Black Mirror is an original Netflix television show that depicts a futuristic society heavily reliant on technology. There is a plot altering twist in every episode, which keeps people’s attention. The most interesting part of this series is the fact that every episode is completely different. There is a different storyline in every episode, yet they all connect on the big topic of technology in society. In various episodes, the sociological concepts of conformity, gender, socialization, and deviance are covered. Conformity is a key concept in many episodes of Black Mirror, but one of the most clear is an episode called “Nosedive”. Conformity is defined by Dictionary.com as an “action in accord with prevailing social standards, attitudes, …show more content…
The last sociological concept present in Black Mirror is deviance. Like a lot of other shows and movies, there is obviously a lot of deviance. In the episode titled “Shut Up and Dance”, a boy’s webcam camera is hacked while he is in his room. He ends up watching pornography while the webcam is rolling. We can all infer what comes next… The person who hacked the boy’s computer threatens to leak the video, which makes this boy do anything the hacker says. The hacker makes the boy do a whole bunch of things. Everything the boy does displays deviance. The different things the boy is forced to do end up escalating to robbing a bank and fighting someone to the death. It goes without saying that these are all forms of deviance. The worst part is the fact that the twist at the end is the boy ending up completing all of these acts of deviance for the hacker to still leak the video. That’s not even the hardest part. The watcher comes to find out the boy was actually watching child pornography, which is the reason the hacker made him go through hell to end up getting screwed over in the end anyways. Deviance was a key part of this episode of Black Mirror, which helped drive along the plot of the episode and make everything a lot more
With that being said, there’s a lot of disorganization in the society which increases the level of deviance occurring. The acts of deviant people challenge the boundaries of society and can eventually spread unto the masses, changing those boundaries. Deviance helps us affirm and define our own norms.
Deviance is described as “the recognized violation of cultural norms”(Macionis 238). While deviance can include crime, it is not always such. Deviance can mean trying to sneak into a hospital room, desperately searching for someone like the character of Benny in the movie Benny and Joon. Or it could be preforming on the streets for people to watch. Deviance isn’t always a criminal act. The movie Benny and Joon gave several examples of deviant behavior portrayed by the three main characters, Benny, Joon, and Sam.
...ightened by Erikson’s arguments. It is not often that I hear a sociological theory and think “AH HA! I get it.” But in this case I felt as though I could have a very clear understanding of what he was trying to say. However, although the evidence of deviance through our history as humans really does go to show that deviancy brings us together in a joint force for what we believe to be the common good and morality. Erikson’s evidence of mainly court records is not an adequate basis on determining a theory to explain the nature of society and its relationship with deviancy. I think if he had a true record of how the communities he studies reacted to deviance on every level. So far his study is without official statistics. It is my belief however this study could be more accurate if there were to be data collected on processes were enables to provide alternative data.
Sociologists understand the concept deviance in a variety of ways. It is the result of unsuccessful socialization, the solutions is usually intended to change the mind of the individual, and that order need to remain maintained. Norms determine whether something is deviant or normal. So deviance depends on the social status and power on the person, the social context in which the behavior occurs, and the historical place it takes place in. Deviance is all about violating the day to day norms and is usually considered to be wrong bad, or immoral. It is a process because it just doesn’t happen one day it’s usually happens overtime. For example, its two type of deviants the primary deviance and the secondary deviance. Primary deviance would be
The definition of conformity is the compliance with social standards and laws in a particular culture, environment, society and time. If this occurs the individual changes their attitudes, beliefs or actions to align more holistically with those in the surrounding groups and environment, as a result of real or perceived group pressure. This is ultimately a direct result of the power which a group has over the individual. There are two types of conformity, normative conformity, and informational conformity. The motivation behind normative conformity is the desire to be liked and accepted in society. This is most widely known as peer pressure. For example, a student begins smoking because their peers
One of the sociological theories is conflict theory. The conflict theory deals with people's level on wealth, or class. The conflict theory says that social change is beneficial, contrary to focuses on social order. In the story of the woman and her children, the conflict theory plays a big role on the situation. Police of higher class are threatening the homeless woman. The conflict theory is a constant struggle of people of higher class over powering people of lower class, or the weaker. The police are trying to over power the woman by telling her to leave. Even though the woman and her children were doing nothing wrong, the police used their power to tell her to leave. Also the people of the area showed their conflict theory by telling the police officers to come. They must have felt embarrassed to have a woman of such lower class to be around them. They used their power of class to have the woman removed from their community. The woman wants to be there because she has no home and it is a good community to be in, but the people look at it as an embarrassment to them because it makes their area look bad for someone of such lower class to be around them. The conflict theory is unique to all other theories because it separates people into categories determined by their wealth and standards. Their status is the element that categorizes them, weather it is class, race, or gender. The conflict theory do not always use class, race, and gender all at once. In this situation race and gender is not a main issue, although gender could be a reason, but it would fall under the feminist theory. This story is mainly dealing with class. Through all this conflict the woman feels over powered and domina...
