Ethical Issues In The Federal Government’s Department Of Defense Essay Example for Free

Moral Issues In The Federal Government’s Department Of Defense Essay In the event that there could be anything in the American government that the world has for some time been respecting, it would consistently be its military quality. Other than its innovation, high item principles, its cash, transportation and instructive offices, the world has been gazing toward America on account of its greatness in the field war and fight. It would appear for the remainder of the world that Uncle Sam’s asylum offers a going great life that individuals of various hues race and endeavor to come over. The central issue to dive into is this: â€Å"Is America liberated from debasement and misuse? The response to the inquiry is a major no. In this paper, we will attempt to investigate the moral guidelines of the Federal Government to have a benchmark in our assessment of the moral deviations inside the association. In particular, we will attempt to assess how the Department of Defense experience the procedure of obtainment and will attempt to pinpoint where the defect in such procedure is, coming about to misrepresentation and misuse. This paper has included genuine legal disputes where the Department of Defense was included. Through these procedures, we will have the option to demonstrate that regardless of how amazing the approaches and laws of the Federal Government, the incredible America can't control its whole individuals and keep them from abrogating individual interests and open trust. Toward the finish of this paper, the writer wants to have the perusers persuaded that Federal laws approaches despite everything have imperfections and that ought to be thought about the soonest conceivable all together for the American country and the remainder of the world reestablish its blurring trust and certainty over the individuals behind their security. President George Bush during his term, most likely guaranteeing the general population of their trust towards the legislature, gave a different request that would fill in as rule for exacting consistence of all staff legitimately serving the general population. Official Order 12731 of October 17, 1990, entitled â€Å"Principles of Ethical Conduct for Government Officers and Employees arranges every administration worker to keep away from, forestall and help identify extortion and hold fast to moral guidelines consistently and circumstances. The primary area of the EO12731 gives snappy moral standards which forestall every representative to â€Å"hold money related premiums that contention with the upright execution of duty† and take part in budgetary exchanges utilizing non-open government data or permit the ill-advised utilization of such data to assist any private interest† (segment 101-b and c). Subsections of the request likewise require every worker to act will full trustworthiness in their obligations and above all they are not permitted to utilize open office for private increase. The Federal Government, in view of its laws and approaches, has been direct and clear as to managing its community workers to the correct, moral conduct they should show constantly. So for what reason are there still incalculable cases and allegations that have been contaminating the demeanor of the local officials? What is all the more baffling to know is the way that even in the Department of Defense, numerous workers and the board staff has been demonstrated to be adding to such debasement. The reality of unscrupulous conduct existing in the Federal government isn't only an outside perception but on the other hand is being perceived by those working inside the association. In a public statement gave by the Ethics Resource Center, it worked out that 52% of the Federal representatives know and are observers of at any rate one kind of trouble making among their partners in the earlier year. What is more is that solitary 30% of government laborers studied accept their associations have all around executed morals and consistence programs and that just one out of 10 said there is a solid moral culture in their administrative work environment (ERC 2008). Right around one fourth of open segment representatives recognizes their workplaces as helpful for unfortunate behavior places where there is solid strain to bargain guidelines, where circumstances welcome bad behavior as well as workers individual qualities struggle with the qualities embraced at work (Harned, Patricia refered to in Smith, Ralph 2008). Concerning the reports referenced over, this paper established a connection that there may be something inside the Federal government that pulls in workers to ignore moral contemplations and to incline toward individual interests over open trust. One thing clear thing is cash. The Federal government, despite the fact that have constrained budgetary assets, has presumably been the most fluid wellspring of payoffs for the â€Å"bad apples in the barrel. † It is important that the â€Å"U. S. government is the biggest customer of prime contracts† (Lander, Gerald et. al. 2008). Utilizing this unimportant data, we can plainly reason that there is sufficient cash for the rotten ones close by. Besides, it would be exceptionally simple for us to extricate the way that the cash is all the more pulling in for those inside the obtainment offices. As to government spending, reports state that acquisition contracts have been the quickest developing piece of the optional financial plan. Actually, obtainment spending rose 86%, twice as quick as other optional spending, which rose 43% somewhere in the range of 2000 and 2005. In addition, such spending made out of 40 pennies for each dollar of optional spending (Ibid). The figures are very more than appealing and favorable for the rotten ones to mishandle the trust and specialists vested on them by the general population. In spite of the way that trust is held as the most significant resource of the administration, there is one thing that even the most impressive government can't control: insatiability. It is a human component that the acquirement offices of the administration purposefully or inadvertently endure. The wild actuality of human avarice is even perceived by the Department of Defense. As the representative of the Pentagon, Dan Howard has noticed, The obtaining framework is sound yet there is no framework on the substance of this world that totally hinders the human factor eagerness. What's more, that is the reason we have policing frameworks (The New York Times, June 26, 1988). The trust set by the general population over the Department of Defense keep on blurring as an ever increasing number of instances of misrepresentation documents in court have come about to incalculable feelings. In Philadelphia alone, the examination led at the Defense Personnel Support Center, brought about the arraignment of 28 people and organizations on different extortion charges. Such obtainment exchanges included material and attire industry which have government contracts on garbs, tents, boots for the military. Here then is the opportunity for us to pose these inquiries: What is the reason for having moral principles in the national government? Are these announcements of moral practices for consenting to the SEC necessities? Are the moral guidelines unsound or the issue of maltreatment of intensity and moral abnormality matters of usage defects? Alluding especially to the Department of Defense, it is improbable that these informed individuals missed the mark regarding understanding the moral ideas. Actually, the department’s distribution, Armed Forces Comptroller, the creator perceives the way that their faculty comprehend the idea of morals. The creator even focused on that â€Å"most of them are required to go to some type of obligatory morals training† (Benoit, Diana 2006). The Department of Defense has in certainty sound which they consider as shaping the moral establishment of the Dept of Defense work force. With the end goal of assessment, let us attempt to investigate these then center ideas. The creator focused on that these center ideas â€Å"reflect the gauges and desires for military work force and government representatives all through the organization† (Ibid). The first of the moral ideas is trustworthiness which they characterize as â€Å"being honest and direct, paying little heed to review or rank. Trustworthiness is viewed by the division as a moral idea that goes past being reliable that it urges its workers to don't just what is lawful yet in addition what is correct. Comparative with this, maltreatment of intensity and disloyalty of trust despite everything incorporate acts or endeavors of concealing reality. On the off chance that the Department of Defense work force obviously comprehend this idea, there ought to have been no motivation to stay quiet on issues that includes seeing moral abnormality inside the association. The moral idea of genuineness goes past the issues of real tax evasion. It envelops keeping exact records and finishing errands to the degree of one’s limit and capacity. This implies going to the workplace late, going out right on time; taking breaks more than the admissible time are types of cheating and accordingly are untrustworthy practices. Bamboozling the citizens could likewise mean utilizing office supplies for individual exercises or sumptuous utilization of such assets. Is disappointing that this idea is being ignored by high positioning representatives of the division at a significantly more significant level of double dealing as referenced previously. Basic cheating in record keeping and of using government assets for individual use can be distinguished and be forestalled at the lower level of association. In any case, it would be an alternate thing to realize that cheating is considerably increasingly polished at the more significant level of the board who are relied upon to be the police in the division. Truth be told, the report discharged by the U. S. Branch of Justice (DOJ) during the monetary year finishing September 30, 2005, â€Å"the United States recovered more than $1. billion dollars in settlements and decisions seeking after claims of misrepresentation and in the following financial year, the administration recouped a record aggregate of more than $3. 1 billion in settlements and decisions from cases including cases of fraud† (Lander et. al 2008). Firmly identified with the morals of trustworthiness is the idea of uprightness which the DO

