Sociology 313 Social Control in the Mass Media Blog
Hello. This is a blog to showcase the evidence of social control in the mass media. Students in Social Control 313 Section 003 will post a weekly example of social control in the electronic print media. Colin Olson
This article was found in the Washington Post it shows how fear and tradition had reversed a hopeful trend from the previous election in Kabul. Five years ago many women registered and voted for a presidential candidate in Kabul, in the recent election things were much different. On August 20th it was time to vote again for a new president but unlike the previous election women chose to abandon their right to vote that five years previous they had exercised. This was due to threats from insurgents. Insurgents threatened to attack polling places if women chose to vote and many if not all Afgan women decided that it wasn't worth the risk. These women decided that their personal security was more important than their civic right. The Afgan Constitution gives women the right to vote but due to these threats voting, for women, turned out to be too dangerous. This article was a good example of social control in many ways. It shows the hard edge type of control (the threat of deadly force) that groups of insurgents use to progress their political interests. It also shows how a society's collective memory can work to control an entire gender. In the Middle East, as most know, women are not granted many rights or priviledges it seems that they remain subservient because that is the way their society is and always has been structured. The threat of violence seems to keep women from actively pursuing many rights and priviledges that they already do have and if militant groups are willing to use deadly force to get their point across, it seems that the Middle East will always be a male dominated society.
View this article at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32622707/ns/world_news-washington_post
Many Afgan Women Stayed Away From Polls
ReplyDeleteJustin Pierson
Post #1
September 17,2009
This article was found in the Washington Post it shows how fear and tradition had reversed a hopeful trend from the previous election in Kabul. Five years ago many women registered and voted for a presidential candidate in Kabul, in the recent election things were much different. On August 20th it was time to vote again for a new president but unlike the previous election women chose to abandon their right to vote that five years previous they had exercised. This was due to threats from insurgents. Insurgents threatened to attack polling places if women chose to vote and many if not all Afgan women decided that it wasn't worth the risk. These women decided that their personal security was more important than their civic right. The Afgan Constitution gives women the right to vote but due to these threats voting, for women, turned out to be too dangerous.
This article was a good example of social control in many ways. It shows the hard edge type of control (the threat of deadly force) that groups of insurgents use to progress their political interests. It also shows how a society's collective memory can work to control an entire gender. In the Middle East, as most know, women are not granted many rights or priviledges it seems that they remain subservient because that is the way their society is and always has been structured. The threat of violence seems to keep women from actively pursuing many rights and priviledges that they already do have and if militant groups are willing to use deadly force to get their point across, it seems that the Middle East will always be a male dominated society.
View this article at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32622707/ns/world_news-washington_post