote Learning

Yesterday the chief inspector of schools, Amanda Spielman , was reported to have said that there would be a huge attainment gap between deprived pupils and those who are more wealthy. Any A1 sociology student could have told her that. But it is a real concern. The Guardian report on her observations can be found here:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/27/schools-shutdown-likely-to-widen-attainment-gap-says-ofsted-chief

Sociologists have for a long time now talked about the concepts of material and cultural deprivation. These concepts stop children from more deprived backgrounds achieving as much as their more middle class peers. A pupil might not suffer from one but they might suffer from another. For example you could be poor but fully recognise the importance of education or you may have money but not see education as important. Or you could suffer from both.

Since schools and colleges closed parents, pupils and teachers have been remote learning / teaching. Pupils and students are working from home. Teachers are sending out lessons through cyberspace, using the latest technology to ensure students and pupils are not missing out in their education. The internet and social media are seen as a god send. Keep calm pupils we are carrying on. But we see reports that only a third of pupils and students are engaging with remote learning / home schooling. This number changes in whatever report you read. Now this can be sociologically explained by using material and cultural deprivation. But what are these concepts I'm freely bandying around? Let's look at them separately.


Firstly let's look at material deprivation. Bluntly this means a lack of money. Education can be expensive. Schools and colleges run trips and various events which need money, they also can require uniforms and essential equipment. This is before we look at what is expected at home. Poorer children often live in smaller homes with more siblings, a lack of space for working. These homes may be damp or not well heated. There may not be a garden at all or a small yard. sociologists such as Nell Keddie and Smith & Noble and many more have been talking about this for decades. Working class families in modern Britain may not have numerous devices in their homes, less books, slower Wi Fi if they have that at all.  Remote learning depends on pupils and students having a suitable space at home and access to devices which will display the various teaching formats being encouraged by schools. Just before the lock down we were hearing lots of reports about schools across the country having to compensate for poverty amongst their pupils. This involved providing meals, clothing and working spaces. In some cases it meant schools buying groceries for the families of pupils. Schools had become safe havens and were very involved in the lives of their most disadvantaged pupils. Now vulnerable pupils are in some cases still being home schooled but the closure of schools has limited or stopped such compensatory measures. But pupils in less extreme poverty are still disadvantaged by remote learning. What if there is one device - a laptop or tablet between several children, or there isn't a laptop at all, schools must adapt their lessons, use what their pupils can access.  But it's difficult - one task my six year old has to do is based on continents - to do this you need an atlas, a map or a globe. We have all three. If you don't have these then look it up on the internet. Again what if you don't have the internet? This might seem basic but it's happening in homes across the country. Middle class pupils will have their own room or a study to work in, they will have at least some of the technology needed. When not working they can have a break in the garden or walk in the suburbs or a semi or complete rural surrounding. No overcrowded park or estate for them, they can exercise and then get back to it. They will have books at home to explain stuff, they might have TV subscriptions to channels which will help explain the work being emailed to their parents. They may have printers, lots of devices.  it was ever thus.

Cultural deprivation is the lack of knowledge on how to succeed. A sociologist called Bordieu talked about cultural capital and he also said that schools were middle class institutions run by the middle classes for the middle classes. Now this is outdated in some ways as schools get inspected by the people who work for Amanda Spielman, pupil experience is an important criteria in the inspection process. However Bordieu's cultural capital/ deprivation plays a role in Remote Learning / home schooling. Middle class pupils and students may be more likely to have parents who went to university or have A Levels. These parents will be slightly or a lot more able to interpret the communication from schools. If they don't get what the teachers are saying they may have what sociologists call social capital - they might have a friend who is a teacher and can explain it to them or they will simply email the teacher and ask what is important and what is non essential. Middle class parents may also have the cultural capital to further educate their children on wider issues. On social media I have seem people sharing lessons that they are giving their kids on history, Stephen Lawrence and science tasks. Middle class parents also recognise the importance of exercise and may be more likely to live near woods, moors and large parks. If not tents are being erected in gardens across the land. All very conducive to the learning experience.