Suicide And Suicidal Behaviours Health And Social Care Essay Free Essays

Reflection Self destruction is a significant reason for mortality around the world. It is a human disaster that represents an expected one million perishes yearly. This means in any event one perish following from implosion like clockwork. We will compose a custom exposition test on Self destruction And Suicidal Behaviors Health And Social Care Essay or then again any comparative theme just for you Request Now The size of the activity is more distant exacerbated by the way that the rate of endeavored implosion is around multiple times more than that of finished implosion. Each demonstration of self destruction impacts on in any event six different people. Self destruction rates have expanded by around 60 % throughout the last 45 mature ages, consequently speaking to a significant open wellbeing load. These rates are horribly underreported all around and many creating states, including Nigeria, do non hold significant records of perishes and their causes. There is shortage of data as regards the frequency of implosion and foolish conduct in Nigeria, with the rejection of a couple of late surveies. A methodical online reappraisal of distributed writing on implosion and foolish conduct in Nigeria was directed and applicable articles explored. This article accounts the improvement of research on implosion and foolish conduct in Nigeria, from secluded investigations during the 1960s to later, e normous scope epidemiological examinations in the last decennary. It more remote high spots the interest for a proficient arrangement of health records with productive confirmation of expires and their causes, and an adjustment in the state ‘s resolution law as to self destruction and self-destructive practices. Journalists Dr. J. O. Abdulmalik Specialist Psychiatrist, Division of Psychiatry, College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Dr. O.O. Ayinde, Senior Registrar, Division of Psychiatry, College Hospital, Ibadan. Alabi Omolabake Oluwadamilola Finishing up Year Medical Student, School of Medicine, College of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Alabi Adeleke Ifeoluwa, Finishing up Year Medical Student, School of Medicine, College of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. All correspondence to: jfutprints @ yahoo.com, labek125 @ yahoo.com Presentation Mental, neurological and substance use upsets make a huge part to the planetary heap of infection ( GBD ) , which is assessed with the inability balanced life mature ages ( DALY ) metric, appointed to every illness/issue. The DALY is the measure of two composite advances: the mature ages lived with disablement ( YLD ) and the mature ages of life lost ( YLL ) because of a predetermined ailment inside the whole populace. Self destruction represented 1.8 % of the whole sickness load as at 1998, yet is anticipated to lift to 2.4 % by the twelvemonth 2020. [ 1 ] Mental and social miracles are normal, and will affect one in each four people at some clasp during their lives. [ 2 ] The World Health Organization ( WHO ) characterizes self destruction as ‘the demonstration of executing oneself, deliberately started and performed by the individual worried in the full perception or viewpoint of its deadly outcome ‘ . [ 3 ] While a few definitions exist, self destruction just methods the knowing demonstration of stoping one ‘s ain life. Self destruction is the third prima reason for expire among juvenile individuals, matured 15 to 44 mature ages, and positions second for youngsters between ages 15 and 19 mature ages old. [ 4 ] These examinations have incited the WHO to go shrewdly engaged with runing to pass on the open health burden and effect of implosion to the going to of authoritiess, policymakers and the masses through the chomp and airing of measurements, and the improvement of precaution plans. It is evaluated that all inclusive, around one million perishes happen from implosion each twelvemonth ; which roughly means one implosion expire at regular intervals. The rate of endeavored implosion is multiple times more typical than finished implosion. It is other than the vast majority of import reason for fierce expire around the world, representing 49 % all things considered. Other significant endorsers of savage expires overall incorporate murder ( 32 % ) ; with battles and wars doing up the remaining 19 % . It ought to be borne in head that the demonstration of executing implosion, is neither an illness nor an obsessive status ; however mental bombshells are regularly seen as related with it, especially melancholy. [ 5 ] Past numbering the Numberss of implosion and self-destructive endeavors in any case, is the oftentimes unfamiliar mental burden from sentiments of blame, distress and torment, which is much of the time experienced by the family unit individuals and close partners of people who submit implosion. Each demonstration of implosion, influences averagely six others, at the extremely negligible. [ 5 ] This effect becomes enhanced, when an implosion happens in an open situation, for example, in a school or workplace. Non-deadly self-destructive thoughts and practices regularly go before fruitful self destruction Acts of the Apostless and ought to be viewed as of import calls for help and intervention, when they happen. They might be characterized into three classs: Self-destructive ideation, which alludes to thoughts of arraigning in conduct, planned for stoping one ‘s life. Self-destructive program, which alludes to the arrangement of a particular strategy and readyings towards stoping his ain life. Self-destructive exertion, which alludes to commitment in possibly self-harmful conduct with some evaluation of expressed reason to expire. Etiology The undermentioned elements have been seen as related with implosion. [ 6 ] Friendly: These incorporate factors, for example, the nonattendance of significant family ties or cultural cooperations which could result in egocentric implosion. Estrangement or a break in the connection between a man and the general public because of cultural or monetary assorted variety may follow in distanced implosion ; while over the top coordinating and submergence into a given society may take to benevolent implosion, apparently for more noteworthy's benefit of that society. Mental: This incorporates hostility and malevolence turned internal against the conscience, as expressed by Sigmund Freud ; overwhelming sentiments of sadness as proposed by Aaron Beck ; and subjective bottleneck of picks as saw by Edward Scheidman among people with foolish tendencies. Organic: Self-dangerous practices have been connected with reduced degrees of 5-hydroxytryptamine in the cardinal sensory system. Posthumous discoveries other than demonstrate low degrees of 5-hydroxytryptamine and some vague changes in the noradrenergic arrangement of implosion casualties. Familial: Suicidal practices may run in families. A positive family unit history of implosion expands the peril both for endeavored and finished implosion. Clinical: Chronic and crippling physical unwellnesss may expand the peril for implosion. Mental miracles other than have a place with this class and speak to the a large portion of import related factors in implosion. Models incorporate melancholy ( related with more than 90 % of occasions ) , intoxicant abuse, character upsets, and schizophrenic issue. Finished implosion is progressively normal in guys ; in any case self destruction endeavors and view self as mischief ( DSH ) are average citizen among females and incorporate Acts of the Apostless of harmful condition, cutting, and terminating. Self destruction is scarcely ever the impact of an individual ground, yet may rather result as an outcome of a numerous elements moving in show to pass on about such a demonstration. These risk factors have been grouped into single, socio-social and situational factors, as portrayed in Table 1. [ 1 ] Table 1: Hazard factors for suicidea?â ° Person Socio-social Situational Mental bombshell Derision of wellbeing looking for conduct Financial difficulties Liquor or medication abuse Absence of dish to social insurance administrations, including mental wellbeing Social losingss and disengagement of significant passionate connections Sadness Social and profound convictions praising implosion as a baronial commercial foundation despite individual difficulties Prepared dish to deadly offices Past implosion exertion Presentation to self-destructive practices, through the media and the impact of other people who have passed on without anyone else obliteration Frightening life occasions Disconnection and lack of cultural help Forceful tendencies Impulsivity History of injury or abuse Intense enthusiastic hurt Major physical or interminable unwellnesss Family ancestry of implosion a? °Modified from the WHO distribution, â€Å" Public health activity for the bar of implosion: a model, WHO ; 2012 † . Worldwide SITUATION AND TRENDS Self destruction rates have expanded by 60 % around the world, in the last 45 mature ages, with an expected planetary rate pace of 16 for every 100,000. [ 7 ] This propensity is going on in spite of the advancements in the affirmation and heading of sorrow and other mental surprises, and the expanded handiness of fresher meds with better and progressively mediocre reactions. The rate of implosion is ordinarily announced as a rate for each 100,000 on a state balance. States, for example, Sri Lanka, Lithuania, Russia and Belarus which record at least 30 expires per 100,000 are delegated high rate states. States with Numberss runing from 10 to 29 for every 100,000, for example, Japan, Hungary, and China have in the middle of rates ; while those states with less than 10 self destruction expires per 100,000 ( for example Syria, Jamaica, Egypt ) are delegated low rate states. [ 7 ] In any case, these rates may truly be misleading as they do non pass on the genuine degree of the activity. For representation, China has a self destruction pace of around 25/100,000, which places it in the in the middle of degree yet it represents the biggest figure of human expires from self-dest

How to Respond After You Hurt Your Spouse

How to Respond After You Hurt Your Spouse Relationships Spouses & Partners Marital Problems Print How to Respond After You Hurt Your Spouse By Sheri Stritof Sheri Stritof has written about marriage and relationships for 20 years. Shes the co-author of The Everything Great Marriage Book. Learn about our editorial policy Sheri Stritof Medically reviewed by Medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD on February 01, 2020 facebook twitter linkedin Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.   Learn about our Medical Review Board Carly Snyder, MD on February 01, 2020 Verywell / JR Bee More in Relationships Spouses & Partners Marital Problems LGBTQ Violence and Abuse Face it. There are times when your spouse will be upset. Maybe your spouse will be upset with you. Maybe your spouse will be upset with someone or something that has nothing to do with you. Studies have indicated that couples need to adjust their communication to the contextual demands they are facing in order to turn conflict into a catalyst for building healthier and happier relationships.?? In short, sometimes it is important to be direct and confront an issue head-on, while other times it is better to have a softer approach. The type of response should depend on the situation. ?But there are some basic rules that can enhance communication. You can upset your spouse even more if you do not acknowledge your spouses feelings, if you try a quick fix, or if you downplay the reason your spouse is upset. Your spouse can upset you by being irrational or if he or she crossed certain boundaries or ground rules in your marriage. The next time you are upset with your partner, instead of attacking with angry accusations, take some time to calm down first. When you are feeling peaceful again, you can work together to build a stronger relationship. from  The Marriage Garden Program. Do Acknowledge and accept your spouses feelings Share your feelings Say I love you. Apologize appropriately Listen to try to understand why your spouse is upset Don't Dismiss or minimize your spouses feelings or logic, verbally or through body language Be defensive Say nothing or leave the room Make a sexual advance Try to problem-solve without addressing emotional upset What You Should Not Say Research has indicated that direct opposition can be necessary when serious problems need to be addressed in a marriage and partners are able to change. But opposition can inflict harm when partners are not confident or secure enough to be responsive.?? Here are some examples of phrases that are not helpful: Its not a big deal. Yes, it is a big deal to your spouse. Your spouses feelings and thoughts about the issue do matter.I can make this better for you. Thinking you have the solution to your spouses problem or issue will probably be taken as patronizing. Your spouse may want to understand as opposed to comforting.I had a worse day than you did. The one-upmanship game is not winnable. Dont play it.Whatever.  If you want to come across as being super insensitive, say whatever.  This phrase will guarantee you will have an even more upset spouse.I did not ... Being defensive will only escalate the argument or issue the two of you are dealing with. .... Saying nothing or leaving the room without saying you want a timeout or space for a bit is not a good idea when you have an upset spouse.You dont make sense. Your spouse may have a different take on the situation, but that doesnt mean your spouses concerns arent valid or that your spouse needs a lecture from you.You turn me on when youre an gry. Suggesting that the two of you have sex when you have an upset spouse may be perceived as demeaning and insensitive. How You Should Respond Believe it or not, communication research indicates that a softer more cooperative approach involving affection and validation can be harmful when serious problems need to change. But the approach may be helpful in the face of problems that are minor, cannot be changed, or involve partners whose defensiveness curtails problem-solving.?? Take these steps to help calm and resolve the argument: Acknowledge your awareness that your spouse is upset. Dont ignore the situation or try to make a joke about it.Watch body language. Listening involves more than hearing what your spouse has to say. Noticing the non-verbal communication that you both show can give you more understanding.Avoid the eye roll. Rolling your eyes can escalate the tension between the two of you.Dont just walk away. If you need time to think through the situation or some space for yourself or think your spouse needs some space, say so before leaving the room.Accept your spouses feelings as being okay. You may not like how your spouse feels but you are required to respect those feelings and show empathy.Share your feelings. You can share your thoughts about the problem later. Dont delay in sharing how you feel.Say I love you. Say  the words. Dont elaborate. Just say it.Dont make any big decisions. Its not a good idea to rush into any major decisions while either of you are upset.Know when and how to apologize. A meaningful apology requires more than saying Im sorry. The 6 Best Online Marriage Counseling Programs When Being Upset Crosses the Line It is not acceptable for an upset spouse to be abusive. If you are experiencing verbal abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, or sexual abuse in your marriage, please seek professional help immediately. National Domestic Violence Hotline -- 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

Unit 2 Project Case Study Essay - 666 Words

Case Study Sergeant Robert Christopher Michael Woodruff Kaplan University CJ345 Supervisory Practices in Criminal Justice Professor Greg Ariza March 12, 2013 Case Study Sergeant Robert Christopher This report will be about a case study about Robert Christopher. He is a new supervisor on the night shift. He is having problems with the officer motivation and communication. This report will include information on how he can help to improve the officer’s motivation and the communication between him as the SGT. and the officers that he works with. At the end of this report, you will see what he did to help the officer to get motivated and to have beater communication. Sergeant Welsh should approach the problem of officer motivation†¦show more content†¦In addition, you are never too young or to olds to learn new stuff that will help you out in the field that you are working in and you are never too old to learn new stuff. It will show his officers that he is trying to learn what he can do so he can do the job to the best that he can. SGT. Walsh should interview each officer within the first month after he gets his new assignment. The interview with each officer will be a good then the officers will now that I can do the job. Therefore, he can get to know me and I can get to know them and how they do their job and he can find out what they expect of me and they can find out what SGT. Walsh will expect of them this will be done on a one on one basis. The topics that SGT. Walsh should discuss with each officer on a one on one with each officer is what you think that we can do as a tem to help out in the community that you are working in to help people that live there. The way SGT. Walsh should make this work place meaningful to the officers he will make it fun for them to come back and work and that they will be able to do their best at what they do. References More, H. W., amp; Miller, L. S. (2012). 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Sonny Is A Heroin Addict - 1580 Words

