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Volume 21 Spring 2020 Introduction

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Volume 21 Spring 2020 Introduction Volume 21 Spring 2020 Introduction IDEATE: The Undergraduate Journal of Sociology publishes the very best work produced by undergraduate students within the Sociology Department at the University of Essex. This edition presents work across a wide range of topics, among them for example: consumptions and individual choice; policing and policing culture; Japan, performance and gender; female genital mutilation; digital media and structural inequalities; the impact of HIV/AIDS on LGBT communities; attitudes towards sexuality in Finland and Russia; digital surveillance and privacy; the privatisation of probation; and the democratisation of the image. All of the work published here has achieved a grade of 85%+ (1st year students), or 80%+ (2nd & 3rd year students). We are pleased and proud to be able recognise our undergraduate achievement in this way. Congratulations to all and best wishes, The IDEATE Editorial Team Contents First Year Essays Sara Nascimento Ascensao: SC111 The Sociological Imagination How far is consumption a matter of individual choice? Discuss using examples. Second Year Essays Freya Harvey: SC203 Researching Social Life II Quantitative data analysis report Lucy Sharp: SC205 Policing, Punishment and Society While policing policy improves, does police culture? Alec Castillo: SC205 Policing, Punishment and Society Are ‘the police’ changing? Discuss with reference to the culture of policing and the role of women and minorities. Claudia Marmol: SC276 Anthropology of Birth, Sex and Death “FGM is not cultural, it is criminal; it is not tribal, it is torture.” Leith vaz MP. Discuss. Rowan Moony: SC276 Anthropology of Birth, Sex and Death How is gender used as a performance in Japan and how does this relate to Japanese views of gender? Daniel Cranmer: SC224 Digital Society Digital media is best understood in terms of structural inequalities between the ‘information rich’ and the ‘information poor’. Discuss. Georgia Luckey: SC291 Sociology of Sexualities Outline and discuss the impact of HIV/AIDS on LGBT communities. Harriet Willett: SC208 Stratification Across the Life Course: Inequalities From Cradle to Grave A study of attitudes towards sexuality in Finland and Russia. Jonathan Hendry: SC224 Digital Society Digital surveillance and privacy Third Year Essays Jessica Waddington: SC382 Crime, Policy and Social Justice What are the core benefits and disadvantages of the privatisation of probation? Abigail King: SC382 Crime, Policy and Social Justice What challenges do the digitisation of course services pose for the achievement of justice? What benefits? Ellie Symonds: SC382 Crime, Policy and Social Justice What are the core benefits and disadvantages of the privatisation of probation? Irene Gomez: SC364 Mass Media and Modern Life “You press the button, we do the rest”: A sociological approach towards the democratisation of the image. Sophie Joyce: SC382 Crime, Policy and Social Justice What are the core pressures on legal aid and how have they been justified? Megane Holl: SC386 Anthropology of Race and Racism in Latin America Book review: On A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala by Diane Nelson Morgane Sabatini: SC385 Models and Measurement in Quantitative Sociology Report on the association between attitudes towards social welfare and gender How far is consumption a matter of individual choice? Discuss using examples. Sara Nascimento Ascensao Consumption is a crucial part of people's everyday lives and is commonly assumed to be a matter of individual choice. By analysing the common idea that people have full authorship of their consumption decisions, and by presenting challenging alternatives to that notion, this essay aims to discuss the extent to which this assumption is true. The goal of this text is to argue that social and structural influences, such as socio-historical context, ethnicity, gender, and advertising, can shape consumption to a much greater extent than is often recognised. I will then briefly present the Frankfurt school perspective on the subject. This will then be followed by a discussion of the problem of agency in a coercive society. In the common sense view, humans are in control of their choices, due to the existence of free will. An action is ordinarily defined as free if there is the absence of both internal limitations (such as having an intellectual disability, for example) and external restrictions (obviously one's decision to give money to a criminal is not free if they have a gun pointed to their head) on one's behaviour (Vonasch et al., 2018). Applying that line of thought to the topic, it is the case that people buy certain products because they want to, not because they were explicitly forced to do it. Therefore, any cognitively capable individual possesses total control when it comes to their consumption choices. However, there are a few points that this perspective fails to consider. Sam Harris (2012) argues against the popular notion of free will, since even if people act in accordance with what they want to do, their own desires are a