What of teacher's expectations?  The college that I work in is asking teachers to be understanding about these issues. I would hope that is the case nationwide. I arrived home just before the lock down armed with microphones and laptops and pen drives. I was trained to the hilt in Zoom and digital learning tools such as Estream. All great stuff. The IT department of my college were terrific in training and problem solving. However within a week of Remote Learning I found that my students all had very different access to IT. I email now and that seems okay at the moment. My A1 students have been excellent but there are many issues to consider. Illness, fear, cultural differences as well as everything highlighted above.

https://www.boredteachers.com/inspiring/not-all-students-can-do-virtual-learning-and-we-need-to-cut-them-some-slack?fbclid=IwAR1ngAU0OfSXzLiRS-Wg207S32wotcFwlzn-LSpFRBDqI1V5lzrvMeudSxE

A2 students and Year 11s face a strange time, they have been schooled to sit exams. Those exams are not happening. Teachers have been given strict criteria on how to award the students. When Year 11 pupils go onto sixth form or further education they won't have been in a classroom for a very long time. I haven't even mentioned universities. There is a case for a new normal.

Shopping

We are what we buy. That's the cool post modernist way of thinking about identity in the 21st century. No longer do we troop down cobbled lanes with many others on our way to work. We rarely visit working men's clubs to sing around the piano or go on work outings to Blackpool or Whitby if we are middle class. The argument put forward by people such as Strinati is that we are more likely to shape our identity around what we consume. What we buy. Our class or our ethnicity or our gender no longer influences our identity. What we buy does. We must have the right labels on our clothes, we must have the right gadget. Our holidays and cars define who we are, not our job.

Since the virus shopping has become a much more restricted occupation. Online shopping for goods has been the norm for some time but it has taken on new meaning now. However in a lock down what are we buying? I buy music, LPs from independent stores still posting, books and magazines. I did think about new jeans the other day but feel that there is no need as the only times I venture out is for a food shop or exercise. The idea that post modernists pedal as symbolic consumption - we buy things to impress others - is temporarily redundant. Or is it? On social media design masks are flourishing, Instagram have been trying to sell me Beatles and Pink Floyd masks. There has been an increase in sports wear, people need to look good walking and running.  Social media is full of lock down deals on whatever you have been buying online. Ads pop up regularly on Instagram and Facebook. the consumer society has merely shifted into cyberspace.

In 1993 when I was studying post modernism as a module on my degree the tutor told us that one day we would do all of our Christmas shopping online. We practically burned him at the stake, surely this was witchcraft. However over the years online shopping has become the norm. So much so that town centres look very different now. Regeneration projects take place trying to bring people into towns, if they aren't shopping then they need to eat or attend cultural events. The worry for sociologists is that town and city centres are important for social interaction. If people stay closed away they may feel anomie and this may lead to a breakdown of society. Societies work best when people are interacting. By interacting we learn social norms which keep us healthy and tolerant. So deserted streets can lead to higher crime rates, isolation and social anomie.

This means that a lock down could maybe lead to the same issues. As I've mentioned before, virtual Zoom communities (I do a pop pub quiz) exist, people have people around for drinks and meals. I notice people even get dressed up to sit in front of a screen (maybe I should get the new jeans). This social instinct is still within us. We hear about community social distant bingo. A pub I frequent still has gigs, the aforementioned quiz and has started selling vouchers, buy now drink later. Independent shops are using the internet to create communities, share your memories, keeping the shop in your conscience. The college I work in has donated its unused carpark for testing of NHS workers. Schools and colleges have donated science equipment to the NHS. Adaptation and community mindedness is a way of trying to keep our communities going.

The essential shop is the food shop. Symbolic creativity seeps into food shopping too - where do you shop for your food can define your identity as much as what type of car you drive. If you follow the vague lock down rules you might be restricted to the nearest supermarket. Many people still get online shopping although you have to hang in there to get a delivery date.

