Discoveries

Go Riot?

During the last two presidential elections, Sarah Sobieraj reports in Social Problems (November 2010), activists trained themselves to be “media-friendly.” That is, they worked to be quotable, credible, and controlled, assuming a professional approach would be better PR than sensationalist activism. Ironically, though, these attempts to conform to the norms of journalism were not particularly effective—the media savvy activists were, well, no longer “news worthy.” Sobieraj explains that journalists expect this sort of glossy, rehearsed behavior from candidates and campaign staff, but from activists they’d rather see authenticity, emotion, and spontaneity—maybe a little unpredictability.

Sobieraj’s interviews with activists and journalists reveled that media coverage of political outsiders is governed by a set of rules opposite those of routine news-making. Staged or controlled activism isn’t deemed interesting or “real” enough to make the five o’clock highlights. One reporter said, “So, I suppose one option, although I’m not saying this is a good way to do things, is to just go break stuff. You know, go riot. If people riot, we’ll pay attention.” An activist pointed out, “It’s very sad really, that in order for the disenfranchised to get press they have to break the law.”

In the end, if activists and their work don’t make the news cut, it may not be because they can’t conform to the rules, but because they are following the wrong rules. S.L.

A Fall Guy on the Stand

A corporation mired in scandal has a couple of options, neither particularly attractive: go to court and risk the public airing of dirty laundry, or settle out of court for a hefty sum. Mike Benediktsson (Social Forces, July 2010) analyzed six large-scale scandals between 2001 and 2002, and found that most corporations picked option C: blame individual “bad apples” for the crime.

After news of the Enron scandal broke, for example, photos of then-CEO Kenneth Lay were prominently displayed in virtually all media stories on the company. Benediktsson suggests that responses like these are intentional corporate decisions to put a face on the crime, diverting public attention from the corporation itself.

Leaving individuals to fend for themselves protects the company’s reputation and saves thousands, if not millions, of dollars in legal fees and other services. Another case in point: the 2001 Xerox scandal, which thrust six executives into the limelight and concluded with a $10 million settlement from the company and an astounding $22 million settlement from the six “fall guys.”

This practice is supported, too, by the media’s preference for a face and back-story to courtroom dramas. After all, legal proceedings are less exciting for newspaper editors (and their readers) when the plaintiff on the stand is some faceless corporation. So, though most companies—at least in the U.S.—emphasize the importance of being a team player, it’s every man for himself in a scandal. C.W.

Gigolos and Gigabytes

In contrast with female-male prostitution, little is known about gay male escorts and their sexual transactions.

Pulling data from the largest, most geographically diverse website for gay male escorts in the U.S., Trevon D. Logan (American Sociological Review, October 2010) observes how escorts present themselves in online profiles, examining the men’s physical attributes, sexual behaviors, and advertised rates. Escorts’ online self-presentations suggest that gay men seeking sex prize traditionally masculine behaviors and sexual roles, so those escorts who conform to stereotypically macho behavior will end up with significantly higher incomes.

Logan’s findings strongly support traditional understandings of dominant masculinity and provide a provocative counterpoint to claims that gay men don’t value masculinity. K.H.

Happiness Is a Warm Pew

So, bowling alone is problematic, but what about praying alone? Chaeyoon Lim and Robert Putnam (American Sociological Review, December 2010) use a nationally representative survey to reaffirm earlier research that going to church leads to greater happiness. But unlike other studies, Lim and Putnam find it’s not the connection with God that matters, it’s connecting with other people who share the same beliefs.

Lim and Putnam looked at responses from nearly 2,000 Americans in 2006 and 2007 to see how changes in religious attendance and number of congregational friends affect life satisfaction. They also analyzed whether involvement and friendships in non-religious contexts made a difference.

The results confirm that people who attend religious services more frequently—whether Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, or Jewish—feel more satisfied with life. But it’s not so much the religious experience itself that is key. The reason church-goers are so happy is that they build friendships with like-minded believers. What’s more, these friendships do more to enhance life satisfaction than friendships in other, non-religious contexts. As Lim and Putnam put it, “For life satisfaction, praying together seems to be better than either bowling together or praying alone.” S.S.