product of many factors that are out of their control. Individuals tend to be unaware of all the background aspects that shape their thoughts and actions (Harris, 2012). From a sociological perspective, if the common sense view holds that people are free if they choose according to their desires, then one must analyse the complex web of collective social forces that shape and inform those same desires. Coffee is a good example of how external circumstances outline consumption. Taking a production of culture perspective, there are six key elements of production that interact with each other and influence coffee culture: technology, law and regulation, industry structure, organization structure, occupational careers and market (Morris, 2013). For instance, the digital revolution and the emergence of self-autonomous working practices correlate with the growth of coffee shops in the UK. The relatively high prices that British customers pay for their coffee usually includes ‘rent for time’, meaning that they have a suitable space to work on their laptop or relax. The way in which this beverage is served reflects this: the milky drink takes time to consume, which caters to people who want to stay in the shop for longer periods of time working. In contrast, this product has been historically subjected to price controls in Italy (about 1 euro a serving), which 5 makes it incompatible with the UK shop business model. Italian costumers tend to have simpler and smaller espresso style beverages, which they can drink quickly (Morris, 2013). Secondly, one's membership of a certain social category, such as ethnicity and gender, can largely influence one's pattern of consumption. There is a case to be made that because certain minority groups have been economically disenfranchised throughout history, they possess below average economic power (Hirschman, 1985). This results in marketers perceiving ethnic minorities as less important. As a result, marketing campaigns will disproportionally tailor to the ethnic majority, which constitutes a way in which ethnicity can shape consumption (Hirschman, 1985). An example of this would be the exclusion of black women from the beauty industry by not producing products adequate to their specific skin tone. Consumption can also be a fairly gendered phenomenon (Pettinger, 2015). One specific example of that would be women's use of makeup at work (Dellinger and Williams, 1997). When a job does not explicitly demand makeup use, wearing it in those settings is commonly seen as a matter of individual choice. In reality, women's cosmetic consumption in this specific context is shaped by workplace culture. A significant link has been found between what is deemed to be appropriate use of makeup and assumptions about health, heterosexuality and credibility, which ultimately plays a huge role in women’s career success (Dellinger and Williams, 1997). Advertising can be highly influential when it comes to the consumption behaviours of people defined as working class. In his paper, Moore (2012) discusses the ways in which advertisements appeal to consumers’ impulses. Companies make use of advertising campaigns that emphasize the pleasures of consumption (such as highlighting the aromatic scent or the delicious taste of a cup of coffee, for example). The triggered emotional anticipation process can be so overwhelming to the point of causing a conflict between self-control and impulsivity (Moore, 2012). In order to reconcile both, there is an attempt to rationalize people's yield to consumption impulses (which explains why brands like McDonald's use slogans such as "you deserve it" in their publicity adverts). This falls in line with the idea that in a capitalist society the attractiveness of consumer goods is attributable to their novelty and promises of pleasure, instead of their utilitarian function (Pettinger, 2015). According to the Frankfurt School perspective, cultural consumption controls individuals much more than individuals control their cultural consumption. Under the late stages of capitalism, mass production of culture is heavily shaped by profit motives, ‘infecting everything with sameness’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2007: 41). As art becomes a standardized product designed to appeal to the most people possible, it loses its previous subversive and liberating properties. It is created to require the minimum amount of critical engagement by the public, which creates a complacent working class. On those grounds, the ‘culture industry’ is a form of social control that "endlessly cheats 6 its consumers out of what it endlessly promises" (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2007: 53). Although they cannot fulfil humans' true psychological needs, they can serve as a temporary escape from the oppressive process of labour, just so they can go back to cope with the same exploitative work (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2007). In this way, a person's class position can play a role when it comes to their experiences in regards to cultural consumption. It is important to clarify that the different perspectives discussed do not aim to erase human agency.
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