Work
A leading writer on Criminology and Sociology, Cohen is credited with coining the term moral panic in his 1972 study (Folk Devils and Moral Panics) of the popular UK media and social reaction to the Mods and Rockers phenomenon of the 1960s. This book is widely regarded by British criminologists as the most influential work in the field in the last forty years. The work applied the concepts of labelling, societal reaction and the Deviancy Amplification Spiral and helped in widening the scope of Criminology to include the sociology of crime and Social Control. Cohen suggests the media overreact to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to existing social norms. However, the media response and representation of that behaviour actually helps to define it, communicate it and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So the moral panic by society represented in the media arguably fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.
Read more about this topic: Stanley Cohen (sociologist)
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“A good story is one that isn’t demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn’t remind us of the bad times, the cardboard patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all.”
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“The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.”
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“If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle—absolute busyness—then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy—and without consciousness.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)