My top four video ‘hub sites’ – These sites are what I believe to be the best for finding up-to-date information about contemporary sociological video resources.

1 - Top Documentary Films

An excellent site for documentaries relevant to Sociology as well as just for general interest too. The site features mainly American and British documentaries, but there are also plenty from around the world too, all organised into useful categories such as ‘society’ and ‘economics’, with short summaries and embedded links to the videos if they are available online, which most are, although some have been removed due to copy right reasons, which can be frustrating. There are thousands of documentaries, all of which are hosted on other sites such as YouTube or Google video, but what makes this site so useful is the categorisation system – you can browse very easily by category

2 - The Sociological Cinema – Teaching and Learning Sociology through Video

This site is designed to help sociology instructors incorporate videos into their classes. I t does have a somewhat American focus, but it is still very useable for many topics in Britain, most obviously if you teach global development

Each post consists of a brief summary of the relevant film or documentary and, if available a link to the film or short excerpt. Many of the entries are, in fact, short excerpts, which are fine for teaching many issues.

To give you an example of how up to date and potentially useful the site is – check out their globalisation category: there are about a dozen entries from 2012 alone.

3 - TED Talks

TED stands for Technology, Education and Design, and some of these talks are ‘jaw dropping’ – which is actually one of the categories you can search via. Although the subject material ranges far beyond the scope of Sociology, there is much of Sociological relevance here – to find talks on specific topics use this tag page. They also have playlists – but many of these are just celebrities pointing to their ‘favourite talks’ so these lists probably won’t be that useful to most people.

4. - RSA Videos (Royal Sociological Association Videos)

Videos here are organised into three basic categories – Lectures/ discussions, RSA shorts (although these are a bit thin) and the excellent RSA animate videos which introduce fairly complex topics in 10 minute animations.

I really like the simplicity of the mission of the RSA – Which is to continually reinvent the Enlightenment project for the 21^st century through developing and promoting new ways of thinking about human fulfilment and social progress. OK the site isn’t really for your average A level student, but the RSA is ‘real sociology’ as far as I’m concerned – It cuts across disciplines – looking at politics, society, economics and psychology, and if you ever need an example of a reflexive organisation – look no further than the RSA! Oh, it’s also British, so this biases the RSA up the rankings too. The RSA also has a YouTube channel where you can access the videos

The Young Apprentice is one of the very few programmes I make a point of watching. What’s odd is that I enjoy it even though it spreads three messages that I have a real problem with -

• Firslty, it gives the impression that there is opportunity out there if ‘you only work hard enough’, when in reality the current crisis means it’s actually very tough to start up a small business or find employment, especially for young people.
• Secondly, the show spreads the myth of meritocracy – We are typically presented with a range of candidates from all manner of social classes, gender and ethnic backgrounds suggesting equal opps, but in real life class privilege etc. still conspire to subvert genuine talent’s rise to the top.
• Thirdly the show suggests that making a profit is more important than doing something socially useful, an idea I find odious,

To explore these message one  at a time…

Problematic Message One – Even though we’re in ‘tough economic times’ there’s still opportunity if you work hard enough.

OK Maybe this will come across as a little sad that I’ve done this, but if you calculate the profit per head per task and then divide by 2, you get the ‘day rate’ per candidate. The figures look something like this…

Approximate earnings per day for five tasks in the young apprentice

*This of course assumes that all books are sold and that candidates receive £1 per book, which I think is a realistic estimate as to royalties on the type of books they produced.

* and ** These two ‘big profit tasks’ of course don’t actually take into account the costs of hiring the following

• Half a day with the chefs to make the recipes/ half a day with the publishers
• Half a day with the experts to help with the ideas generation of the kids club, or the costs of the materials for the demonstrations

Also neither of these projects are actually realistic in terms of your average teenager being able to start up such business because of the quality of the ‘laid on contacts’ with industry insiders, and the social desirability of purchasing a young apprentice product of course.

Given the above it might actually make more sense to look at the three ‘realistic’ business a teenager might set up – and for these the results are much worse.