The physical supermarket experience is much different now. Social distancing means queues and it's harder to impulse buy. If you live relatively near to a large spacious supermarket you can still look for fashions and luxury items. If not then you are limited to food. Security is more prominent and choice is better than at the start but still restricted in areas of soap or home baking. Food shop workers have become front line workers, they have always been essential but now that is obvious to their customers. The question is how often do we use them? I know people who shop daily in corner shops. Our local shop encourages only shopping for essentials as infrequently as possible. But what does that mean? Can I buy my daily newspaper? I decided I couldn't as that would be infrequent, but others do.

When you do a massive 7-10 day shop it's hard to symbolically consume, you have a mound of produce to pack yourself (they can't help and they ask us to go alone to avoid congestion) and no one is looking. It would be interesting to see if people buy what they need and want rather than what they think looks good and says about their identity. In other words are organic foods suffering and biscuits increasing. We do know that alcohol sales are up.

Love and Anger

As the lock down continues and social distancing becomes the new norm there is a definite national mood swing taking place. This mood swings from anger to love and genial behaviour. This is all natural. We have our totems and the sacred and we look to them to bind us together. But we also feel let down, frustrated, angry.
 
The media is the main focus for all of our moods. There is anger at the government's handling of the crisis from some quarters and deep love for our Prime Minister from others. As I stated  in the Media blog 'new media' has some theories of its own and this was joined by a vague non condemning comment on This Morning by the mainstream media presenter Eamonn Holmes. 5G transmitters again came under attack.

First let's look at the anger on display in our society. This is largely, but not totally, to do with ideology. Everyone has an ideology. This is a set of beliefs which we all hold dear to our social make up. In other words we all have a meta narrative which helps us explain the world. This primarily can be religion, but this is coupled by political beliefs. At the start of This I decided to be non partisan. I'm what is called 'soft left' I have voted Labour since I was able to. I am a remainer in terms of the EU. However I decided that no matter what my views are on Boris Johnson and his government I'd will them to succeed. I'd do as they say. from the start people were openly critical of the government's handling of the affair, did they call a lock down too late? Why was Ireland closing down whilst we were still being told to wash our hands? I've mentioned before that for such a neo liberal government as this telling people what to do is really difficult as your ideology is about libertarianism, they'd just won an election on the pretext of freedom and individualism. However they did act eventually and told us to stay at home. The first big announcements were fiscal, trying to shore up the economy. Again a chief neo liberal concern. State intervention was suddenly trendy again after decades of decrying it. Facebook and Twitter were alight by left wingers claiming victory. An outgoing Jeremy Corbyn suggested on the BBC that he had been right all along.

However as time has gone on we see huge discrepancies in who is dying, social class and ethnicity seem to be now underlying health issues. The Left become incensed. another however which unites people in anger is the NHS, how badly resourced they are. Nurses pinning masks with paperclips, not enough aprons, ventilators. We hear stories that the government didn't reply to companies offering to provide ventilators, refusing to sit on EU meetings about how to fight This. This could be excused as still ideological but then ministers begin to say things in the daily briefing which upsets the non ideological. The Health Minister doesn't know how many NHS workers have died and in another briefing he seems to castigate NHS workers for using PPE too much. Anger becomes resentment.

Sociologically we find this interesting. Meta narratives are important, we all need things to get us through the night. Beliefs are important. But when our elected officials begin to be the focus of anger in times of crisis things can become dangerous. Weber believed we needed charismatic leaders to rally around. The charisma of a leader can move us away from traditional behaviour. In short we will follow a charismatic leader through difficult and new times. In Boris Johnson we had a charismatic leader whether you agree with him or not. He seemed the ideal man to get us through such a situation. Johnson was waiting for his Churchill moment. But then he fell ill. He got the virus and then left us with his ministers. Non of whom would inspire. Weber believed that in a modern society the charismatic leader could be replaced by rational legal authority - this is found in laws which back up rational behavior. in other words bureaucracy. But we are currently in a bureaucratic flux. We have left the EU without much of a plan on what we do next. The virus stopped the implementation of what we were going to do next.  Foucault believed that power lies in the hands of specialists. So The WHO and the NHS and health advisers are the power now. But they feel powerless as they are under resourced. So anger comes from the unknown. We don't have a proper framework to deal with this. The Labour leader wants parliament to be recalled, he is backed up by all opposition parties and senior conservatives. Weber would agree with this. Britain can defeat the virus by rational and legal authority. In other words strangle it with laws and procedures. People feel anomie, the Prime Minister is ill, his ministers are making gaffs. People need something they recognise. Another reason the Queen was used the other week.

