New Border Patrol Station Planned for Lordsburg

Mariel Graeber

Soc 313

Olson

The Article posted on August 28th 2009 is about land sold in a southern New Mexico town from the state to Hidalgo County in order to build a Boarder Patrol Station. The state sold the land to federal officials for $750,000 and the building will accommodate 350 employees.

This is a great example of social control of an entire group of people. The state presumes that because they have this land close to the boarder of Mexico they will be able to keep illegal Aliens out of the country. Although this new building may deter certain individuals from attempting to cross the boarder it will probably not keep them from ever entering America. Because of crossing the boarder these individuals may go to prison from being caught at the boarder control station. This is a way for the American Government to keep only American citizens in the country. The last form of social control of this article is to reassure the American public that the Government will actually be stopping Illegal Aliens from crossing the boarder. Thus far America has not been supper successful at this task and 25 more acres in the southern most county in New Mexico will still surely miss some of the individuals that come over the border from Mexico.

http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=11011211

313 Social Control & "Free Speech"

Andrew Young
Social Control
313 Colin O.

On August 19th, 2009 an article came out about a man who had been blogging about "skanks in NYC". This blog(on Google) also talked about a certain model, Liskula Cohen, who is about the age of 37, who has appeared in magazines and photos for Vogue, and all those popular ones. She was referred to as a "Skank" and "Old Hag" and she found out about, pressing charges against Google, for the identity of the man. She got favor from the court and Google now must hand over the identity of the man to this woman. Most would say, including the bloggers lawyer that it was just a type of "trash talk" and that many people talk this way not only over the Internet but everywhere. The man was very much insulting her, but he has the right too, and the point of the matter is should we not be allowed to say what we want.

So Free Speech is an issue here, whether we can say anything we want or is that not right? That we must watch every word we say because our identity and safety is at jeopardy? I don't really know, i believe though that this falls under a social control, how now governments/ courts are trying to to stop what we are saying and find out who are are because of things we say. Its hard for the government now with the Internet to find people like this, and now the door is open for them to take any information from groups like Google to grab hold of individuals.

Now people have to watch what they say and make sure that when talking about anything, that we wont be put into a situation where we have our identities known to governments groups. This might trigger many other lawsuits that were the same as this and can have either negative or positive outcomes. The positive is that people will stop saying crude things like this but on the negative out online privacy is gone.

http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/google-identity-blogger/

Social Control & Identity Theft in the Mass Media

Social Control & Identity Theft in the Mass Media
Julie Parker
SOC 313
Olson

This morning, August 28, 2009, there is an online article on MSN.com that explains how an important US economist was a victim of Identity theft. Ben Bernake, who is Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve, became a victim after his wife’s purse was stolen. Apparently Mrs. Bernake’s purse contained social security cards, check books and IDs—which combined can cause serious damage to anyone’s personal credit history and financial situation.

Much of our reading is discovering the history behind social control and various theories that back up the paradigm. There is a constant cycle of control and resistance that evolves into new concepts that helps identify individuals. One of the chapters in, “The Soft Cage” explains how resistance to slavery became rampant by forging documents so African American slaves could run errands or visit relatives during holidays. In return, community members enforced ways to ID slaves to prevent them from doing fraudulent activities.

Eventually, those methods were revolutionized into a current-day identification structure (i.e. social security cards, driver’s license, birth certificates, police records, etc.). Since we have means to indentify people in numerous ways and account for all day interactions (checking account, school schedules, online navigation), it is necessary to have coinciding documents to prove positive identity. When you go to write a check, you often need an ID. This is a way to control how society is operated in means of tracking and preventing deceptive behavior.

Since Mrs. Bernake’s purse was stolen and original documents were used, investigators were able to track the activity and account for a positive report of identity theft. This is a great example how social control has both positives and negatives. Without proper identification, it is difficult for anyone to try and imposter you. On the other side, with all proper identification, one person can drain your bank account, ruin your credit history and even do criminal acts in your name. I imagine in the long run we will have another institution that separately indentifies us. To tighten (or readjust) control, we might have harsher punishments and more prisons.

Source:
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/best_of_youtube/2009/08/ben_bernanke_id_theft_wifes_purse_stolen.html

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