If this is what the eleven brightest young people in the country can do (plus one hot-housed posh kid with inflated GCSEs) then Socialism help the rest of them is all I can say

Max – Defo the right candidate to go in week 1

Misleading Message Two - In the world of business it doesn’t matter what your class or ethnic background or your gender identity there’s a level playing field. OK I accept that in the apprentice the working classes seem to come good – In fact if anything Lord Sugar seems to have a deep suspicion of the posh – very probably because he’s ended up working with a lot of talent-less individuals who have risen up the ranks because of contacts rather than well, err talent.

In the real world of business what happens is that you need a leg up to be able to get yourself established – this will either mean money from your parents or an internship – often networked into, and in which you work for nothing for some months or even years. For evidence see below…

• A nice article by Will Hutton on why class still matters
• Research on ‘unfair access to the professions‘
• The Guardian – The Social Class bias in internships

In addition to this if you’re a female looking to break into business, OK things are changing – but check out these stats from a previous blog of mine

All of this doesn’t stop me finding the apprentice hugely entertaining, I just hope a few people read this and think again about some of the potentially misleading messages it puts out….

Problem Message Three – Profit is more important than social utility

The contestants really have been asked to produce crap this year haven’t they?

Basically just crap – The Wetsuit Kimono

In episode 1, the task was to resell old clothes, which otherwise would have probably gone towards making money for  charity but instead ends up with either the BBC or Alan Sugar or the candidates (Actually I’ve no idea where the money ends up TBH!).  You could in fact argue that taking from charity results in negative social utility.

Episode two saw the candidates producing cook books – With one team producing a student cook book and the other a book which, in a total throwback to the 1980s, ended up with the title ‘the professional woman’. Whatever spin you put on a new cook book – the fact that there are are over 60 000 cookery books currently available on Amazon does suggest we don’t really need any more.

Episode three was all about sourcing a list of ten items for the very inclusive (NOT) Royal Opera House – Sugar putting the youth to work for the benefit of elite (kind of like apprenticeships and workfare).

Episode four revolved around the teams putting on a themed afternoon tea experience and sell them at a Stately Home – resulting in a ’1940s’ theme and a ‘Mad Hatter’s’ theme – both of which I think we can agree are frankly pretty naff.

In episode five the candidates were required to develop a new kids club in order to attract investors who would potentially buy licenses. I will at this point concede that this venture does, finally, have some kind of genuine social utility – for parents at least.

The product of the most creative young business minds in the UK

Episode six saw the teams developing a new brand of hair spray and hair gel – Possibly the very epitome of products that lack any genuine social use value

In the penultimate episode candidates disturbed the ‘peace and love’ of the Womad festival to sell a combination of a cardboard box toilet and an umbrella seat on the one hand and onesies and camping washing machines on the other. Actually maybe these are even more useless than the hair products?

/

The Young Apprentice – Find out More

The BBC – The Young Apprentice 2012

Digital Spy has quite a nice overview of what’s been going on

Sabotage Times – Is Lord Sugar really looking for a new carer?

Unreality TV – Has several posts on the Young Apprentice

I’ve arranged these videos in the order of

• Easy
• More difficult
• More Dude
• More obtuse.

If that order doesn’t make any sense, get with the postmodern programme…

Video 1 – Easy – Clearly designed for A level students, with a very very nice example of ‘cultural hybridity’ at the end, courtesy of X-Factor

Video 2 – Although this is more difficult  (but still important) it does quite a good job of explaining postmodnernism as the abandonment of the ‘truth claims’ of modernity, and Lyotard’s related idea of postmodernism as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’.

Video 3 – A Dude explains postmodernism – Bit more an artistic rather than a sociological tone – I especially like the section on youtube, which is very postmodern

Video 4 – Obtuse – More obscure, but I think this describes quite nicely the postmdoern experience in hyperreality.

Slow TV week this week – but here are the things I think are worth recording…

Tuesday 

01.55 BBC3 – Britain unzipped – bills itself as a ‘look what goes on behind closed doors in Britain’ – It may be interesting, then again it may just be voyeuristic.

