Deviance From A Sociological Perspective Essay

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In sociology there are several ways to look at deviance from a sociological perspective. The forms in which sociologist look at deviance are structural functionalism, symbolic interaction, and social conflict. While analyzing the story of the Halligan family in the video of Growing Up Online, all three perspective can be looked up upon.
The video gives real life threatening scenarios that teenagers have gone through. All the stories presented the “dark side” of the internet; however, the most dramatic story was the Halligan’s family story. Ryan Halligan decided to commit suicide after years of bullying and cyberbullying. Taking the Halligan family's story and looking at it through a sociological lens, we can see that the theoretical perspective that is presented is the symbolic interactionism.The symbolic interactionism is the meaning of an action that can change in society. This also means that in society, different type of groups have different views and meanings for the same object/ action. While Ryan was in school, he would get bullied by other …show more content…

The functionalist perspective consist of institutions and social facts. The institutions are the structures that meet the needs for society: such as hospitals, businesses and police forces. Social facts are ways of thinking and acting, which were formed before individuals in society existed. An example of social currents is suicide. Functionalism tries to level both the social facts and institution which depend on each other. This causes for society to evolve by population growth. As the population grows, people in society become interdependent on each other, and move up in society. As Ryan's father did after he found all the evidence that lead his son to commit suicide. He saw the importance in the situation to announce to the other families to try to resolve the issue of suicide in the teeneage

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