. Since Sonny was a heroin addict for most of his life, his perception of the world is entirely different than that of his brother, which is why he needs alternative methods, such as music, to convey his own reality to others. In a letter to his brother, Sonny has difficulty explaining his situation and expressing what he is feeling in written form. He writes: I can t tell you much about how I got here. I mean I don t know how to tell you. I guess I was afraid of something or I was trying to escape from something (127). Despite being released from prison and breaking free from the physical barriers in his life, Sonny still struggles to break free from a more powerful and influential mental barrier, as he feels trapped within his own†¦show more content†¦As a result, the narrator s lack of understanding creates a barrier in his relationship with his brother, because even though the narrator has witnessed music within his community and has seen how it can be used as a form of ex pression, he does not yet realize the connections that he has with music and other artists within the community. Later in the novel, Sonny and his brother get into a dispute about whether or not there is truly a way to end suffering. The narrator poses a difficult question to Sonny: But there s no way not to suffer- is there Sonny? To which Sonny responds with a smile: I believe not, but that s never stopped anyone from trying (143). Sonny goes on further to emphasize that there no way not to suffer. But you can try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of it...You re just hung up on the way some people try—it s not your way (143). Following this comment, the narrator gives Sonny some insight into his own feelings towards suffering (specifically the suffering that Sonny has endured over the past few years): The hair on [his] face began to itch, [his] face felt wet. That s not true , he said, I just care how you suffer...I don t want to see you—die—trying not to suffer (143). Up until this point, the narrator has not actually shared his ownShow M oreRelatedThe Harlem Jazz Scene Analysis1667 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"In the second major wave of American opiate addiction, heroin was integrated into the new cultural identity of the ‘hipster’ first through the Harlem jazz scene,† (A Social History of American’s Most Popular Drugs). 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Sonnys Blues isnt a story of two brothers living in a rough city; one of whom is a talented musicianRead MoreSonnys Blues - Baldwin Personal Reflection1220 Words   |  5 Pagesreference to his life, his feelings, his style, and most importantly his way of life. This story starts in despair, the main character, Sonny is a drug addict, who is holding on to life, but through music he finds hope. There are many parts of this story, such as Sonny being a recovering heroin addict, or Sonny and his love for music, or the fact that Sonny and his dad are just alike. It was difficult for me to understand the main reasons for this story after reading it once, because I automaticallyRead MoreAnalysis Of James Baldwin s Sonny s Blues 933 Words   |  4 Pagesthe chaos of the world. . Graham Benton expresses â€Å"Although Sonny first tries to relieve his pain by submitting to the mind numbing effects of heroin, he almost simultaneously discovers that playing jazz provides him with a similar kind of escape from his worldly troubles (362).† Sonny finds that Jazz is a much safer pain reliever than heroin and it gives him a way to escape his worldly problems. John M. Reilly states â€Å"in the story of Sonny and his brother an intuition of the m eaning of the Blues repairsRead MoreAddiction And Recovery : Sonny s Blues By James Baldwin Essay946 Words   |  4 Pagesnewspaper of Sonny’s arrest. The fear overwhelmed him as he wondered what was going to happen to Sonny. Would he stay in jail, sent to a rehabilitation center, or just let back on the streets to start drugs again? He also struggled with the feeling of guilt; this could be his fault. Sonny’s brother thinks to himself, â€Å"I had my suspicions, but I didn’t name them. I kept putting them away. I told myself that Sonny was wild, but wasn’t crazy† (Baldwin 123). This is an example of the psychological effect thatRead MoreThe Effects Of Racism In Sonnys Blues By James Baldwin983 Words   |  4 Pages â€Å"Sonny’s Blue†, by James Baldwin, reflects a story of an unidentified narrator and his younger brother Sonny through their fights to overcome suffering and racism in Harlem in 1950s. The setting plays an important role in the story. The time period can be assumed to be an era filled with poverty, drugs and racial tension and Harlem being predominantly African-American. These factors seem to have a role in â€Å"Sonny’s Blue†. In â€Å"Sonnys Blues†, James Baldwin, a narrator, reflects a theme of sufferingRead MoreSonny s Blues : A Story Of A Young Jazz Musician976 Words   |  4 Pages Sonny’s Blues This is a story of a young jazz musician (Sonny) from Harlem, NY who gets addicted to heroin, is arrested for using and selling drugs, and returns to his childhood neighborhood after his release from prison. He moves in with his older brother (the story’s narrator) and his brother’s family. The two brothers sort of reconnect after a very tense few weeks during which both try to deal with their anger towards each other. Drugs are a central part of the story, but it’s also about familyRead More Individualism in Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken, Zalman Kings In Gods Hands and James Baldwins Sonnys Blues932 Words   |  4 Pagesliving that are considered normal. These principles are what keep societies organized and orderly. Conforming to these principles, however, is not necessarily the road to happiness for every individual. The main character, Shane, in In God’s Hands, Sonny, in Sonny’s Blues, and the speaker in The Road Not Taken, all choose not t o live by what is considered normal, or popular, and are able to find happiness by living as individuals. Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken is a poem about the choices everyRead MoreSonnys Blues in Harlem896 Words   |  4 Pageslearning that his brother, Sonny, has been arrested for selling heroin. Sonny’s brother takes him in after he is released from jail. However, his brother is scared if he lets him back into his home he will fall into his old ways. Sonny’s true passion in life is to become a Jazz musician but his family doesn’t believe in what he wants to do. Sonny want’s his brother to go with him to a jazz club to see how he actually is and not just seeing him as a dope selling drug addict. At the end of Sonny’s setRead MoreComparing Sonnys Blues And The Garden Party By Katherine Mansfield1251 Words   |  6 Pagescharacters Sonny and Laure are two different types of hero archetypes. Sonny is the hero of the absurd while Laura follows Joseph Campbell’s hero arc. The stories are extremely different but the one element they have i n common is that Sonny and Laura’s journey causes them to have a different outlook from their siblings, the Narrator and Laurie. Sonny and the Narrator are mostly different, but as the story goes on, there are some similarities between the two brothers. The similarities that Sonny and the

With which client would I have the most difficulty working Free Essays

According to my beliefs the negative member is the most difficult to handle. According to Jacobs, Masson and Harvill the negative client is one who has a tendency to find problems with everything. A negative client is capable of transforming a group session into a gripe session. We will write a custom essay sample on With which client would I have the most difficulty working? or any similar topic only for you Order Now (Jacobs, Masson and Harvill, 2006) A negative client causes a negative influence on the group as a whole and is capable of instigating a feeling of discontent among other group members. Presence of one or more negative client in a group may lead to lowering of the groups morale. How would I handle a negative client in a group? My reactions against unreasonable demands of a negative client would probably be instinctive. I would resort to direct confrontation with the negative client, although this would not be the ideal course of action since Jacobs, Masson and Harvill have recommended that group leaders should refrain from direct confrontation because it only leads to time consuming arguments between the leader and a negative client. How would Jacobs, Masson and Harvill have handled a negative client? Jacobs, Masson and Harvill suggest three alternative courses of action which will enable the leader to effectively handle a negative client. The first course of action is to talk to the negative client outside the group and try determining the reason for his unacceptable behavior. In most cases negative clients suffer from lack of attention and the problem can be solved if they are offered an important role. The second option as suggested by Jacobs, Masson and Harvill involves identifying the positive members of the group (ie those members who are contented with the group). By talking to the positive members in a group a leader can motivate those members who have been influenced by the negative client. The third option calls for de motivating and isolating a negative client. This goal can be achieved if the group leader avoids making an eye contact with the negative client while addressing the group as a whole. Incase neither of the 3 courses of action are successful in improving the negative client, Jacobs, Masson and Harvill suggest that asking the negative client to leave is only option that the leader is left with. If there are any members in my group who have taken up the role of a negative client? What effect has it had on the group? I have encountered negative clients in my group; such group members cause a lot of problem. They create a wide spread feeling of discontent among the group which leads to fragmentation of the group. The group gets subdivided into two sections one of which harbors feeling of negativity and discontent and the other section comprises of positive members who are satisfied with the current state of affairs. Fragmentation of a group results in loss of productivity. Therefore it is important to prevent the group member from acquiring negative tendencies. How to cite With which client would I have the most difficulty working?, Papers

Were the Colonists Justified free essay sample

Were the colonists justified in waging war and breaking away from Britain? After all of the hardship and violence the British imposed on the colonists, the Americans were justified in waging war and breaking away from Britain. The Colonists were justified in breaking away because the parliament passed laws that were unjustified, The British king was of tyranny, The Stamp Act of 1765, The Townshend Act and The Boston Massacre. All of this lead to the colonies joining together and rebelling against the British. The colonists despised the unlimited power of the parliament and their authority to levy taxes to raise revenue. The colonist had to fight against the tyranny. The parliament passed many unjustified laws that were unconstitutional and destructive to the liberty to the colonies. The parliament believed they had the authority to make laws to regulate the trade of all the colonies. The British made it known that the parliament had â€Å"the right to make laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever† as stated in Document 5. We will write a custom essay sample on Were the Colonists Justified? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The colonists felt it was unfair for the British to have unlimited power over them. {Document 2 Document 5} The Stamp Act of 1765 was passed by the parliament basically to raise revenue. That led to new taxes being imposed on all American colonists. The Townshend Acts of 1767 was passed by the parliament to impose duties on the colonies. The Colonists were becoming more n more enraged. Then On March 5, 1770 The Boston â€Å"Massacre† happened. This was the big event that united the colonists and makes them go to war against the British. The Boston Massacre was when the British Soldiers began shooting at a crowd of colonists. Many people were dead and more was wounded. The picture shows how the British were violent and killers, it was sent throughout the colonies and it arouses anti-British feelings. {Document 2 Document 3}

Free Essays on OJT

In order for companies to keep an edge and stay ahead of competition, they have to increase their flexibility, use advanced technologies, and most of all, continue to strive for improved responsiveness to their customers’ needs. Successes in these areas are critical and can be as simple as having an effective and efficient on-the-job training (OJT) program. OJT refers to an employee responsible to learn a job by actually doing it (Dressler, 2003). There are numerous ways that OJT can be delivered, but traditionally it has been by supervisors or front-line managers. In today’s society there is a need for specific trainers, and selecting those trainers is as crucial as hiring the right person for the job. Some organizations are even seeing the need to have those trainers certified and held accountable to identifiable standards (Walter, 1998). There are clear-cut advantages to certifying a trainer that include the assurance of standardization and consistency of training. They also guarantee that the trainer will possess up-to-date knowledge and skills of the tasks that need to be performed. On-the-job trainers may be selected in a variety of different ways. Supervisors or peer groups could nominate colleagues or co-workers that they think are capable of being a good trainer. The employer might appoint the person. Employees may volunteer for the position. After the selection process has occurred, nominees or volunteers who were chosen might be interviewed by a committee of human resource professionals and managers who would explain the responsibilities of OJT (Walter, 1998). Another option would be to give the selected individual a test to identify if they have the right skill-sets for the position. The ultimate goal for the person selecting the trainer needs to be aware of the following traits for the candidate:  ¨ Technical experience  ¨ Job-task knowledge  ¨ Interpersonal skills  ¨ Attitude  ¨ Listening ... Free Essays on OJT Free Essays on OJT In order for companies to keep an edge and stay ahead of competition, they have to increase their flexibility, use advanced technologies, and most of all, continue to strive for improved responsiveness to their customers’ needs. Successes in these areas are critical and can be as simple as having an effective and efficient on-the-job training (OJT) program. OJT refers to an employee responsible to learn a job by actually doing it (Dressler, 2003). There are numerous ways that OJT can be delivered, but traditionally it has been by supervisors or front-line managers. In today’s society there is a need for specific trainers, and selecting those trainers is as crucial as hiring the right person for the job. Some organizations are even seeing the need to have those trainers certified and held accountable to identifiable standards (Walter, 1998). There are clear-cut advantages to certifying a trainer that include the assurance of standardization and consistency of training. They also guarantee that the trainer will possess up-to-date knowledge and skills of the tasks that need to be performed. On-the-job trainers may be selected in a variety of different ways. Supervisors or peer groups could nominate colleagues or co-workers that they think are capable of being a good trainer. The employer might appoint the person. Employees may volunteer for the position. After the selection process has occurred, nominees or volunteers who were chosen might be interviewed by a committee of human resource professionals and managers who would explain the responsibilities of OJT (Walter, 1998). Another option would be to give the selected individual a test to identify if they have the right skill-sets for the position. The ultimate goal for the person selecting the trainer needs to be aware of the following traits for the candidate:  ¨ Technical experience  ¨ Job-task knowledge  ¨ Interpersonal skills  ¨ Attitude  ¨ Listening ...