BBC2 – 20.00 – The Town taking on China – Set in Kirby – a town trying to rest back cushion manufacturing from China. Relevant to globalisation, or resistance to it…

Wednesday 

23.45 – The Disabled Century – asks whether the welfare state made life better for the disabled community

The London Marathon is mainly about this kind of thing

A couple of my friends recently ran the London Marathon dressed as a Panto Horse – so I watched it to catch a glimpse of them – which I finally did, but I had to wait until right at the end of the BBC2 highlights show. As a result of keeping my eye on the BBC’s London Marathon for about 3 hours, I feel as if I have been used and abused.

I am a victim of the Corporate Branding of my public space. I honestly wanted to watch this event but I had no choice but to witness, in nearly every camera shot, the various Logos of the event sponsors – mainly Virgin, but others such as Adidas were in there too.

The London Marathon is a great event – I personally love running, and even I’m not that cynical (OK perhaps I am) about the money raised for charity and the ‘personal’ stories of some of the runners, but these tales seemed to take a back seat to the ‘Corporate event’ – from what I saw, the London Marathon is now primarily a vessel for Corporate advertisers to pollute our visual space with logos I do not wish to see: From the start, round every major landmark, right up to the trophy ceremonies where the corporate puppet-whores (the elite winners) adorned themselves in the logos of their sponsors.

But it's been sabotaged by this man

Critics might say that all of the money spent on advertising is going to a good cause – And a lot of money is going to come from allowing Virgin etc. to advertise in the world’s best marathon, and last year the London Marathon company had a turnover of about £18 million and made a profit of £4 million – a significant chunk of which goes to charity. However, this is nothing compared to the £47 million which individual runners make for their own individual charities.

I’d much rather see the London Marathon company scale down the advertising and just about cover costs – let the runners run for charity rather than using Corporation’s advertising to generate a little bit extra.

If you’re sick of Corporate Logo Creep,  I recommend reading,  or at least looking at summaries of Naomi Klein’s ‘No Logo’ – it was written in 2000, but she really predicted this trend – the trend of Corporate branding progressively taking over more and more of our public space

Finally, my friends did actually break the world record for the fastest panto horse to complete a marathon, they’re raising money for help the hospices, why not donate here - Who knows, if the BBC had spent more time flagging up the people’s efforts to raise money for charity rather than panning in on celebrity and Corporate logos, they’d be closer to their target of £5000!

Oh, you could also boycott all Virgin products, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend ever going out at night and vandalising Corporate logos where ever you see them.

Hi – Decided I can do a useful (and easy) weekly blog flagging up what’s on TV this week that could be of sociological interest – For my own benefit, as well as that of others…. So here goes… These days of course you can always just search on iplayer for when the programme was!

Sunday (BBC News Channel) – Panorama - Billionaires behaving badly – looking at Glencore, possibly one of the world’s worst mining companies

Sunday (BBC2) – Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve – he goes to 3 south African countries – there might be something in here relevant to global development

Sunday (BBC2) – Ewan McGregor’s Cold Chain – following the Vaccine Trail – bound to be something relevant to the ‘biomedical intervention’ aspect of health and development, and I’ll grate my own eyeballs out if Gates doesn’t get a mention somewhere in this show.

Monday (BBC3) – A look at car crime, and the impacts of filming it and posting it online

Monday (BBC2) – This world – the story of the Norway Massacre

Tuesday (BBC3) – I woke up gay – pop – but about a straight rugby player who had a stroke and woke up gay. He’s now a hairdresser.

Tuesday (BBC1) – The Estate – not sure about this – looks like it might be interesting tho’

Wednesday BBC4 – Wild Swimming – Alice Roberts, the thinking man’s totty natural swimming in a bathing costume or a wet suit, not especially educational, but it can’t be bad!

Friday Channel 4 – Unreported World – in Afghanistan – cheery!

