The Media are often the subject of claims that they cause crime and deviance through their devotion to exaggerating the truth in order to have a “newsworthy” story. Often it is the case that the media will play an important role in what Durkheim would say is maintaining the boundaries of society, reaffirming what is socially acceptable, and what is not. Durkheim would also say that all change starts with deviance, and the media highlighting this deviance on the world stage helps to excite and increase the rate of social change, which as suggested in the item, can lead to changes in law. Examples of this have been seen with public displays of homosexuality in countries where homosexual marriage is illegal, or disallowed. This kind of deviance is picked up by the media, and projected on a world stage in the name of news, and appeals to the world’s sense of equality and liberalism. So, while Functionalists would say the news plays an important function in society as a tool to catalyst social change, others would argue that it actually victimises a lot of people.
This is seen with Cohen’s work on Folk Devils and Moral panics, in which a person with new norms, values or morals- or even all three, comes along and challenges societies accepted ones. This kind of challenge is met harshly and the new group, or person, is outcasted. They’re cut off from society as a folk devil and victimised for being different. This was seen in the study of the Drug Takers by Jock Young. The Hippies he undertook a participant observation with were using drugs as a peripheral activity, in which nobody was being hurt and nobody was using them too often. The media picked up this