The Incredible Disappearing LinkedIn Profile

The Incredible Disappearing LinkedIn Profile Okay, I might be exaggerating when I say your LinkedIn profile is disappearing, piece by piece. But it might feel that way. With the new LinkedIn, you might be wondering where those old familiar functions went! For me, it’s a bit of a â€Å"Where’s Waldo† experience, with some items hiding under my nose. LinkedIn has a history of removing features, often without notification. With its newest revision, true to form, LinkedIn has taken away or moved a few of the items that I, for one, had been taking for granted. Here are a few things to watch out for: 1. Your Summary section. Okay, well, it hasn’t entirely disappeared. It’s just that only the first 210 characters (including spaces) are visible when you initially view someone’s profile. This means that whatever you consider the most important information for viewers needs to be in your first 210 characters. If you attract enough interest in your opening lines, people will click on â€Å"See more† to read the rest of your summary. 2. Job descriptions. Similarly to the summary, although your first (most recent) job description will appear in its entirety (up to 2,000 characters), all other positions will be curtailed and your viewers will have to click on â€Å"See description† to read more. Done with reading the description? Click on â€Å"See less.† 3. Contact Information. This information hasn’t actually disappeared either. It has, however, been relocated to the right navigation bar in a section called â€Å"Contact and Personal Info.† To view someone’s deets, including email, phone number, and web addresses, click on â€Å"Show more† and you’ll be greeted with lots of valuable info. To edit your own contact information, when viewing your profile, click on the pencil icon and you’ll be brought to an â€Å"Edit contact info† box. At the bottom, you can choose whether you contact details are visible to your connections, your network, or all LinkedIn members. 4. No more Interests section. There used to be an opportunity to use up to 500 characters to list both your professional and personal interests. This section no longer exists that I can see (if you find it let me know!). If you backed up your profile as I urged you to do before the rollout, you’ll have access to these in case you want to add them back in another way. Otherwise, while probably easy to reconstruct, whatever you previously had in your Interests section is gone gone gone. 5. No more subject lines. You used to be able to insert a subject line into messages sent through LinkedIn. No more. Now you will simply have a title-less ongoing thread of your conversations with other members. The good news is that it’s much easier now to see the complete history of your communications with your connections. 6. No more saved searches (but wait†¦!). LinkedIn took away saved searches, and got so much pushback about it that they added it back in! How about that †¦ LinkedIn listened! 7. Alumni and other top navigation items. The top navigation bar used to include Home, Profile, Connections, Education, Jobs, and Interests. The new bar comes with seven â€Å"core areas†: Home (Your Feed), Messaging, Jobs, Notifications, Me (with your profile image), My Network, and Search. Then the â€Å"non-core areas†: Work and Advertise. The old â€Å"Connections† tab had an Alumni option which is no longer located under the comparable â€Å"My Network.† Your choices are â€Å"Invitations† and â€Å"People you May Know.† To find alumni now, put the name of your school in the main search bar and then click on your school from the dropdown. You’ll be taken to a page where you can then click on â€Å"See alumni.† The old Alumni page is hidden under that â€Å"See alumni† button! Under these statistical bars will be images of your current connections, followed by images of other alumni with whom you might want to connect. Thankfully, if you click â€Å"Connect† you will be brought to a window to write a message. LinkedIn will NOT send a generic message for you! Alumni are some of the highest quality connections you can make on LinkedIn, so explore this function thoroughly. 8. Education. This tab used to be its own navigation item. Now, instead, go to the Work icon and click Learning to access the courses available through LinkedIn. As you can see, there are several other features hidden under that â€Å"Work† menu as well. Please check all the items out to see which are most valuable for you. 9. Tagging and Notes Tagging and notes really have been eliminated. No joke. If you want to add tags or notes to your contact list now, you have three choices that I am aware of: 1) Upgrade to Sales Navigator for a pricey $79/month, 2) If you’re using Chrome, get the Chrome Extension Dux-Soup, or 3) Invest in the CRM solution Nimble ($25/month). I have not tried this extension myself but it’s recommended by Viveka von Rosen of LinkedIntoBusiness. 10. LinkedIn Groups While LinkedIn Groups are still around, there’s a lot of talk that they might be becoming irrelevant or extinct. Many group owners have been shutting down their LinkedIn groups and moving them to Facebook or the newer platform, beBee. One of the main complaints is that group notifications of discussions and group announcements have not been working properly. According to my sources, LinkedIn knows about this issue and is working on it. I am not ready to abandon LinkedIn groups, but my curiosity has been piqued about beBee, an engagement-based community with 12 million users worldwide. After I get some other projects complete, I’ll be thinking about joining some hives and creating some buzz on that site! Is there anything else that’s gone missing from your LinkedIn profile? Let me know and I’ll see if I can find it for you! Or, I’ll write another blog about all the things I didn’t notice disappearing at the time of this writing. I also invite any questions or comments about the new LinkedIn redesign. I will answer them! Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save

As instruction Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

As instruction - Case Study Example SirsiDynix has worked on almost all types of library systems which include government, public and academic (Vista Equity Partners, 2013). As mentioned above the library pays a fee to make use of the services provided by the software. Moreover the library is also charged for any maintenance work that is carried out on the system. Sirsi is used to perform a number of functions for the library which include circulations, online cataloging, keeping records of subscriptions and acquisitions of various books from different sources (Vista Equity Partners, 2013). The transaction processing system is broken down into a number of modules. Some of these modules collaborate with each other to accomplish various tasks. For example the circulation module and the cataloging module are connected to each other to help locate books when needed. To access the journal articles the library makes use of software known as link resolver that allows students and professors to access various journal articles. The link resolver module tries to determine if an institution owns a resource that the user is trying to access. If the institution does not own that resource the link resolver tries to determine if the institution has the rights to access that particular resource. Once verification is completed the link resolver redirects the user to the resource using a particular URL link (ExLibris SFX, 2012). The URL link resolver provides a scholar portal that connects the all the libraries of the regional universities and provides information on the journals available at a particular university library. Universities are allowed to borrow journals from each other without any additional charges. The headquarters of the portal are situated in University of Toronto. Orders at the library are recorded manually by the library staff. The faculty records all their academic requirements with the staff of the library these requirements include books, journals and any other resources that may be needed by the faculty. These requests are put in by the faculty using a form. Once all requests are made by the faculty the library draws up a budget for purchasing these resources. Each book is purchased from the vendor one at a time. Recently the library has started purchasing books online mainly from Amazon.com. Business process model for a library: Opportunities / Threats Opportunity/threat chart: Threat identified Issue Recommendations Dependency on the software Siri The system largely depends upon the software Siri. An error in any of the modules could halt operations Availability can be a problem Implement a Transaction Processing system as back up to handle all the processing that takes place at the library’s desk IMS by IBM can be implemented within the library system IMS provides high availability and can work with large volume of data Lapse in security Library systems are easy targets for hackers. Unauthorized access could extensively cause damage the data It could even t ake the library offline Install windows

Reliability and Validity Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Reliability and Validity - Assignment Example For the diagnosis to be termed accurate, the features identified have to be same every time if the test is to be termed reliable. This is measured by a correlation between the two test outcomes over all the participants. This method expresses the generalisability of the test scores over different test occasions by assessing stability of the test outcomes (Hempel, 2005). Hempel (2005) explains that this method of testing reliability varies with the type of tests, i.e. ability or traits and attitudes or states assessment. In both cases, repetitive responses based on previous memory is a high possibility thereby giving incorrect measures of reliability. Secondly, the traits tend to change with time, and this would depict low reliability measure, which is again incorrect (Garb, 2002). In such cases, the time period between the tests needs to be recorded appropriately in order to obtain accurate reliability measure. In case of validity, the test should be able to measure what is intended to be measured with minimum or no possibilities of change in behaviors. Reliability of the test decides the amount of correction and incorrect decisions that are made as an outcome of the test. Therefore, reliability is necessary for confirming validity. At the same time, validity of results obtained from this method is higher when the time gap is minimal; however, this minimum time varies with situation or behavior being