Deviant behavior is sociologically defined as, when someone departs from the “norms”. Most of the time when someone says deviance they think against the law or acting out in a negative behavior. To sociologists it can be both positive and negative. While most crimes are deviant, they are not always. Norms can be classified into two categories, mores and folkways. Mores are informal rules that are not written; when mores are broken, they can have serious punishments and sanctions. Folkways are informal rules that are just expected to be followed, but have no real repercussions.
Societies are founded on various social norms. Norms can best be defined as a set of acceptable attitudes and practices by a given society. These norms however are found to vary from one society or cultural setting o the other. Deviance on the other hand is simply when one does something that goes against the set societal norms. Deviance is gauged on a scale of attitudes and behavior contradicting to acceptable social standards (Samuels, 2012).
Goode, E 2006, 'IS THE DEVIANCE CONCEPT STILL RELEVANT TO SOCIOLOGY?', Sociological Spectrum, 26, 6, pp. 547-558, SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 June 2014.
Social deviancy is the violation of social norms. A deviant is someone who rejects folkways and mores. Any action that violates the values or rules of a social group is deviant behavior. In order to actually be characterized as a deviant, the individual must be detected committing a deviant act and be stigmatized by society. A stigma is a mark of social disgrace, setting the deviant apart from the group. Criminality is healthy for society. Deviance affirms our cultural values and norms. Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries and brings people together. There will always be people who break society’s rules and that’s important.
Deviance is defined as actions or behaviors that violate socials norms. In turn the concept of deviance is dependent on the social observation and perception. “By it’s very nature, the constructionism through which people define and interpret actions or appearances is always “social.” ”(Henry, 2009 , p. 6) One’s perception of a situation may be completely different from another depending on cultural and social factors. The way someone talks, walks, dresses, and holds themselves are all factors that attribute to how someone perceives another. In some cases what is socially or normally acceptable to one person is deviant in another’s eyes. For this reason there is a lot of gray area involving the topic of deviance because actions and behaviors are so diversely interpreted.
The series, “Black Mirror”, is a British series created by Charlton Brooker which consists of many episodes completely independent one of another. Each episode has its own story, but the point is always the same – to depict variations in a near future transformed by information technology, just a little darker. He uses dark and satirical themes that analyze modern civilization and results of technology progress but to be just barely ahead of its time. On one hand, it belongs to genre science fiction, but not like science fiction where we find aliens or scenarios like post-apocalypse. It is more like a representation of what the world is going to become in a very short time. In the episode “Playtest” from season 3, the main character Cooper
Black Mirror is a critically acclaimed show known for the unique way it portrays technology and its’ harmful effects. One particular episode called “Nosedive” is very interesting because it focuses on social media which is very prominent in society. To properly convey the message of the episode the creator used visual elements, symbolism, and imagery. Visual elements such as, social media and clothing, provides insights into the mind of Lacie who is the main character. The imagery and symbolism illustrated what type the society in which she lived and the principles that is important.
To first understand and study deviant behavior one must have a clear definition of what “deviant” means. Merriam-Webster defines deviant as “departing from some accepted standard of what is normal”. In the sociological study of deviant behavior, there are two distinct schools of thought on why deviant behavior occurs. The first school of thought on deviant behavior is Constructionist, also related to social Determinism. Constructionist is a theory of finding deviant behavior that says deviant behavior is not inherently the same and is defined by the social context. This theory places the cause of deviant behavior on society and the definition of “normal” as to why select behaviors are deemed deviant. The other school of thought is the Positivist
Deviance is the sociological concept of behavior which violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. Functionalists explain deviance as a common part of human existence, interactionist look at everyday behavior to explain deviance, and conflict theorists argue that people with power define deviance.