Low Risk, High Anxiety

Genetic screening of newborns aims to identify disease before the onset of symptoms, but as Stefan Timmermans and Mara Buchbinder report in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior (December 2010), ambiguity surrounding inconclusive results complicates the benefits of testing. When faced with uncertain diagnostics, families endure further testing, waiting, and mixed messages, living from weeks to years in a liminal state between sickness and health.

During two years of ethnographic research at a California genetics clinic, Timmermans and Buchbinder identified some significant social consequences of the broad-spectrum technology used to signal genetic red flags. False positives are common, but physicians and parents still feel compelled to act in response to equivocal results. Geneticists work to maintain mixed messages, balancing the seriousness of the potential condition with the likelihood of testing error, while parents prepare for the worst case scenario, implementing precautionary measures that restructure their daily routines—from altering the child’s diet and sleep patterns to foregoing career opportunities in order to care for their maybe-sick child. Even after geneticists conclude that a patient is likely fine, parents remain gripped by the fear that a common cough may signal a serious illness, making it difficult, if not impossible, for parents to relax vigilance. And doctors support this by urging routine check-ups... just in case.

So, while the medical upshot may be huge for the one percent of patients who are definitively diagnosed with a disorder, the technology is also a source of nebulous, but terrifying, anxiety for the vast majority of patients and families left in limbo. S.M.

Facebook Sociology

Facebook isn’t just for writing on friends’ walls, poking people, and posting pictures: social scientists are using it as an innovative research tool. Andreas Wimmer and Kevin Lewis (American Journal of Sociology, September 2010), for instance, used the site to study the impact of factors like race and ethnicity on college students’ friendships.

Usually, network formation is studied using self-reported survey data, which often overreports interracial ties. To get beyond this weakness, Wimmer and Lewis tracked the Facebook profiles of freshman students at a large American university.

For authors like these, Facebook is a treasure trove of sociological data. Going beyond self-reporting, social scientists can actually observe how networks take shape over time. Wimmer and Lewis’s study tracked pictures students posted of themselves and others and found that geography of dorms influenced friendship formation. The social networking site also provided data on many other aspects that could influence friendships, like region of origin, high school, and interests.

Guess we can add sociological research to the list of things you can do on social media. There’s probably an app for that. H.N.

Crimequakes

Could seismographic graffiti help predict more seismographic graffiti?

If your neighbor’s house is burglarized, yours might be next in line. That’s because some crimes, such as burglary and gang violence, tend to happen close to each other in both time and space. In recent years, police departments have used a method called crime-mapping to document clusters and deploy surveillance to the latest “hot spots.”

But George Mohler, Martin Short, P. Jeffrey Brantingham, Frederic Schoenberg, and George Tita (Journal of the American Statistical Association, forthcoming) have found a new way to anticipate crimes: seismological models that predict aftershocks from earthquakes.

In an analysis of burglaries in one Los Angeles neighborhood during 2004 and 2005, Mohler and his colleagues observed that initial break-ins led to spikes in nearby burglaries (“aftershocks”) within a few hundred meters and a few days of the first event. In other words, areas around the first burglary are at heightened risk for further break-ins, but this risk fades over time and distance.

The researchers compared their predictive method against retrospective crime-mapping (the traditional method) to see which best anticipated future crime. The seismological models did a better job than “hot spots” maps in all cases. This enhanced ability to predict crime might not prevent the first “quake,” but it could help police departments better anticipate the tremors that follow. S.S.

Masculinity, Movements, and Mute Miners

Environmental justice movements, which seek to help those who live, work, and play in polluted areas, have long been dominated by women. In Gender & Society (December 2010), Shannon Bell and Yvonne Braun try to get at how Appalachia’s traditional gender roles have led to women’s activism and men’s silence there.

The authors spent three years conducting interviews and participating in environmental protests in the heart of Central Appalachia’s coal-mining country—an area where economic and environmental interests often stand in direct opposition. Paradoxically, they found that the area’s normative gender expectations made these protests socially acceptable for women but not men.

Because the focus of their activism was on keeping the community’s children safe, it was seen by many locals as a natural result of a mother’s instincts—essentially, it was apolitical. In contrast, to be a man in Appalachia is to be a miner. And to be a miner is to work in dangerous conditions with nary a complaint. Now, as the mining industry mechanizes, there are fewer jobs, unions are weaker, pay is lower, and environmental damage is more severe. Yet rather than joining the protests, the men’s grip on their coal mining identity has become even tighter and more desperately silent. For these men, speaking out would mean working against the old boys club that once defined them.