The Rise in Penal Populism | Dissertation

The Rise in Penal Populism | Dissertation Abstract Since the mid-1970s onward, the vast majority of Western countries have experienced a significant plus continual rise in their incarceration rates, leading to the problem of overcrowded prisons. We examine the extent to which the ‘incarceration boom’ of many modern societies can be attributed to the phenomenon of penal populism. Specifically, we argue that some short-lived actual crime waves during the late 1970s and 1980s may have initially generated a small amount of rational penal populist sentiment among the public, it is the strong divisions within the increasingly heterogeneous public (both politically and ethnically), the central government, and the popular media industry of many democratic developed nations which have ultimately sustained the growth of both penal populism and prison population numbers. Furthermore, we focus on the types of crime that are most commonly targeted by strong penal populist sentiments in the public and criminal justice system, and suggest that all such categories of crime can be fundamentally linked to the cultural ‘purification’ of children which has taken place in virtually all Western societies during the latter half of the twentieth century. Finally, we consider the limitations of penal populism, referring to those few post-industrial states where such populist punitiveness has been largely resisted, and postulate what the end-stage consequences of a penal populist movement spanning over the past three decades are likely to be. 1. Introduction The term ‘penal populism’ denotes a punitive phenomenon that has become characteristic of many modern industrial societies, especially within Western liberal democracies since the late twentieth century onward, whereby anti-crime political pressure groups, talk-back radio hosts, victim’s rights activists or lobbyists, and others who claim to represent the ‘ordinary public’ have increasingly demanded of their governments that harsher policies and punishments be enforced by the relevant organs of the criminal justice system (e.g. law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, legislators, etc.) in order to combat the perceived rise in serious crime rates (Pratt, 2006). One direct consequence of the increasingly severe ‘tough on crime’ measures – such as ‘Life means Life’, ‘Three Strikes’, and ‘Zero Tolerance’ policies – exercised in many economically advanced countries from the mid-1970s onward has been an unprecedented rapid rise in the incarceration rates of these respective nations, leading to the problem of overcrowded prisons. The United States epitomises the tempo of the modern change in national imprisonment rates, and currently has the worst problem of prison overcrowding on a global scale. Indeed, ‘American incarceration numbers [have] increased fivefold between 1973 and 1997’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p63). More recently, ‘in 2004 the United States surpassed Russia in incarceration rates to become the world leader. With 2.2 million individuals inside (assuming a U.S. population of 290 million in 2004, that is an incarceration rate of approximately 759 adults in prison per 100,000 residents of the United States) and upwards of 7 million individuals either on parole, probation or awaiting trial, 1 in every 33 people in the U.S. is currently under state control and the number is growing’(State-Wide Harm Reduction Coalition, 2005). Clearly, an interpretation of the widespread incarceration rise must be able to accurately explain its rapidity, extent, and endurance on a global scale. There are two principal explanations for why such a large number of developed countries have experienced an ‘incarceration boom’ over the past three decades. Both theoretical models assert that it is changes in penal policies plus sentencing practices, rather than simply significant increases in crime rates alone, which are the primary factor responsible for driving prison population growth, but there is considerable disparity between the two theories about the causes of penal policy changes. One ‘crime wave’ hypothesis posits that actual rising crime rates in many Western countries, including the vast expansion of drug crime during the late twentieth century, have resulted in a greater rational public demand for the criminal justice system to take more severe punitive measures against convicted dangerous criminals (i.e. those offenders who pose the highest threat to public safety and social order; the criminal offenders most commonly targeted by penal populism in modern societies shall be considered in detail below), such as a more frequent use of incarceration with longer custodial sentences. In contrast, the second ‘political opportunism’ hypothesis suggests that many majority government parties have intentionally overstated the size and severity of the national crime problem in order to heighten public fears or instil ‘moral panic’ over perceived (as opposed to actual) rising crime rates, which are merely a political artefact, and subsequently utilise harsher crime control policies to win electoral favour (Caplow and Simon, 1999). Importantly, irrespective of which mechanism has in actual fact been operating across numerous advanced industrial states, and has led to the observed excessive growth in prison population sizes, both explanatory models can clearly be regarded as strongly related to the presence of penal populism. The critical difference between the two theories is whether the main original source of those penal populist sentiments can be accurately considered to be the public or the state, or both. According to the first model, which may be described as the public-induced penal populism hypothesis, it has been the persistent public demand for the government to impose harsher punitive measures on convicted criminals which has primarily caused the fast-paced escalation of incarceration numbers in many modern nations. In other words, the criminal justice systems in these countries have largely been exercising a regime of penal excess because constant pressure from a large sector of the public (in response to an actual rise in crime rates) has compelled them to do so. In comparison, the second model, which we may refer to as the state-induced penal populism hypothesis, postulates that within many Western countries the government parties in power have often created and sustained an artificial appearance of rising crime rates in order to instil widespread public anxiety. Subsequently, the majority government (and individual politicians) can be observed by the public to be apparently controlling the perceived illusory crime problem, such as through adopting and enforcing ‘tough on crime’ measures, and thereby attain public popularity to secure their party’s (or their own) success in the next general election. The second model further suggests that the government is not the only state institution in developed nations which benefits from overstating the scale of the dangerous crime threat, but that there are also large rewards for popular media outlets or news companies willing to do so. It is argued by many criminologists that within almost all democratic Western countries, the central government and the popular media, which are both fragmented into multiple competing party’s or companies, are highly dependent on addressing and reporting criminal activity that specifically victimises ‘ordinary people’ in order to retain electoral votes and public ratings, respectively. Hence, the state-induced penal populism hypothesis proposes that politicians and media outlets lead rather than merely follow or passively represent the public opinion: the public only supports or appears to ‘demand’ the government’s harsher punitive policy strategies because the same national government and popular media industry (as two powerful state institutions) have manufactured a compelling false image of prevalent serious crime which has instilled strong penal populist sentiments in a large proportion of that public. The central aim of the following examination is to determine which of these two distinctive theoretical positions is most likely to be correct. It is of course possible that the public-induced penal populism mechanism primarily operates in one developed nation, while in another Western country it may be the state-driven penal populism process that is predominant. However, to the extent that the relatively recent phenomenon of globalisation has resulted in many common economic, social, political, and cultural practices being widely adopted by a number of modern industrial states, one may plausibly expect a similar (if not identical) mechanism of generating penal populism to be present in the developed nations affected by prison population growth, especially with regard to the United States and Western Europe. At the outset, we may hypothesise that although some short-lived real increases in Western crime rates during the late 1970s and 1980s may have initially triggered some rational penal populist sentiments among the public of these modern societies, it has been the combined interaction of both political opportunism and media opportunism which has acted as a powerful vehicle in numerous modern societies for distorting the public’s common view of the national crime problem, and ultimately for sustaining the growth of both penal populism plus prison populations, regardless of how those crime rates may have subsequently changed (and in most developed countries they have steadily declined). One fundamental feature of the modern incarceration surge over the past three decades that is observed in virtually all countries affected by rapid prison growth is the significant proportion of these prison populations that has become comprised of racial minorities, including both of resident ethnic groups and of non-citizen illegal immigrants. As one study (O’Donnell, 2004, p262) remarks, ‘one factor that accounts for rising prison populations across Europe is the incarceration of ‘foreigners’. It is likely that prison accommodation in the Republic of Ireland will be used to hold growing numbers of failed asylum seekers, at least pending deportation. It is also inevitable that the composition of the prison population will change as members of minority groups begin to appear before the courts on criminal charges’. In terms of the racial minorities imprisonment trend in the United States, Caplow and Simon (1999, p66) assert that ‘it is undeniable that the incarcerated population is disproportionately composed of minorities (especially African Americans and Hispanics), and that the disproportion has increased during the period of rising imprisonmentThe period of rapid growth in incarceration rates has seen a significant increase in the proportion of minorities in the inmate population, especially among drug offenders, the fastest growing segment of that [prison] population’. As is the case with most Western European countries, the United States prison sector has also experienced a mass round up of illegal immigrants or non-citizens during the last three decades, who in 2003 made up 40% of federal prisoners (State-Wide Harm Reduction Coalition, 2005). Ultimately, therefore, it is apparent that the incarceration boom in many developed countries has primarily affected various racial minority populations present within these nations. It is the cumulative incarceration of racial minorities that is significantly responsible for the prison overcrowding problem commonly observed. Thus, one crucial question that we must address in the following study is what has caused (and continues to cause) the increased imprisonment of racial minority populations, relative to the incarceration rate of the racial majority host population (typically white), within the modern industrial societies affected by prison overcrowding? Specifically, we shall seek to determine whether pervasive ‘penal racism’, indicated by a greater tendency in developed nations for both the law enforcement system to arrest and subsequently for the criminal justice system to imprison ethnic or non-white defendants compared with white ones who have committed the same offence, is sufficient to explain the large racial differentials observed in incarceration rates, or not. The methodology of the following study consists entirely of literature-based research and analysis. 2. The Origins of Penal Populism: Real Crime Waves versus Political and Media Opportunism It is widely acknowledged that the prevalent public sentiment in many developed countries to ‘get tough’ with criminals has played a central role in catalysing the incarceration surge which has occurred in these nations since the mid-1970s onward, an influential social movement that is referred to as penal populism. Furthermore, whether one regards the source of that penal populism as stemming from a rational public response to actual rising crime rates or, conversely, as triggered by public exposure to political and media manipulation, the measured strength of the public’s demand on their respective democratic governments to impose harsher punitive measures on convicted criminals has remained consistently high over the thirty year period of vast growth in incarceration numbers. For example, with regard to the United States, one study notes that the time series of public responses to the survey question of whether courts are too lenient has remained highly stable since 1972 (Caplow and Simon, 1999). The significant temporal correlation in many modern industrial states between the onset of strong public desire since around the mid-1970s for more stringent crime policies and the period of rapid prison population growth is a clear indication of the vital part that penal populist sentiments have played in causing prison overcrowding. One may plausibly argue that the strong growth of penal populist sentiments in most advanced industrial societies over the past three decades has been initially generated by temporary real increases in crime (including the rapid expansion of a drug-crime economy during the 1980s) and sustained by an increased reliance of governments on implementing harsher crime control measures (rather than more effective social welfare policies) to gain public support plus secure electoral favour. Accordingly, we intend to demonstrate that penal populism in developed nations is a product of both short-lived actual crime waves and manipulative political opportunism. Indeed, one would theoretically expect the two factors operating in conjunction to result in a significantly larger escalation in incarceration rates (as is in fact observed) than would occur if only one of these forces was present in isolation. As one study has observed, ‘tough on crime’ policies produce prison population increases only to the degree that offenders are available to be imprisoned (Zimring and Hawkins, 1991). Conversely, an increase in crime rates would also not produce a corresponding increase in imprisonment rates unless some suitably punitive crime control measures were in place. During the last thirty years there has also certainly occurred in many Western countries a greater dependence of competing popular media companies, both television and the press, on selectively reporting dangerous (i.e. worse than normal) crime on an almost daily basis, simply in order to maintain or increase viewer and reader ratings. By portraying the national crime problem as more severe and more prevalent than in reality, individual popular media outlets (e.g. tabloid newspapers) in developed nations have become more appealing to public viewers than their quality media counterparts (e.g. broadsheet newspapers) who often object to distorting or manipulating the reporting of crime news. Since the late twentieth century onward, crime news has become a fundamental