by P Threlfall The US presidential campaign has been played like Las Vegas poker tournament. Between both campaigns, the race card, gender card, class card, and fear cards are strategically played with what Boudon referred to as “perverse effects.” Most would hope that tremendous progress would be promised from a campaign that does not consist of four upper class white men, but it seems that it has only served to unveil the deep seated classism, racism, and sexism that...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoDbO3NeTj4] (by linanne10) Race has long time been a crucial issue for the American society. The representation of people of color is especially tricky in the media, where the mainstream discourses are produced and reproduced largely by and for the white community. The recent debut of the comedy, “Chocolate News,” unrolls with the idea of creating a black sitcom “by and for” the African-American community. The French theorist, Michel Foucault, has noted the relationship between power and the production of...
by P Threlfall The questions raised from the sudden rise of Sarah Palin to political prominence has forced many, who consider themselves feminist, to re-examine the definition of feminist and construct some baseline idea of what constitutes carrying the moniker. This isn’t a new struggle, but it’s one that has primarily been confined to the halls of Women’s Studies departments and the pages of social journals for many years. Enter Palin and all bets are off. Suddenly feminists are forced...
by ishein1 After the complications arising from the 2000 election the Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002. States in an attempt to follow the guidelines of this act have found themselves in a precarious position. The provisions have created the unintended consequences of tens of thousands of potential voters being purged from voting rolls in nine states, six of which are key battleground swing states. As a result, federal law has been violated in two ways: voters have...
by Nickie Wild Russia’s parliament recently moved to ban the American television shows “South Park,” “Family Guy,” and “The Simpsons,” alleging that they sent negative messages to the country’s children. Russian cartoon network 2×2, which airs the programs, had its license up for renewal, and the Kremlin was not intending to grant it. Besides general accusations of moral depravity, the government particularly objected to the “South Park” episode Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics, in which a piece of human waste comes...
by rbobbitt Racism takes many forms, constantly shifting in expression in order to brace against the ever widening borders of contact between foreign cultures and ethnicities. Race has once again taken the spotlight as the contest for the US presidential election hosts the first African American presidential candidate and the country collectively examines how much race plays a role in the mind of its citizens. Religious bigotry has also played a role as whisper campaigns spread word of Obama’s...
by delawaregrad Mass tourism encompasses the consumption of large quantities of branded goods including souvenirs and food and drink. This idea of mass consumption is most notably seen during large international sporting events where a type of “global village” is produced in which people world-wide watch multiple sporting events. According to Roche (2006), these global media events illustrate elements of ‘basic globalization’ where events promote universal values and provide cultural standards (spread of a consumer culture of the sport and...
by socmatters The customary “would you like rolls with your dinner?” takes on a whole new meaning when considering the various ways in which gender roles may complicate the dining experience. Traditional gender role expectations have long influenced the behaviors of servers in restaurants. Although many of the most outdated gender-based customs may have disappeared (e.g., providing menus without prices to females, insisting on separate uniforms for female servers), a recent article in the New York Times insists that they...
by nmccoy1 Fashion has pitched itself as an ‘art,’ as a reflection of society and current issues (see article below). But fashion, like other centers of commerce, is planned in advance for the purpose of profit. This spring’s fashion collections do not, or rather, could not be symbolic of the current financial crisis simply because they were envisioned months if not years ago. Habermas illustrates the ways in which this use of fashion is problematic. First, conceived of as an...
by PlantingSeedsFromUA In the past decade we have heard of various school shootings throughout the United States. A search on the internet using “school shootings” as the keywords produces over one million hits. The rise in school violence, or the appearance of, has contributed to the increased interest in the sociological investigation of the violence that takes place in schools. Research has supported the correlation between school violence and bullying. In recent news, a 14 year old boy...
by bmckernan A recent NY Times article examines the blurring of literature and videogames by looking at efforts made by book publishers to promote their books with corresponding videogames. One such example, the popular series The Software, includes a videogame companion that forces players to read the corresponding books in order to find clues necessary to progress in the game. While some may criticize videogames as a shallow medium relative to literature, others suggest that videogames may actually help develop...
by dsantore Another American presidential election brings with it familiar debates – arguments about idealism vs. pragmatism, the liberal media bias vs. the conservative media bias, values vs. issues, style vs. substance. It calls to mind a line of discussion carried over the past several months by a couple of the thinkers-that-be at the New York Times. Judith Warner and Stanley Fish, each of whom write regular opinion pieces for the Times’ website, have been pursuing the question of whether...
By rbobbitt Abortion remains a hotly contested subject within society, and with the election looming high, the pro-choice/pro-life divide continues to provide a means of voting allocations. A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute (see article below), a nonprofit reproductive health research organization, brings a new dynamic into the abortion debate. The Institutes comprehensive examination of abortion reveals that during the past thirty years, abortion rates have dropped among teenage whites and risen among women of color in their 20’s...
by NickieWild With campus binge drinking on the rise, advocates on opposing sides of this issue are using health and safety study data to support their positions. Last July, the non-profit organization Choose Responsibly launched the Amethyst Initiative, a coalition of Unites State college presidents who want to start a serious debate about lowering the drinking age in an effort to curb binge drinking on campus. Citing the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the group argues that the...
by theoryforthemasses Classical sociologists, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim, all suggested that as societies modernized, religion would begin to lose its influence on individuals and become more of a personal choice than a public mode of cohesion and control. This secularization thesis is exemplified by Dubai, a place where Islam has converged with contemporary material luxuries, consumerism, and new notions of religious identity. The secularization of Islam here is obvious as young and middle-aged Muslims, many of whom...
by bmckernan With the American fall television season upon us, a recent NY Times article examines the underlying class distinctions found in some of this season’s newest programs. After surveying the offerings, it appears that the days of the middle-class sentimentality of such programs as The Cosby Show are a thing of the past. The article suggests that rather than focusing on supposed middle-class families, television shows today are often mainly interested in the conflicts between members of the upper-class....
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