The Appalachian tale provides an important lesson. To successfully mobilize the masses, even in an extreme case where the environment is destroyed and jobs are disappearing rapidly, a social movement must connect with preexisting identities. Gender roles, in particular, can be deeply entrenched and play out in unexpected, sometimes seemingly self-defeating ways. In this case, the masculine miners remain mute in a moment when their voices would be most important. K.G.

Rethinking Florida

Could a cutting edge contemporary art gallery or a vibrant gay scene boost a city’s economic prosperity? Richard Florida’s well-known theories about creative classes say yes. But using empirical data from dozens of German cities, Stefan Krätke (International Journal of Urban and Regional Planning, December 2010) challenges this “creative class” theory.

Essentially, Krätke thinks Florida lumps together apples and oranges when he pulls a broad array of professionals, from physicists to artists to finance brokers, into his “creative class.” Instead, Krätke believes there are separate “creative” and “dealer” classes, and it’s the latter that drives a city’s overall prosperity.

Insofar as the economy is knowledge-driven and innovation-based, scientific and technological creativity do indeed contribute to economic development. For Krätke, though, activities like mediation, brokerage work, and speculative finance do not create or apply knowledge, and therefore cannot be said to drive economic success. In a very real way, this new research reminds us that scientifically and technologically driven sectors employ both skilled blue collar and creative white collar workers. Policies implemented to craft solely creative cities not only draw from dubious research, but they change the ideological landscape by skewing how we value different occupations. S.E.

Hate Housework? Get Rich

While most studies on housework disparities focus on traditional gender roles in the U.S., a new study by Jan Paul Heisig (American Sociological Review, February 2011) examines the relationship between household income and housework time across countries.

Heisig studied 33 countries and found that lower-income men and women spend more time on housework than their higher-income counterparts. These differences were even greater for women and were influenced by economic development and country-levels of inequality. Differences between rich and poor women were smaller in more economically developed countries, where even low-income households had access to domestic appliances. Differences were greater where overall economic inequality was high, which likely reflects that higher-income households outsourced larger portions of their domestic work. Unlike tradable goods like dishwashers and vacuums, the costs of employing paid help are strongly linked to the general wage structure.

According to Heisig, these “findings remind us that gender inequalities are often conditioned by economic ones.” H.N.

CSI: Nebraska

Critics argue our over-exposure to crime TV is to blame for our inflated American perceptions of crime. Lisa Kort-Butler and Kelley Sittner Hartshorn (Sociological Quarterly, Winter 2011) recently discovered that crime dramas aren’t all viewed the same way. Viewers of shows like Law and Order aren’t actually more afraid of victimization; it’s those who tune in to nonfictional shows, like A&E’s The First 48, who are inordinately impacted.

Lock the doors—it’s primetime.

The authors point out several possible reasons for the disparity: for one, their survey is of Nebraska residents, and crime documentaries are often set in rural areas while crime dramas are played out in urban settings. But what they really think is driving differences in perceived crime rates and faith in the system is the pseudo-authenticity of crime documentaries. Dramatized programs disguised as in-depth reporting provide concrete information about criminal events. They contribute to the notion that crime in the U.S. is out of control. Moreover, non-fictional shows depict the challenges of dealing with crime, sometimes even leaving crimes unsolved while the detectives on CSI get their man. Set within a media format that amplifies fear for dramatic effect, these “reality” crime shows leave people more nervous than ever. S.L.

For The Revolution Yet to Come

Throughout early 2011, massive social uprisings took place in one Middle Eastern country after another in the Middle East. Yet puzzling questions remain with regards to the nature of these mobilizations, which looked to many outside observers as though they sprang into being spontaneously, almost magically.

Day 16 of the Egyptian Revolution

In a timely article, published just a few days before the revolution in Egypt broke out, Hazem Kandil provides some important insights (Theory and Society, January 2011). Kandil differentiates between two strategies of revolutionary takeover: a violent confrontation with the state versus a culture-based strategy that aims to capture the intellectual and moral high-ground within the civil society. The latter strategy—what we might call the “battle for hearts and minds”—took center stage in Muslim Brotherhood’s post-1980 politics.