component of the public’s staple diet. As Pratt (2007, p68) suggests, ‘the reporting of crime is inherently able to shock [and] entertain, sustaining public appeal and interest, selling newspapers and increasing television audiences. Furthermore, the way in which crime is used to achieve these ends is by selective rather than comprehensive reportingHowever, it is not only that crime reporting has quantitatively increased; there have also been qualitative changes in its reporting: it is prone to focus more extensively on violent and sexual crime than in the pastThese qualitative and quantitative changes in crime reporting can be attributed to the growing diversity of news sources and media outletsAs a consequence, both television and the press have to be much more competitive than used to be the case. Their programmes have to be packaged in such a way that they become more attractive to viewers than those of their rivals and competitors’. Evidently, given that it is typically the most popular newspapers (such as the tabloid press in Britain) which feature the greatest number and severity of crime stories, it means that the most common representations of crime, portrayed in ‘the form of randomised, unpredictable and violent attacks inevitably committed by strangers on ‘ordinary people’, reach the greatest audience’(Pratt, 2007, p70). Thus, it is clear that within modern society the potential benefits to popular media outlets from inaccurately amplifying the danger plus scale of national crime in the public’s perception are equally as large as the rewards for politicians willing to do so. With regard to addressing the (largely fabricated) immediacy of the criminal activity problem, therefore, media opportunism and political opportunism are proximately linked in virtually all post-industrial countries where penal populist currents are strongly established. As well as magnifying the size of the dangerous crime problem, the popular media in many Western countries further continually seeks to undermine the current sentencing practices of the criminal justice system, regardless of how harsh they have become over the past three decades. In the same way that the crime stories reported by the popular media are scarcely representative of the actual nature of everyday crime within developed nations, the court stories followed are rarely illustrative of everyday sentencing practices. According to Pratt (2007), that media misrepresentation then reinforces the common public opinion that courts are too lenient, even though they have become significantly more punitive, in addition to fuelling the widely held public sentiment that the crime rate is constantly escalating when recent statistics indicate that crime is in fact steadily declining in most modern societies. Thus, in its reporting style, crime analysis by the Western popular media has become ‘personalised’ rather than ‘statisticalised’, since: 1) it prioritises the experiences of ordinary people (especially crime victims) over expert opinions 2) News reports are more prone to focus on the occasional failings of criminal justice officials as opposed to their many successes. Indeed, in the vast majority of modern societies, the ‘citation of criminal statistics has become a code for softness on crime and callousness towards its victims’(Pratt, 2007, p88), which simply provides the popular media with further scope to legitimately overstate the scale and severity of everyday crime in developed states. For these reasons, the media outlets in many Western countries have played a significant role in facilitating the continual growth of penal populist sentiments among the public. 3. The Transient Growth of a Drug-Crime Economy in Developed Countries It is highly pertinent that the vast expansion in drug crime within many Western nations during the late 1970s and 1980s coincided precisely with the onset of rapidly escalating incarceration rates in these same countries. As is asserted, ‘the growth in nondrug crime has simply not been sufficient to sustain the rapid growth of imprisonment. By the 1970s there was already an active culture of drug use and networks of drug importation/sales in the United States, but their economic importance increased in the 1980s due to new products and distribution strategies, especially for ‘crack’ cocaine. That transformation in the marketing of illegal drugs coincided with political decisions to intensify the punishments for drug crimes. The result was an enlargement of the population available for criminal justice processing’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p71). It is crucial to acknowledge, therefore, that in any modern industrial society there is not a rudimentary causal link between a greater public desire for severity in criminal sanctions and a sustained growth in incarceration numbers; other conditions must be present. Specifically, ‘a key condition is a large pool of offenders available to be imprisoned’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p93). Although there had also been documented transient increases in the number of offenders committing nondrug crimes such as violent crime, property crime (larceny), and sex crime in modern societies during the 1980s, these numbers tended to fluctuate in cycles over time, and could not account for the continual rise in incarceration rates observed. In contrast, the number of drug crime offences had remained consistently high throughout the 1980s in virtually all developed countries that have experienced an incarceration boom. However, in most Western nations the total drug crime rate then started to steadily decline during the 1990s largely due to the much harsher punishments being imposed on drug crime offenders (both petty and serious) by the criminal justice systems in these states. One valid explanation for the persistently high rate of drug crime during the 1980s is the ‘economic base’ principle. Specifically, while the average monetary yield of larceny, violence and sex offences is very low, drug crime represents one of the only categories of felony where the potential financial returns are extremely high, and that provides a strong economic incentive for individuals living in poverty. Hence, drug smuggling and trafficking are the only illegal activities capable of providing a solid economic base for a large criminal population in modern society. The initial cost of goods is low and law enforcement efforts sustain high retail prices, thereby ensuring large profit margins (Reuter and Kleiman, 1986). Since the 1980s, drug crime has certainly been targeted by penal populist sentiments in many Western countries affected by a public expectation for greater punitiveness, largely irrespective of how the drug crime rate has subsequently changed in these developed nations, but it is evidently not the only category of felony that has become a common target of penal populism. Sex offences (especially against children), violent or abusive crimes (once again, even more so when the victims are children), and youth crime are three other important types of crime that in late modern capitalist states have characteristically become subjected to a public desire for penal excess. We shall examine in detail at a later stage below what these specific four categories of crime have in common and why they are such typical targets of penal populist sentiments in developed liberal societies. 4. The Increased Dependence of Governments on Crime Control as a Source of Popular Credibility The rapid proliferation of drug crime in many Western countries during the late 1970s and 1980s was accompanied by a great loss of public confidence in the social welfare programs implemented in these same nations. As Pratt (2007, p95) asserts, ‘the visible presence of drug addicts in these countries had become a symbol of misplaced welfarism and tolerance, now believed to be corroding their economic and social fabrics’. Furthermore, the short-lived growth of general crime waves in many modern societies during the late twentieth century led to a significant decline of public assurance in the competence of their respective governments to control the state. As one study remarks, ‘the international crime waves of the 1960s and 1970s helped diminish the prestige of national governments all over the industrial world, by calling into question their capacity to maintain social order. The increase of crime rates at a time of increasing government efforts to help the poor undermined many of the traditional arguments for welfare, and helped confirm the view of many conservatives that efforts to help the poor only made circumstances worse by eliminating incentives for self improvement’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p88). It is difficult to determine whether the crime wave was caused by expansions in welfare programs or merely coincided with them. The main point is that in addition to the direct relationship between high rates of crime and demands for punitive governmental responses, the crime wave may have indirectly diminished the prestige of and public demand for welfare-oriented government (Caplow and Simon, 1999). Thus, it is argued that during the 1980s many Western governments shifted the priority of their domestic agendas away from welfare policies toward crime control policies. Initially, it was most often right wing conservative politicians that promoted ‘tough on crime’ punitive measures, making crime a political issue and gaining public support. However, Lappi-Seppà ¤là ¤ (2002, p92) suggests that mainstream opposition (i.e. left wing) parties are then forced into advocating punitive policies as well, because although these left wing parties want to ‘distance themselves from the populist programmes of the right wing movements, there is one area where they do not like to disagree – the requirement of being ‘tough on crime’. No party seems to be willing to accuse another of exaggeration when it comes to measures against criminality. Being ‘soft on crime’ is an accusation that no [governmental party] wants to accept. And it is that fear of being softer than one’s political opponents which tends to drive politicians, in the end, to the extremes of penal excess’. It is plausible to argue, therefore, that constant competition between opposing governmental factions for public favour in liberal democracies has created an ‘punitive arms race’ of political opportunism, whereby each party is compelled to promote plus (when in power) implement increasingly more radical punitive policies – irrespective of the actual level of crime that the country is experiencing – in order to avoid appearing weak on crime and consequently losing valuable electoral votes to their political opponents who are prepared to be more severe on criminals. Clearly, such an opportunistic punitive arms race occurring within the governments of developed nations would lead to an exponential increase in the prison population numbers of these countries, and ultimately to prison overcrowding. That political mechanism may at least partly explain why so many Western countries which have experienced a large decrease in crime rates since the mid-1990s and into the early twenty-first century have still reported a rising prison population. For example, Pratt (2006, p1) observes that since 1999 Labour led coalition governments in New Zealand have strongly adhered to Britain’s New Labour ‘approach to crime and punishment, even using the famous phrase ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ in its election manifestoes of 2002 and 2005. As a consequence, while [New Zealand’s] recorded crime rate has dropped by 25% in the last ten years, its imprisonment rate has increased to 189 per 100,000, one of the highest of Western countries’. Yet it is not only the divisions (i.e. in terms of competing parties) within Western democratic governments that have catalysed the increased political focus on crime control, but also the growing number of divisions among the public itself. Indeed, modern society in many developed nations (such as the United Kingdom and the United States) has become increasingly heterogeneous since the late twentieth century, and consequently the number of bases of division within these societies has expanded. For example, the members of a diverse post-industrial society are not only partitioned along the traditional parameter of social class, but are also strongly divided by a number of dichotomous value-based issues that are characteristic of ‘post-materialist’ politics such as abortion, gay rights, animal rights (e.g. fox hunting), mass immigration, school prayer, and capital punishment where it still exists (Caplow and Simon, 1999). These value- or identity-based issues are intensely contested over in modern societies by well-organised pressure groups on either side of the bipolar political spectrum. These issues are bipolar or dichotomous in the sense that they are non-negotiable with no ‘middle ground’; one either supports abortion rights or one opposes them. Hence, public division on these post-materialist issues is inevitable. One important consequence of the heterogeneous publics of Western countries becoming divided by such a multitude of value conflicts during the 1970s onward is that government parties had difficulty finding any issues to build successful election campaigns on that would appeal to a vast majority of the public. Harsher crime control appeared to be a clear choice as a singular issue that large sections of the modern public are united in consensus on. As is stated, ‘Unlike most values issues on the left or right, crime control seems to cut across the political spectrumPoliticians seeking to build viable majorities inevitably turn to the few issues that can bring people together in the new political landscapeThat is why election campaigns continue to focus on crime and punishment issues even when opposing candidates agree in their support of punitive anticrime measures. Faced with voters who split on so many issues and who are profoundly sceptical about the ability of government to improve their lives through welfare-oriented interventions, the mode of governing that commands the broadest support – punitiveness toward criminal offenders – is understandably [valued by governments]’(Caplow and Simon, 1999, p83). Ultimately, therefore, while short-lived actual increases in crime rates during the late 1970s and 1980s may have initially triggered the rise in imprisonment rates in a number of developed countries, political opportunism (in the sense of governments capitalising on populist punitiveness) has arguably sustained the incarceration boom in virtually all Western nations affected by prison overcrowding, regardless of how those crime rates may have subsequently changed. 