Man I smacked down my dinner tonight – Sometimes there’s just nothing like a good old plate of baked beans and eggs on toast – In fact a couple of times a week  it’s the perfect evening meal (given that I generally eat my fruit and crudities at work) – Nutritious (being a veggie I need the huge amount of protein it provides), extremely cheap (which is good, as I intend to pay off my mortgage as quickly as possible to make sure the bank earns as little as possible for basically doing nothing), and it’s quick and I think delicious – as I said, I smacked it down, with only one lone bean stain on my shirt too – go me!

It’s also reasonably easy to make this meal ethical in the environmental sense of the word – free range eggs, home-made bread from locally grown flour, ditto for the butter, with beans being the only thing that you have to ship in – but organic and fair trade varieties exist and they come by sea not air – so all in all, not quite hardcore localism, but not bad either.

Just recently, I’ve developed a penchant for eating such wonderful nutritious, cheap, delicious, practical and ethical meals (in varying combinations of these criteria) and laughing at what I now regard as the morons of Masterchef, in which the contestants invest an enormous amount of time and effort and subject themselves to an enormous amount of stress to construct a meal that is just marginally ‘better’ in terms of flavour balance and texture than their competitors’ – I cannot think of a better illustration of the concept of ‘diminishing marginal utility’ – My meal took me 10 minutes to prepare. The finalists’ meals tonight will, I think, take them 2 hours, can one honestly say that their meal is 12 times nicer than mine plus all the additional stress?

Seriously now, my  ‘Pan heated baked beans and d’huile olive fried eggs on crisped wholemeal bread, served with a cup of tea, bag still in’  really hit the spot – so I can’t imagine anything tasting 12 times nicer ; and I really can’t imagine anything tasting 48 times nicer – which is the amount of ‘utility’ that the chefs in last year’s professional Masterchef final would have had to have added to each of their individual courses when they spent eight hours each preparing one course for a Michelin starred restaurant.

Now I’m not suggesting that all of our meals consist of anything we can conveniently chuck together, I’m not suggesting that an ‘all in’ of bananas and Shepherd’s pie wouldn’t make me gag like the next man – there are clearly ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food combinations – but the level of ‘Foodism’ displayed in Masterchef is, I believe, actually the antithesis of a balanced, healthy, practical and wise attitude towards food, which I believe would encourage the following three principles (broadly inspired by Buddhism)

• Firstly, when we cook and eat, we should do so with awareness, focussing on what we are doing, thus cooking and eating are both quiet, simple, meditative acts which are part of the daily routine of meditative awareness. The end result is simply not especially that important, it is the process that matters.

• Secondly, the Buddhist way encourages compassion – so where food is concerned this means considering how the whole process of sourcing and cooking food effects others – and there is a very strong case that locally sourced, in season, raw food, has the least environmental impact and is thus the most ethical. Also, when there are 900 million people malnourished in the world – a real act of compassion might be to eat more simply so that others might eat more. Finally, a good example of ‘compassionate cooking’ comes from the Sikh practise of feeding masses of people at religious centres – the food tastes good, yes, but there is not the extreme attention paid to nuanced ‘perfection’ – food is made cheaply, relatively simple, and served to all.

• Thirdly, happiness in Buddhism involves renunciation and restraint – so we shouldn’t be too attached to things – Buddhist monks eat once a day and get what there are given – OK too extreme for most of us, but not a bad model to aspire to – think about it – so what if the shop doesn’t have cheese sandwiches, just have egg – it really isn’t that big a deal. We will be happier, ultimately, if we learn to be less fussy – because this will allow us to be happier in a wider range of contexts and while expending less effort on getting what ‘I’ want. If we can be free from attachments – we are truly free.

Masterchef is often (although not necessarily) the antithesis of the above wise and pragmatic approach to food -

• Firstly, you might think that cooking on Masterchef, being so involved, is a truly ‘meditative act’ in which they go on a journey and discover themselves – and no doubt our chefs are really engrossed in what they are doing – but the context of why they cook reveals a darker reality – nearly all of these chefs are cooking ‘as an act of self-expression’ – they cook food for others to consume hoping for a positive reaction – their very identity, sometimes career aspirations are tied up with this act – they cook because they want to be known as ‘the best cook in town’ – typically their cooking is an act of self-construction rather than a meditative vehicle for self-awareness.