The Marxist Mills would place the anger directed at the government as anger directed at our elite. The elite are those in our society who believe they hold all of the power and influence. The elite not only consists of the government but the military, the church and so on. In a more modern capitalist society this also includes the financial sector. From a Marxist perspective the elite have been dismantling our welfare state in order to protect banks since 2010 (perhaps earlier). This then has placed the NHS is a poor position. But not just them, also care workers. I heard a story from a relation about clients and masks being counted up. more clients than masks.

Anger exists among the exercising. Runners and walkers get on each other's nerves. This is because many people are regularly exercising outdoors for the first time so there are more people outside on our pavements, parks and countryside. I have a regular walk which covers two to four miles which I have been doing every day since our second daughter was born nearly four years ago . This covers roads, out of the way paths and fields. Normally you'd meet a few people, now it is heavily populated by all of the aforementioned. Social distancing means this has become impossible. those of us who have learned the rules of exercise are now sharing with novices.  The rules of what our daily exercise is seems confused. Cyclists meet with friends and tour the countryside, I see this daily. Runners do epic journeys across moors. Is this what the government permits? A friend had a notice put on his car because he drove his sons to a largely empty rural space not far from his home. they could have walked it but that would have meant coming into contact with numerous people. The reservoir near my home is policed, cars are turned away sometimes, walkers permitted. The anger and confusion can be linked back to Weber's theory of power. People need rational and legal authority - they need set rules. Without these people make their own interpretations of the rules as they are quite vacuous. The government leaflet sent to homes is vague, after telling us to stay at home it then gives exceptions - exercise and shopping but there are more exceptions to that as well. The police issued a statement today about 'rules' which are chaotic and contradictory - my friend wouldn't get a sticker now as long as he can prove his walk with his boys lasted longer than the drive to the open area of exercise.

 Weber would recognise this as as lack of charisma AND authority. Mills would say it was the arrogance of the elite expecting the entire populace to live the way that they do. This creates a huge divide. death is doing this too. Black and ethnic minorities are three times more likely to get the virus and more likely to die. This is because of their living spaces and culture. The elite don't live like this so they have made no allowances. The elite live in large spaces. Many BAME families are multi generational. The lock down happened after this had already started to spread, families living together with many generations in the one household spread it around. Why wasn't this thought of? Mill would say because the elite hadn't thought of it. Our politicians seem out of touch and to have lost control. This could be because this virus is striking communities they don't understand. Unless you have a certain cultural capital you don't know how to survive. Middle classes either obey the rules or know how far to push them. They sit in their gardens or go for walks/runs in the wide semi rural areas they live in. Or if they are city dwellers they have fairly spacious accommodation, self isolating is easy in such an environment. Sociologists have long stated that working class under achievement in GCSEs is often down to the living environment of the pupil. Small housing with lots of people living in it. hardly conducive to learning. Also not ideal for self isolation.

In supermarkets we see people heavily masked up, avoiding those who aren't. This is fear rather than anger. But the fear comes from the same place as the anger. The masks are something I'd like to address in another piece.

Of course there is love out there in This as well. people cheered again tonight for the NHS. We let the children stay up. people clapped, banged saucepans and fireworks and horns were let off. There is huge love for the NHS. Today the BBC music radio stations combined to get the British public to sing for delivery workers. Social media is full of fund raising and games and challenges. This could also be put at the place of a lack of leadership and authority. Pulling together despite the lack of these things. Rallying around totems which help us make sense of This.

We now enter at least another three weeks. Perhaps more. Sociologists are watching us and making sense of This.

Observation - at Morrison's last week a security guard asked a man to respect the social distance in the queue to get into the supermarket. He said he didn't have the virus. The security guard said that he didn't know that for sure. He replied "they are only getting it in London."

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.