5. The Target Crimes of Penal Populism There is a high degree of uniformity across all Western nations that have experienced an incarceration surge over the past three decades in the types of crime that are most commonly subjected to strong public demand for harsh punitive sanctions. Generally, the four most frequent felony targets of penal populism are: Drug crime; Sex offences, especially when the victims are children; Child abuse (physical, sexual, or psychological), and; Youth crime. Correspondingly, these have also been some of the fastest growing segments of prison and boot camp populations in many developed countries during recent years. One fundamental property that the above four categories of crime have in common is that children are extremely vulnerable to the effects of all of them. We may validly question why children have come to occupy such a central place in the penal populist sentiments of modern industrial societies. Pratt (2007, p96) remarks that ‘crime control policy driven by penal populism targets ‘others’, not ordinary, ‘normal’ peopleGiven the nature of populism, we should expect that crime control policy will gravitate towards easy and familiar targets, for whom there is likely to be the least public sympathy, the most social distance and the fewest authoritative voices (if any) to speak on their behalf: tho Effects of Watching Soap Operas | Research Effects of Watching Soap Operas | Research Shaping Minds: The Soap Opera and the Power of Representation Abstract In this thesis I aim to identify what the younger British public find engaging about Soap Operas, and to identify some of the processes at work during viewing, which might alter or enhance the ways in which we see the world. Focusing specifically on the relationship between popular media and the attitudes of young people towards sex and social class, research addresses the power of media representation, the use of role models, and how popular media encourages the viewer to make social distinctions and reinforces our ideas of classification. My research examines the influence of popular programmes, such as Sex and the City, and Australian and British Soap Operas, and throughout the thesis I refer to the theoretical approaches of Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, where I discuss the paradoxes latent in both the logic and language that people generally perceive to be stable and fundamental to social order. I also consider systems of classification and how the act of perceiving the validity and existence of such distinctions creates them. Conclusions drawn suggest that people consider soap viewing to be more dangerous in hindsight, whereas younger people do not recognise, or are less willing to recognise the inherent influences of soap story lines. Research does conclude that most people do consider soap operas to present an unrealistic portrayal of family life and relationships. Introduction Before the seventies a relatively small and largely irrelevant body of research existed that was solely based around soap operas, and it was only at that point when soaps began to assume a position as a topic of interest (LaGuardia 1974, 1977; Stedman 1971; Weibel 1977. In Blumenthal, p.43), as well as an area worthy of academic research (Katzman 1972; McAdown 1974; Newcomb 1974. Ibid). As Blumenthal openly writes ‘there were those who simply were against them, or found them silly.’ (Blumenthal, p.43). The context for this research formed out of a perceived gap in current research topics between the effects of media on children and adults, with relatively few projects being based solely upon teenagers and young people. As noted by Hawk et al (2006) much public and scientific concern has been expressed regarding the influence of sex in the mainstream media on childrens sexual development, such as Greenfield, 2004. However, fewer studies have studied in depth the relations hips between adolescents viewing of sexual content in the media and their own sexual behaviours and attitudes, and of those studies which do exist many are subject to severe limitations such as small samples, and narrow focus on a single type of sexual outcome, such as incidence of intercourse (Peterson et al., 1991. In Hawk et al, 2006: 352). An important consideration for the topic of this research also rested upon the observance that it is less common for research into sexual attitudes to be combined with attitudes towards social class; the decision to marry these two topics derived from the consideration that British soap operas more often represent the working class, whereas Australian soap operas mostly refer to middle class families. It was therefore an interesting research proposition to consider whether attitudes towards sex and class are being shaped by the type of target audience that these programmes are being aimed at. Although the present study does not focus on the ex tent to which women only are influenced by viewing soap operas, it does recognise that a large body of research exists on women and soap operas, and that more useful responses might be given by women respondents. Methodology In considering the methodology for this project it was decided that in order to achieve a more comprehensive collection of data with specific personal reactions to media that primary data in the forms of questionnaires and interviews should be used, rather than basing the thesis purely on secondary textual and resource analyses. As some critics suggest, textual analysis cannot always enlighten us as to what goes on in the minds of viewers and often relies upon inference and speculation (Dow, 1996). Secondary materials used for this project also include journals, articles, and books which have attempted to define the relationship between viewers and popular media. Results and findings are discussed using the research of theorists such as Adorno and Fiske; this was decided in order to encompass opinions which span a broad spectrum of relevant ideas, and are useful for how they illustrate the contrasts present in media research. Participants Participants who filled in only questionnaires were obtained by contacting high schools and middle schools, mostly in urban areas, that agreed to participate in data collection. Fifteen schools (who had their own colleges for 17-19 year olds) were initially randomly selected and contacted, 10 of which agreed to participate. As this project did not aim to highlight how attitudes might vary between age and race the identity and nationalities of respondents were not obtained. This was also decided upon because the ‘blind’ questionnaire offered school pupils more scope to provide false answers, especially concerning age and gender. In total there were 200 pupil responses with ages ranging from 12 to 18. As part of gathering primary data slightly different form of questionnaire (see Appendix Two) was presented to a random selection of young adults. This sample was achieved by approaching people on the street in a local town during rush hour. The only criteria that the second lot of respondents had to meet was that they were aged 30 or under this was to ensure that recall of their watching soap operas during their teens would be more likely to be more accurate. Furthermore, this age limit was necessary considering the ages of the programmes themselves, many of which have been running approximately 20 years or less. In the random sample interview it was possible to make a note of gendered responses Questionnaire and Interview Design In the interviewing techniques selected for this project it was decided to use a combination of single and multiple choice options and include questions which encouraged respondents to give subjective views and opinions. Contact with sexual and class content in the mainstream media, as represented through the viewing of soap operas and popular programmes, was measured by asking respondents on a four point scale the degree to which they felt that their favourite programme had influenced their ideas concerning these issues. In order to account for the differences in age between the two sets of respondents it was decided that when questioning the elder set that questions should include a retrospective option. For example, when questioning people about the influence of soaps on their opinions the question would read: â€Å"Would you say that watching this programme has or might have done so in the past altered your understanding of sexual relationships?† Chapter One:  Literature Review The Meaning and Origins of Popular Culture Over the last few decades culture has become frequently used to denote changing tastes and popularity in appreciation of interests such as music, art, theatre. As noted by Peter Goodall the word ’culture’ is consistently made use of by journalists and politicians, and especially by people studying within the Humanities (Goodall, 1995). The same author also notes that the word ’culture’ has become an ‘increasingly empty term [†¦] more frequently it is used, the more regularly it seems to need another word to prop it up and define its field of reference.’ (Goodall, 1995: xii). Take, for example, the term ‘police culture’, says Goodall, and the term ‘welfare culture’: does the word promise to mean more because these areas of society actually have little in common with one another? In both contexts the word ‘promises much [..] but delivers little; it poses as a noun but it is really an adjective’ where c ulture means little more than ‘group behaviour, practice or shared assumptions.’ (Ibid). The phenomenon of popular culture and the ease with which it has spread across the Western world, owes much to the existence of television, radio, and, more recently, the Internet. It was the Queens Coronation that begun the television age, with half the adult population watching the ceremony on TV sets; and most of these people not owning their own television at the time (Karwowski: 2002: 281). Statistics show that in 1951, the only available BBC channel had just 600,000 viewers, and that by the end of the century, watching TV was the most popular leisure activity with 94 per cent of homes having at least one colour TV and 66 per cent a video cassette recorder (Ibid). Karwowski highlights the following televised programmes as being central to the historical analysis of popular culture: the Queens Coronation The Goon Show from June 1952 to January 1960, described as ‘a surreal form of humour that lampooned all forms of pomposity and hypocrisy.’ (Karwowski: 2002: 281). Situation comedies such as Till Death Us Do Part 60s TV comedies, such as That Was The Week That Was and Monty Pythons Flying Circus Independent TV (ITV) began broadcasting in 1955. The number of TV channels grew to three with the start-up of BBC 2 in 1964, to four with Channel 4 in 1982, and five with Channel 5 in 1997, while colour TV was available from 1968. British Costume Drama, portraying English novelists such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Evelyn Waugh Educational documentaries such as Sir Kenneth Clarks Civilisation (1969), Dr Jacob Bronowskis The Ascent of Man (1973) and Sir David Attenboroughs Life on Earth (1979) Walking with Dinosaurs Childrens programmes, such as Moles Christmas and the BBCs Teletubbies to more than 125. Quiz programmes such as the BBCs Quiz shows, such as The Weakest Link, and detective series such as Inspector Morse, currently being seen in 211 countries. However, KarwowskI observes that ‘all these genres become mere niche markets when compared to the soap opera, which has around a third of the nation addicted to its multifarious expressions.’ (2005: 282). In the UK, the most popular soap is Coronation Street, longest running since 1960, is as popular in Canada and New Zealand, with the Coronation Street web site having more hits from Canada than anywhere else. (Ibid). What we see in soap operas is often designed to provoke an empathic response in the mind of the viewer. Soap viewing can offer very contrasting experiences sometimes alienating or even shocking the viewer, and other times offering emotional support and guidance concerning difficult issues. It is perhaps this ‘mixed bag’ effect of soap viewing when a person is never sure what content will shape their viewing experience that make soap viewing so popular. Media theory questions how knowledge is received and understood by the audience. Charlotte Brunsdon once said that the pursuit of the audience can be characterized as a search for authenticity, for an anchoring moment in a sea of signification (1990, p.68). The interpretations of the complex relationship between the viewer and the viewed have been controversial and often, contrasting; for example, Theodor Adorno believed that the influence held over the public by mass media was potentially harmful and brainwashing, wher eas John Fiske wrote that work should focus on viewers’ interpretation of what they saw that the viewer had autonomy over the extent to which they would absorb and articulate the information presented (Gauntlett, 2002). Fiske also used the term ‘polysemy’ to refer to the potential for audiences to decode texts in varying ways (Fiske, 1986). Dow presents her idea that the viewer has almost complete autonomy over how they interpret what they see, saying that: â€Å"The most powerful claim of audience studies has been that real viewers often resist the dominant messages of television and interpret programming in ways that suit their own interests [..] Intentional or not, such judgments cast the differences between approaches within the framework of a zero-sum game in which only one party can be right, making the other automatically wrong.† (Dow, 1996: 2) Dow also suggest that it is not possible to completely disassociate oneself from the object of criticism because of the cultural and social interests which are shared by both the critic and the creator of the media in question. Furthermore, criticism becomes less about discovering meaning in texts and becomes more of a performative activity that is about creating meaning. Sex and Identity Part of the idea for this project was born out of the premise that there exists a strong link between ideas about sexual relationships and a young person’s sense of identity. It is an aim of this project to explore the degree to which hindsight might affect a person’s belief as to whether they have been influenced by what they have seen on soaps. Research has been conducted into the damaging nature of representation in popular media especially into the use of models or ‘ideal’ body types; what Virginia Blum calls the ‘yardstick’ of the ‘Other Woman’ against which women measures their imperfections. For the ‘twenty-first century Western woman,’ says Blum, ‘who is always evaluating her appearance (intimately bound up with her identity) in relation to some standard that must be Other in order to function as a standard’ (Blum, 2005: 27). Gauntlett cites research findings on women in prime time TV in the early nineties as being ‘young, single, independent, and free from family and work place pressures’ (Elasmar, Hasegawa and Brain, 1999:33. In Gauntlett: 2002, 59). Gauntlett goes on to suggests that the 1990’s saw the use of inoffensive models of masculinity and femininity, which were generally acceptable to the majority of the public, and that this reflected producers’ beliefs that they no longer needed to challenge gender representations (Ibid). In the case of the sitcom Friends the use of male and female models of represnetation were equal. As Gauntlett explains: â€Å"The three men (Ross, Chandler and Joey) fit easily within conventional models of masculinity, but are given some characteristics of sensitivity and gentleness, and male-bonding, to make things slightly refreshing. Similarly, the three women (Rachel, Monica and Phoebe) are clearly feminine, whilst being sufficiently intelligent and non-housewifey to seem like acceptable characters for the 1990s. The six were also, of course, originally all characters with a good set of both male and female friendships i.e. each other and the friendship circle was a refreshing modern replacement for the traditional family. (It was not long, of course, before they spoilt that by having Ross and Rachel, then more implausibly Monica and Chandler fall in love.)