1.3 Summary Crime has multiple meanings. Those meanings are socially constructed. The most important differences in the meanings of crime occur between strictly legal definitions and those that relate crime to the breaking of other codes and conventions – normative definitions. These may be formal moral codes like religions, or more informal codes of socially-acceptable behaviour. Both these ways of thinking about crime vary historically, across soci
1.2 The recognition and pursuit of crime Whatever crime might mean, it can still land you in trouble. So given our answers to the questionnaire, why aren't we doing time at Her Majesty's Pleasure, or paying off an enormous backlog of fines? Not only the meaning of crime, but also the transformation of a potentially criminal act into conviction and imprisonment, is an irreducibly social process. 1.1 The meaning of crime What is a crime? Good question, but how to go about answering it? For most of us, most of the time, crime is something other people do. So why not check that against personal experience? Have a go at the questionnaire below, Learning outcomes On completion of this unit, you should be able to: give a definition of crime (in terms of society); state the steps and factors that lead from a crime to conviction; illustrate how society views crime ‘with fear and fascination’; give examples of the relationship between crime rates and the evidence to support these claims. Introduction ‘Tough on the causes of crime.’ A famous phrase, but what is crime? This unit examines how we as a ‘society’ define crime. You will look at the fear that is generated within communities and what evidence is available to support claims that are made about crime rates. This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Introducing the social sciences (DD100) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish t 2.2 Summary Developments in sports media have included a move towards more sensationalism, very similar to that in other popular cultural fields as represented in the tabloid press. Sport coverage adopts the language of popular culture and its techniques (images, personal stories about family and personal problems). Technologies and technical developments are crucial to the media–sport complex, whereby mediated sport culture creates 2.1 The historical relationship between sport and the media We want you to look at two readings that focus on two key moments in the historical relationship between sport and the media. Take this as an opportunity to practise your note-taking skills. Now read the following extr 1.1 They think it's all over They think it's all over … it is now! (Kenneth Wolstenholme, 1966) This is one of those iconic sporting media moments. It happened a long time ago, when Geoff Hurst's third goal in the dying seconds of extra time clinched England's 4–2 win over Germany in the 1966 football World Cup final. People who were not even born, let alone at Wembley or watching the game on television, still reco 7.2 The importance of the market and the state: neo-liberalism and neo-Marxism To begin with neo-liberalism, it is a key premise that the market is the primary means of coordinating economic activity, including the allocation of people to jobs. This assumes that rational actors make judgements about their earnings prospects to decide their best options – training to improve employability, as in Mandy's case, or accepting subsistence-level earnings, as Tamarla Owens did. To neo-liberals, both Mandy and Tamarla Owens would have used information they gleaned in their eve 3.1 Introduction In this section we look at the way in which the personal lives of older people have been socially constructed through pensions policies over the last century. As we saw above, welfare policies and changes in employment in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century constructed the personal lives of older people as ‘other’ to the emergent normal of relatively younger, ‘independent’ paid workers. Here, we explore the way pensions policies during the 2.1 Introduction In this section, we explore how experiences of being an older person in the nineteenth century were constituted through the operation of the 1834 New Poor Law Act and the processes of industrial change that ran parallel to it. We examine the way this constructed the lives of older people as ‘other’ to the emergent ‘normal’ (adult, relatively youthful, male paid worker) and trace its legacy to reveal points of continuity and change. 1.3 Sexuality and parenthood In this unit sexuality is used to refer to heterosexual reproductive sex, relationships and relations, and the meanings and discursive constructions which are associated with these. Sexual practices resulting in conception and the experience of parenthood are among the few remaining areas that are considered a ‘natural’ part of human existence. Just as sexuality has been seen as a ‘natural’, elemental drive in human identity, parenthood has also been closely associated with the ‘nat 1.2 Defining parenthood As a starting point, we need to distinguish parenthood from parenting. Parenthood is more about the role, social status and meanings associated with being a parent, of bringing children into the world and having children to look after. Parenting, on the other hand, is associated with the activities of looking after children and raising them to adulthood. Parenting can be undertaken by a range of people: a man, a woman, a relative or an unrelated carer. It implies a sustained 4.3 Industrial dynamics: knowledge and network industries This final subsection introduces two more concepts that develop further our analysis of the dynamics of industrial structure, with particular reference to the ‘new economy’ industries. A dynamic approach to industrial change places considerable emphasis on innovation and learning, seeing firms as actively searching out innovative products and processes and learning how to produce and sell them. Some of the novelty of the new economy is reflected in the concepts used in trying to understan 3.3 Long-run costs and economies of scale What makes it possible to offer more output for sale at a lower price? That was one of the questions with which Section 3.2 opened. Part of the answer is that the firm's cost curves, which reflect the technology it is using, may display falling average cost as output increases over a range of output levels. The other part References Questions for review and discussion Suppose a firm uses 200 hours of labour per day and produces 4000 mobile phones. It then reduces its labour inputs to 100 hours per day and finds it can produce 3000 phones. Which one of the following is a correct statement 5 Conclusion This chapter has enabled you to think about the essential role of technological change in determining economy-wide growth and the growth of firms and industries. We have seen that many issues surrounding the new economy are really issues around the dynamics of technological change: rapid increases in productivity, the emergence of many small firms, new products and new processes, and so on. The main lesson of the unit has been to provide a historical perspective to the introduction of new tec 4.7 The future? In the USA, the automobile reached the 50 per cent household penetration rate in 1923, about 23 years into the industry's development. The PC reached that threshold rate in 1999, also about 23 years into its development. Given the discussion in Section 3, this suggests that the economy-wide effects of the PC have yet to be fully see 4.6 Changes in industry structure How did the turbulence caused by new firms entering and leaving the industry, radical technological change and falling prices affect the overall industry structure? The term ‘industry structure’ refers mainly to the way in which power is distributed among firms. This can be described by factors such as the number of firms in the industry and the distribution of market shares (the market share of a firm is its share of total industry production expressed as a percentage). An
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