• Secondly, Masterchef style cooking isn’t about Compassion for others – it’s about feeding your close friends so they praise you – and as a general rule, there is no attention paid to ethics of sourcing of food. Vegetarianism is strictly off the agenda, and if any Vegans dared brave the show I fear they may end up being the main course.

• The third reason why Masterchef might breed long term human misery is because it’s very essence revolves around encouraging us to attach our very being to the ‘experience of food’, so that we ‘live to eat’ rather than ‘eating to live’ – it encourages us to be more fussy about what we eat, basing notions of superiority around slight nuances of taste and texture. The end result of us coming to expect exacting and high standards of food is that, over time, we come to be more disappointed with what we now regard as acceptable food.

• Fourthly and finally, Masterchef does not encourage a ‘calm and meditative’ approach to cooking – it is fraught and desperate as the contestants strive for perfection – judged by panels looking to find fault.

So call me a philistine – but surely we should resist (as no doubt many do) the messages about food put out by Masterchef (and a whole host of other ‘Foodie’ programmes out there!) because we are encouraged to use cooking as an act of self-construction rather than self-awareness, we are called upon to push all thoughts of ethics and broad-compassion to one side, we are called upon to be more discerning, more judgemental, more fussy and particular, and we are then encouraged to stress ourselves out trying to please others in the process of perpetuating all of this.

Far better to give it all up and just settle for basic, simple food, so if you ever come round to mine, you can expect as much. On the plus side, you’ll find that there’s not that much washing up to do following a meal of  pan heated baked beans and d’huile olive fried eggs on crisped wholemeal bread, served with a cup of tea, bag still in’.

Some recent comments on Masterchef 2012 (The Professionals)

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-12-10/masterchef-the-professionals-2012-finalists—keri-moss-biography

Episode one of  Gok Wan’s ‘Teen’s The Naked Truth’ focussed on Body Dysmorphia - offering us three tragic tales of teens in anguish over their imperfect bodies.

Gok Wan - Teens the Naked Truth

I want to just focus on two of these cases – two girls  - One a 15 year old who spent several hours a day surfing ’pro-anorexia sites’ and another 14 year old who had been through anorexia and seemed to now be coming out the other side.

Gok Wan’s approach to dealing with their body anxiety was to firstly, literally, just sit down with them and discuss the fact the ‘beauty myth’ they were trying to obtain was just that – a myth, and that the images they saw on pro-anorexia sites and in fashion magazines were not real.

One girl aspired to be so skinny as to be able to have a gap between her inner thighs when she had her legs closed: Gok simply pointed out that even the skinniest models he knew didn’t have such a gap and that the look had been engineered in photoshop; he took another to a photoshoot to demonstrate how it took 3 hours of make-up and just as long with photoshop to create the ‘glamour look’.

At this point I have to congratualate Gok (although I’m far from putting him in the ‘National Treasure’ category!) for actually putting in the effort to educate teens out of ‘chasing the beauty myth’ and encouraging them to be happy with whatever body shape they’ve got. Recognising that body dysmorphia has social causes is certainly a positive step beyond the BBC’s advice site – which treats body dismorphia as a genetic condition - Simply stating, in answer to the question ‘what causes it’ that ‘The cause of BDD is unclear, but it may be genetic or caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain’ which can be treated through antidepressant medication, cognitive behavioural therapy or a combination of both. Antipsychotic medication is sometimes used.

However, I would have liked to have seen Gok go further in criticising the ‘beauty industry’ – at one point he was actually face to face with someone who ‘retouched’ images in fashion magazines for a living – someone who actually gets paid to create the ‘beauty myth’ - and it would have been akward, but maybe he could have probed a little? - ’Here is evidence of a 15 year old whose anorexia seems to have been inspired by the unrealistic photos in your magazine… given the direct social harm your industry contributes to, can you please explain to me, in your view, what justifies the job you do?’ – It would be interesting to hear from the ‘myth creaters’ – On this note – The Illusionists - is a good film to look out for that will hopefully be released relatively shortly.

