The document discusses two topics: whether social deprivation causes crime and the impact of social media on culture. For the first topic, it presents arguments that social deprivation can lead to crime due to lack of opportunities and education, but also acknowledges evidence against a direct link. For social media, it is argued that while it enables political organization and sharing of information, it also facilitates cyberbullying and criminal activities. Both sides of the debates are presented, along with sociological perspectives and examples.
2. Topic 1 : Does social deprivation
cause crime?
What you would learn:
What is social deprivation.
How it could affect people and cause them to turn to crime.
The different theorists who agree and disagree.
Statistics on the crime rate for those who are socially deprived.
Whether it is social deprivation of emotional deprivation that causes people to commit crime.
Debate:
For:
•People who are socially deprived are more likely to turn to crime in order to satisfy basic living necessities
•We acquire knowledge of what is right and wrong through education
•People feel crime is the only way for their frustrations to be heard
Against:
•Some of the biggest crimes that affect society are committed by huge multinational companies or wealthy
individuals
•As we live in a consumerist society the primary cause of crime is greed or desperation to ‘fit in’
3. For:
Sociologists:
Left Realists –
Left realists acknowledge that relative deprivation can occur at any socioeconomic
level, but that the social structure has left youths in the bottom tier of society without
jobs and without hope for improving their situations.
They form subcultures with other disenfranchised young people in their areas, and
those subcultures may support delinquent and criminal behaviour.
James -
When greater affluence is combined with growing inequality and the rise of what has
been called a winner/loser culture, crime has climbed even more steeply.
Source: Sociological Theories of Criminal Behavior I: The Social-Structural Approach
4. Comparing the level of deprivation with the level of
crime.
Measuring the level of relative deprivation in
the boroughs within London.
From this we can see that the crime rate is
higher in the more deprived areas and lower in
the less deprived.
Source for table http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/about/an-
overview-of-londons-borough/
Source for crime rate
:http://maps.met.police.uk/access.php?area=MPS&sort=rate&order=a
5. Against:
Sociologists:
Lea and Young – poverty or unemployment do not directly cause crime, as despite the high
employment experienced in the economic depression in Britain from the late 1920’s to the
1930’s, crime rates were considerably lower than they were in the boom years of the 1980’s.
Other explanations
Albert Cohen, Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin:
They viewed the most serious and pervasive forms of crime and delinquency as generated
by a combination of complex experiences born of relative deprivation in a highly competitive,
increasingly fragmented social order.
Source – British Society of Criminology
6. Topic 2: The impact of social media
on culture.
What you would learn:
• The diversity and development of social media
• The impact social media has already had.
• The negative and positive effects
• How it has created a global culture.
• Social networking sites (Facebook, YoutTube, Twitter, Tumblr)
Debate:
• Whether social media has had a positive or negative affect on society and culture.
• What are the affects it has already had.
• Could it change the way in which we interact and communicate with each other even
more than it already has.
• Will its impact grow.
• Is there anything we can do stop it ?
7. What is social media?
Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information
and ideas in virtual communities and networks.
A social networking service is a platform to build social networks or social relations among people who, for example,
share interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections.
Examples of social
media:
Users upload their own stories a chapter at
a time.
A social networking site.Photo and video sharing site.
A social networking siteA Video sharing site A blogging + social
networking site
Social networking service
8. Pros
Pros: How? Examples:
Social media facilitates political
change.
Social networking sites give social
movements a quick, no-cost method
to organize, disseminate information,
and mobilize people.
The 2011 Egyptian uprising (part of
the Arab Spring), organized largely
via social media, motivated tens of
thousands of protestors for
eighteen days of demonstrations
and, ultimately led to the
resignation of Egyptian President
Mubarak on Feb. 11, 2011.
Social media sites empower
individuals to make social
change and do social good on a
community level.
Social media allows us to be
connected, thus allowing us to share
problems, ideas and communicate
with others to fix these problems.
Nine-year old Scottish student,
Martha Payne, and her blog,
"Never Seconds," and the
formation of "Friends of Never
Seconds" charity to feed children
globally.
Social networking provides
academic research to a wider
audience, allowing many people
access to previously unavailable
educational resources
We are now able to access a variety
of educational resources and
information online making it easier to
do research.
Photos, videos, books, essays,
revision resources, the ability to
contact others.
Social networking sites spread
information faster than any other
media.
Over 50% of people learn about
breaking news on social media. 65%
of traditional media reporters and
editors use sites like Facebook and
LinkedIn for story research, and 52%
use Twitter.
Source: http://socialnetworking.procon.org/
9. Cons:
Cons: How? Examples:
Criminals use social media
to commit and promote
crimes.
Gangs use the sites to recruit younger
members, coordinate violent crimes, and
threaten other gangs.
For example during the London
riots.
Social networking sites
facilitate cyber bullying.
It allows everyone to communicate with
each other meaning that people can
message you privately/publically.
49.5% of students reported being
the victims of bullying online and
33.7% reported committing
bullying behaviour online.
Children may endanger
themselves by not
understanding the public
and viral nature of social
networking sites.
Children might upload statuses/pictures
which can be traced back to them. Also,
as they are so young children are
ignorant to what happens on social
networking sites and what could possibly
happen if you put out too much
ibnformation.
Up to 600 Dutch riot police had to
be called in to break up a teen's
birthday party to which about
30,000 people were accidentally
invited after a Facebook post
thought to be private went viral
(quickly moving on to Twitter and
YouTube as well).
As a result, at least three people
were hurt and 20 people were
arrested for vandalism, looting,
setting cars on fire, and damaging
lampposts.