† (Gauntlett, p.59) In most soaps there exists a core set of characters who form the firm basis of the on-screen reality. If these core characters were to change too often then the soap loses credibility, and becomes an unreal parallel of the world that it is trying to represent. It is important that themes such as sex and class are presented in a coherent and consistent way. As Gauntlett’s comment on Friends suggests this is sometimes not the case as the idea of quasi family is ‘quashed’ by the sexual dynamics within the group, thus complicating the original idea. The Concept of Transformation It is a premise of this project that women might be more likely to have experienced closer identification with soaps than men. Although it was beyond the scope of this project to direct an in-depth inquiry into this premise, the questionnaire nevertheless attempted to explore whether there was a gender divide, although this attempt was limited due to the size of the questionnaire. As academic and soap viewer, Danielle Blumenthal, is quoted as saying: Soap operas . . . a connection with other women, beloved to me: my mother, grandmother, aunt, sister . . . a steady stream of modern folktales that symbolically link us together. Memories abound: racing off the schoolbus to catch the last ten minutes of General Hospital; laughing with Grandma over the plotline antics of Days of Our Lives; worrying over the lives of characters I cared about; endless feverish conversations with girlfriends, sister, aunt over who should do what, how, and with whom. (Blumenthal, 1997: 3) In her publication on feminist perspectives and soap operas, Blumenthal refers to soap opera viewing as a ‘specific cultural activity’ questioning how much the activity is an ‘empowering practiceor, praxisfor women to engage in.’ (Ibid, p.4). The term praxis, Marxist criticism has been defined as meaning conscious physical labor directed toward transforming the material world so it will satisfy human needs (Rothman 1989:170. In Blumenthal, 1997:3). Blumenthal extends this interpretation to mean not only physical, but also mental labour, ‘which transforms images and experience to meet human needs.’ (Ibid). The concept can also be interpreted as a belief that ‘social objects do not simply exist out there in space, but are mediated through a continual process of interpretation and construction by the subjective and socially oriented mind.’ (Ibid). ‘Girl Power,’ and themes which identify the strengths in women’s att itudes are not limited to the sitcom or the soap opera, in fact they occur, to some degree, within just about every form of visual media and are mediated by the minds of the programmes creators to be received by the viewing public. The concept of transformation is prevalent in most media where women use their new image to take control of their lives and turn around situations. For example, Barbra Streisands 1996 film, The Mirror Has Two Faces, uses the idea of a before and after to provide tension and contrast within the film. In this film, the character Rose is transformed by losing weight and dying her hair this secures the physical adoration of her husband who married her for her ‘inner self.’ While the film encourages viewers to identify with Barbara Streisand it also reinforces the ideal of transformation, where the heroine does not settle for less, but dares to achieve more. Rachel Moseley, in her publication on feminist cultural perspectives, fashion, and media, observes that within these Cinderella stories there exists a ‘moment of increased visibility which provides a space for both the visual pleasure offered showcasing of the transformation, but also for the articulation of the a nxiety and emotional resonance of ’coming out’ in relation to class, as well as gender.’ (Moseley, 2002: p.40). In British and Australian soaps the concept of transformation is readily embraced not least within the lives of individual characters, but within each episode itself so as to create a mini section of a greater storyline. The world of the soap opera is fluid and dynamic it moves along at a much faster rate than reality off-screen, with new ideas and events constituting change on many levels. Blumenthal’s ideas concerning the ‘transformation’ of images is particularly useful here as it might help to explain how the serial relationships of soap characters are interpreted by the viewer. In soaps, it is often the case that characters who are not married engage in a string of successive relationships, which sets an unreal precedent to viewers, especially younger viewers. Media critic Mary-Lou Galician, in her publication Sex, Love Rom ance in the Mass Media lists twelve false premises which are regularly promoted within, and associated with, mass media; all of which she defines as ‘myths and stereotypes’ (2004: p.x): â€Å"Your perfect partner is cosmically predestined, so nothing/nobody can ultimately separate you. Theres such a thing as â€Å"love at first sight. † Your true soul mate should KNOW what youre thinking or feeling without your having to tell. If your partner is truly meant for you, sex is easy and wonderful. To attract and keep a man, a woman should look like a model or a centerfold. The man should NOT be shorter, weaker, younger, poorer, or less successful than the woman. The love of a good and faithful true woman can change a man from a â€Å"beast† into a â€Å"prince. † Bickering and fighting a lot mean that a man and a woman really love each other passionately. All you really need is love, so it doesnt matter if you and your lover have very different values. The right mate â€Å"completes you† — filling your needs and making your dreams come true. In real life, actors and actresses are often very much like the romantic characters they portray. Since mass media portrayals of romance arent â€Å"real, † they dont really affect you.† (2004: ix) Many social critics and relationship therapists have blamed the mass media for brainwashing viewers with portrayals of unrealistic love that are ‘unattainable as a goal and unhealthy as a model and, thereby, contributing to the construction of these unrealistic expectations’ (Dyer, 1976; Fromm, 1956; Johnson, 1983; Norwood, 1985; Peele, 1975;Russianoff, 1981; Shapiro Kroeger, 1991; Shostrom Kavanaugh, 1971. In Galician, 2004: p.13.). Certainly, many soap operas under discussion in this thesis are guilty of this phenomenon, and are suggestive of the idea that it is unfashionable or abnormal to be single. For example, as Glass writes: â€Å"Who can take seriously a character saying, as one does in the televised version of Candace Bushnells column, Were not dating. Its a fuck thing? Or, Ive been fucked every way you can be fucked? These characters are not serious, not even interesting, certainly not funny. With that type of woman, romance, with its necessary belief in an ideal, is impossible. [..] Bushnells women cavort aimlessly in New York, trying different sex games to see which they can win. When they lose, they move on. There is no reflection, no despair, no consequence of any action. The tragedy is that nothing in their lives is tragic.† (Glass, 1999: 14) This sort of promotion of casual sex could be potentially damaging to younger people, who are in the earlier stages of forming opinions about themselves and the world, as it could encourage them to find partners before they are comfortable to do so. Furthermore, in a school environment, where children are exposed to the same sorts of mass media, these ideas are discussed and reinforced within a social reality that is far different from the reality on-screen. As author of Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell, said of her creation: No one has breakfast at Tiffanys, and no one has affairs to remember instead, we have breakfast at 7 am and affairs we try to forget as quickly as possible. How did we get into this mess? (cf Glass, 1999: 14) During its popularity SATC was responsible for liberating the ideas of many women, and even their male partners, who watched it. The character of Samantha, played by Kim Cattrall, has been highlighted as an importnat portrayal of a sexually assertive woman in her forties. As Cattrall once said in an interview, ‘I don’t think there’s ever been a woman who has expressed so much sexual joy [on television] without her being punished. I never tire of women coming up and saying, â€Å"You’ve affected my life†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Williams, 2002. Found in Gauntlett, 2002, p.61). Unfortunately the themes of casual sex is unsustainable and will not hold viewer’s attentions for as long as say, family dramas, which can be played out over a much longer period of time and have far more complex dynamics. Thus, the heyday of SATC is over, while Emmerdale continues. As suggested by Goldenberg et al the themes of sex is both intriguing and disturbing: â€Å"Despite its potential for immense physical pleasure and the crucial role that it plays in propagating the species, sex nevertheless is sometimes a source of anxiety, shame, and disgust for humans, and is always subject to cultural norms and social regulation. [..]We argue that sex is threatening because it makes us acutely aware of our sheer physical and animal nature. Although others (e.g., Freud, 1930/1961) have also suggested that human beings are threatened by their creatureliness, following Rank (1930/1998) and Becker (1973), we suggest that this motivation is rooted in a more basic human need to deny mortality.† (Goldenberg et al, 2002: p.310) Indeed, there is nothing safe about the themes of sex in soaps it is an unpredictable world, where things are more likely to go wrong, in comparison to the world of family life, where there are obvious boundaries and limits within which to localise behaviour. In terms of class, which is the other distinction that this project is addressing, the idea that most soaps represent a particular group of people from a particular area, means that they represent the social structure of that particular area. In turn, this means that most soaps are unable to present a cross section of society from any area wider than that which it chiefly represents, and often only manages to represent the lives of either working class or middle class people. Soaps which concentrate on more elitist tastes or narrower, more inaccessible stratas of society do not often gain such a high level of popularity. This can be seen in the case of Eldorado, a soap set in Spain about the lives of British expats, that lasted only a year before being axed. A different approach to the soap opera came alon gin 1997 with the airing of Family Affairs, a soap that focused on one family. The description of the soap read as follows: â€Å"The biggest, and riskiest, decision they made was to break away from the communal concept that underpins other soaps, whether it is the village (Emmerdale), the close (Brookside), the square (EastEnders), or the local streets and pub (Coronation Street). Family Affairs will centre on one family, and examine in intimate detail the struggles and tensions within the four walls of the Hart household. The other difference between this soap and its rivals will be that Family Affairs will not be geographically characterised. It is set in a neutral town, and will lack the northern atmosphere that permeates Corrie or Brookside. Class differences within the family will play a big part. The personal experience of Young and Hollingworth influenced them to base the soap around a family that had an ex-miner at its head (Hollingworths grandfather was a miner), whose son had become a self-employed builder, and whose four grandchildren were variously a trainee lawyer, an entrepreneur, a shop a ssistant and a schoolboy.† (McDonald, 1997: 1) This soap underwent a complete change in setting and in characters, before it was axed after only seven years. These example show that there is not enough of a market for specialised soaps which dare to do something a little different. It appears that it is the grittiness of urban landscapes or the character of places which people enjoying watching the most. Furthermore, it is interesting how similar themes such as teenage pregnancy, underage relationships, and people seeking to break the boundaries of their family’s class can all assume a different meaning, or at least be interpreted differently, according to the different locations and environments in which they are set. Mass Media and the Body Gauntlett observes a similarity between the malleability of the self and the late modern attitudes to the body: â€Å"No longer do we feel that the body is a more or less disappointing ‘given’ instead, the body is the outer expression of our self, to be improved and worked upon; the body has, in the words of Giddens, become ‘reflexively mobilized’ thrown into the expanding sphere of personal attributes which we are required to think about and control.† (In Gauntlett, p.104). Perhaps one of the greatest power centres behind both of these arguments is Hollywood, which in its history has seen the changing representation of women, and more recently, the increasing number of women, and men, who have surgery to preserve the image of their youth. These ideal images of women are not always positively received. For example, speaking in 1973, Marjorie Rosen commented that ‘the Cinema Woman is a Popcorn Venus, a delectable but insubstantial hybrid of cultural distortions’ (1973:10), and upon the changing representation of women Rosen observed the presence o f rebellious natured commentaries against working women in the 1940s and 1950s, and against female sexual emancipation in the 1960s and 1970s. Whereas women have been consistently promoted as ‘sex objects’ in varying styles throughout Hollywood’s history (Rosen, In Gauntlett, 2002). It would be an interesting line of enquiry to explore the degree to which feminist literature can help to explain the presence of the perceived gender gap in the process of idolisation and representation, and the influence of these processes on ideas concerning sex and sexuality. Some critics suggest that popular media have over-simplified debates which are essentially feminist in nature, and, in some cases, wrongly consider the feminist movement retrospectively, encouraging viewers to do the same. For example, in her article exploring the different definitions of third-wave feminism emerging in the U.S, Amanda Lotz comments that ‘simplistic popular media constructions of third -wave feminism’ are misleading to feminists, and that study of the ‘third-wave feminist ideas may be understood as distinctive of new social movement organization.’ (Lotz: 2003, p.3 ). Other critics pay close attention to the different psychological constitutions of women what Jane Gerhard terms ‘ideas about the distinctive psychological reality of women’ especially concerning our definition of post feminism, which makes a significant contribution to the re-assessment of heterosexual power relations. (2005: 41). With proponents of equality still battling with what Susan Faludi refers to as lackadaisical nature of post-feminism and the unfair ’backlash’ against the feminist movement itself (1992) the idea of feminism and soap opera viewing is topical and extensive, and, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this thesis to explore. Foucault Foucault’s work is useful in the discussion of soap operas and the effects of viewing popular television as it comments on the damaging nature of ‘normalization.’ Foucault argues that there is no such thing as a singular fixed meaning, and that meaning is understood on many levels most often through the historical, retrospective interpretation of rational and reasonable behaviour (Danaher et al, 2000). For example, he suggests that the nineteenth century witnessed a preoccupation with correctness where all things ‘wrong’ had to be ‘righted’ in some way in order to fit into a box of classification. This phenomenon has had long-lasting effects on Western culture to the extent where ‘norms’ have been established, and exceptions to these norms ‘cured’ or corrected. In the discussion of class and attitudes towards sex we might consider how the media has portrayed the image of the ideal woman or man. The difference between the historical normalisation of beauty to contemporary is that such images have been popularised through the media on an increasingly global and interpersonal scale. With the advancement of technology, advertising reaches people even within the private space of their own homes through television, radio, and the Internet. This is all the more dang