Kandil assesses the Brotherhood’s use of education facilities, distribution of welfare allowances, and penetration into professional syndicates and the media. He suggests that over a number of years, the group managed to undermine the state’s social legitimacy and replace it with their own. Still, successes in the cultural realm had not crystallized into a political force strong enough to topple the state. Kandil believes this is because the modern state holds the monopoly on coercion—it can retain power even without social and cultural leadership, and the avoidance of direct confrontation dampens movements’ political agility over time.

These days, as many wonder whether the Brotherhood will hijack revolutionary energy and eventually snatch power in Egypt, Kandil’s discussion provides much-needed perspective. S.E.

Too Poor to Go Broke

Since the current American recession began in 2007, bankruptcy courts have been inundated by unprecedented caseloads. Who’s filing? It’s not who you might imagine.

Laura McCloud and Rachel Dwyer (The Sociological Quarterly, Winter 2011) analyzed bankruptcy records and found that the middle class is 2.4 times more likely to file for bankruptcy compared to lower income groups. Even more surprisingly, the upper class is also more likely to declare bankruptcy.

The authors claim that poor families are much less likely to seek debt relief through bankruptcy because they often cannot afford to pay the necessary legal fees. In addition, since the middle- and upper-class families are typically extended more credit than low income families, they are also more likely to use debt (say, by using a credit card) when faced with exorbitant medical bills, loss of income through unemployment, or the loss of a spouse.

These findings illustrate how bankruptcy laws are yet another way class inequalities are reproduced in contemporary American society. Since most poor families are unable to afford bankruptcy, they are perpetually saddled with debt (plus accruing interest) that they have little hope of paying off. C.W.

African, Not Black

Because of their skin color, native-born African Americans and African immigrants are generally lumped together. But upon arrival, African immigrants quickly learn that African Americans are at the bottom of the social hierarchy in the U.S. and strive to separate themselves from African Americans—even when, as recent research shows, these distinctions are contradictory or further marginalizing.

For example, using participant observation in a California community, Hana E. Brown (Social Problems, February 2011) recently found that Liberian refugees hold very negative opinions about African Americans. Despite the fact that the refugees in her study live in the same impoverished communities and visit the same welfare offices as many African Americans, they see African Americans’ use of the welfare system as “lazy and selfish.” In contrast, the Liberians’ own use of the welfare system is justified because of their refugee status. After all, the thinking goes, the government brought them here and is responsible for their care.

Katja M. Guenther, Sadie Pendaz, and Fortunata Songora Makene (Sociological Forum, March 2011) cite another example of an attempt to distinguish among Eastern African immigrants in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. These new Americans use ethnic differences to disassociate themselves from African Americans in their community, believing that African Americans are morally and culturally inferior to them. Tellingly, they even use their Muslim religious identity as a differentiator between themselves and native-born blacks, despite the risk of additional social stigma that professing a Muslim faith might bring.

Only time will tell if these attempts to differentiate and distinguish hold for second generation African immigrants. K.H.

Earning the Gender Badge

Each year, nearly five million American children don their tan and green Scout uniforms. Kathleen E. Denny’s recent study in Gender & Society shows that along with earning badges and honor, Boy and Girl Scouts are trained to meet the organization’s vision of proper men and women.

This vision not only includes emphasis on traditional gender roles, but also, surprisingly, critical thinking and creativity for the girls and discipline and obedience in the boys.

Denny compared the messages contained in the respective groups’ handbooks and the activities around badge collection. She found that the boys’ thick, squat handbook still reflects the Boy Scouts’ original emphasis, demanding individual tasks and memorized information. In contrast, the girls’ brightly illustrated handbook encourages working in groups, solving problems creatively, and doing one’s best. While the boys learn facts about why we have a government, girls are encouraged to design their own. Most interestingly, Girl Scouts are even taught to engage in protests and defend their beliefs. It seems that the Scouts’ version of the “modern woman” is smart, creative, and ready for marriage and motherhood (well, once she’s earned the “Looking your Best” and “Caring for Children” badges).

Through Denny’s study we get a glimpse of how two popular organizations conceptualize, and help realize, their image of the ideal man and woman. It’s a good reminder that boys will be boys and girls will be girls—it just takes separate handbooks and years of training. K.G.