Also, the programme could have been more informed by statistics – there is considerable evidence that, as Gok said more than once, if you suffer from these body issues, then you are not alone! – Chapter one of the Equality Illussion by Kat Banyard is especially good on this matter – which notes, among other things that…

• 1.5 million people in the UK have an eating disorder – 90% of them women and girls
• A survey conducted by Dove of 3000 women found that 90% of them wanted to change some aspect of their body with body weight and shape being the main concern.
• One in four women has considered plastic surgery.
• The more mainstream media high shcool students watch,  the more they believe beauty is important according to the American Psychological Association.
• Some studies have shown that the more a girl monitors her appearance, the less satisfied she will be with her appearance.
• Two thirds of women report having avoided activities such as going swimming or going to a party because they feel bad about their appearance while 16% of 15 -17 year olds have avoided going to school for the same reason.

Also, it has to be said that the programme oversimplified the issues somewhat – while I am critical of the ‘beauty-myth’ industry – it isn’t as simple as ‘see images of skinny girls’ – ‘become anorexic’! There could have been more recogition of this

Finally, I am not convinced by the ‘individualised therapeutic approach’ to sorting out problems that have social roots – but I will return to this in another blog…

Related Posts

For more info on Gok’s thoughts on the programme – see this Digital Spy interview  interview with Gok Wan

Lucy Jone’s Review in The Telegraph

Ilona Catherine’s Independent Blog

The Muppets latest movie features an evil oil tycoon called ‘Tex Richman’ who wants to extract oil from under the Muppets’ old theatre…. The general plot line and name of the character were enough to lead the anchor man of Fox Business, Eric Bolling, to suggest that the movie is promoting an anti-capitalist agenda.,,,, He asked guest Dan Gainor whether the movie was liberal propaganda. ‘This oil muppet, evil man that he is, is called Tex Richman,’ Mr Bolling said. ‘It’s amazing how low the left will go just to stoop to give your kids the anti-corporate message,’ Mr Gainor replied. Later in the segment Mr Bolling asks: ‘Is liberal Hollywood using class warfare to brainwash our kids?’

Given that this is a mainstream movie, and given that it’s a Disney Movie – and given that the evil, powerful, villain is a standard in move plot lines, it’s reasonably obvious that this isn’t a sinister socialist attack on Capitalist values – in fact I imagine the plot line will work out with all the muppets being unharmed and justice being done – which is actually far, far removed from the relaity of oil exploration and extration as evidenced in the Niger Delta, the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Tar Sands of Albterta Canada!

It also goes to show just how paranoid the right are becoming over maintaining their advantage in the war of position – this latest attack on our brother muppets is simply laughable.

On a positive note, this does give me a good option for the end of term movie this summer when it’ll be time to play the music (of the fourth international), and time to light the lights (of the glorious communist revolution)… and time to meet the muppets and subtly indoctrinate my students into leftist values…

Catfish is  a great 2010 documentary to illustrate the piffalls of the hyperreal world many of us inhabit -

It follows a Young photographer Nev Schulman who becomes Facebook friends with Abby Pierce, an eight-year-old child prodigy artist in  Michegan, wafter she sends him a painting of one of his published photographs. The Facebook network then broadens to Abby’s family, including her mother, Angela and Abby’s attractive older half-sister Megan.

To cut a medium-length story short, Nev really falls for Megan and ends up heading up to Michegan to pay the family a surprise visit – and what he finds is that Megan doesn’t exist and that the mother, Angela, who is the talented artist he thought Abbey was, had invented a network of a dozen or more friends on Facebook and played all of them in a web of deceipt.

All of this is captured on film – and in Angela’s own words as to what happened -

‘the personalities that came out were just fragments of myself, fragments of things I use to be, wanted to be, never could be… Sometimes I just don’t know who I am.’

In a wonderful post-film twist – many critics think the documentary is fake and that some or all of the people involved know that the initial Facebook relationships were not real…. but the documentary makers claim it’s all genuine…