“…As such, harassment can be partly understood, we suggest, with reference to elements of the social reaction theories discussed earlier in the article. Leaving aside the controversy surrounding Albert Cohen's functionalist explanation for the emergence of subcultures (Blackman ), we found respondent accounts of the significance to their subcultural affiliation of the feelings engendered by experiences of harassment – and the ways these connected to broader feelings of societal marginalization – to be strikingly reminiscent of elements of the post‐subcultural‐formation transactional processes described by Cohen (), Becker (), Young (), Stan Cohen (), Fine and Kleinman () and, more recently, Thornton (), Williams (), Haenfler () and others. In some cases respondents were emphatic that being harassed because of their subcultural appearance had both strengthened their subcultural identity and emboldened them to display their allegiance, as here: Lauren (53): No, in a way it made us defiant.…”
Section: Affirming Identity and Embracing Othernessmentioning
confidence: 75%
“…Traces of this transactional approach to subculture also can be found in the work of the CCCS, even though the primary concerns of their neo‐Marxist, class‐centred approach lie elsewhere. As Shane Blackman () shows, Clarke, Hall, Jefferson and Roberts () are critical of Albert Cohen's understanding of the origins of subcultures, distrusting the psychological/functionalist roots of an account that centred on the notion of ‘reaction‐formation’ ‐ psychological compensation for an inability to succeed on dominant terms. Yet this does not prevent references within CCCS work to the implications of the societal hostility subcultures receive once they have emerged.…”
Section: Subcultures and Negative Social Reactionsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…More recent work, too, has shown how, in spite of question marks against some versions of social reaction theory (see Blackman ), the thrust of such theories with respect to interplay between negative social reactions and the subcultural experience has retained purchase. Bruce Friesen's () examination of the media stigmatization of heavy metal fans in the 1980s, for example, notes that, while metallers simultaneously revelled in and resented different aspects of their stigmatization, the social reaction appeared to encourage self‐identification as deviant – a salient point for the current study.…”
Section: Subcultures and Negative Social Reactionsmentioning
This paper examines the significance of experiences and understandings of targeted harassment to the identities of youth subcultural participants, through case study research on goths. It does so against a context of considerable recent public discussion about the victimization of alternative subcultures and a surprising scarcity of academic research on the subject. The analysis presented indicates that, although individual direct experiences are diverse, the spectre of harassment can form an ever-present accompaniment to subcultural life, even for those who have never been seriously targeted. As such, it forms part of what it is to be a subcultural participant and comprises significant common ground with other members. Drawing upon classic and more recent understandings of how subcultural groups respond to broader forms of outside hostility, we show how the shared experience of feeling targeted for harassment tied in with a broader subcultural discourse of being stigmatized by a perceived 'normal' society. The role of harassment as part of this, we argue, contributed to the strength with which subcultural identities were felt and to a positive embrace of otherness.
“…As such, harassment can be partly understood, we suggest, with reference to elements of the social reaction theories discussed earlier in the article. Leaving aside the controversy surrounding Albert Cohen's functionalist explanation for the emergence of subcultures (Blackman ), we found respondent accounts of the significance to their subcultural affiliation of the feelings engendered by experiences of harassment – and the ways these connected to broader feelings of societal marginalization – to be strikingly reminiscent of elements of the post‐subcultural‐formation transactional processes described by Cohen (), Becker (), Young (), Stan Cohen (), Fine and Kleinman () and, more recently, Thornton (), Williams (), Haenfler () and others. In some cases respondents were emphatic that being harassed because of their subcultural appearance had both strengthened their subcultural identity and emboldened them to display their allegiance, as here: Lauren (53): No, in a way it made us defiant.…”
Section: Affirming Identity and Embracing Othernessmentioning
confidence: 75%
“…Traces of this transactional approach to subculture also can be found in the work of the CCCS, even though the primary concerns of their neo‐Marxist, class‐centred approach lie elsewhere. As Shane Blackman () shows, Clarke, Hall, Jefferson and Roberts () are critical of Albert Cohen's understanding of the origins of subcultures, distrusting the psychological/functionalist roots of an account that centred on the notion of ‘reaction‐formation’ ‐ psychological compensation for an inability to succeed on dominant terms. Yet this does not prevent references within CCCS work to the implications of the societal hostility subcultures receive once they have emerged.…”
Section: Subcultures and Negative Social Reactionsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…More recent work, too, has shown how, in spite of question marks against some versions of social reaction theory (see Blackman ), the thrust of such theories with respect to interplay between negative social reactions and the subcultural experience has retained purchase. Bruce Friesen's () examination of the media stigmatization of heavy metal fans in the 1980s, for example, notes that, while metallers simultaneously revelled in and resented different aspects of their stigmatization, the social reaction appeared to encourage self‐identification as deviant – a salient point for the current study.…”
Section: Subcultures and Negative Social Reactionsmentioning
This paper examines the significance of experiences and understandings of targeted harassment to the identities of youth subcultural participants, through case study research on goths. It does so against a context of considerable recent public discussion about the victimization of alternative subcultures and a surprising scarcity of academic research on the subject. The analysis presented indicates that, although individual direct experiences are diverse, the spectre of harassment can form an ever-present accompaniment to subcultural life, even for those who have never been seriously targeted. As such, it forms part of what it is to be a subcultural participant and comprises significant common ground with other members. Drawing upon classic and more recent understandings of how subcultural groups respond to broader forms of outside hostility, we show how the shared experience of feeling targeted for harassment tied in with a broader subcultural discourse of being stigmatized by a perceived 'normal' society. The role of harassment as part of this, we argue, contributed to the strength with which subcultural identities were felt and to a positive embrace of otherness.
“…Subcultural researchers have emphasized that subcultures have shared values and cultural practices, that their members use symbols and signs to identify with each other, and that they do so to subvert the norms of dominant or mainstreams society to at least some extent (Blackman, 2014;Hebdige, 1979;Muggleton, 2000). Scholars who have previously studied online school shooting communities have agreed that these communities indeed use similar symbols, signs, and language and that they all engage in discussions that could be considered deviant from the perspective of mainstream society.…”
Section: School Shootings and Online Subculturesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The so-called postsubcultural turn in the youth studies in the 1990s meant that subcultures were considered fluid and fragmented (Bennett, 2011;Blackman, 2014). This reflected both societal change and the media's increasing influence.…”
Section: School Shootings and Online Subculturesmentioning
This study is grounded in extensive online ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 22 people who expressed a deep interest in school shootings. Such people form a global online subculture; they share common interests and find the same cultural objects important. Media accounts of school shootings have fueled this subculture; its members participate in the recreation and circulation of online media content and give new meanings to that content. We found that people deeply interested in school shootings do not form a homogenous group, and they are divided to four subgroups within the subculture based on members' focus and interest: researchers, fan girls, Columbiners and copycats. Out of these, copycats are the only subgroup explicitly interested in replicating the acts, although subgroup membership can overlap, and members can move from one subgroup to another. Beyond copycats, other subgroups also participate in giving perpetrators fame and circulate reasons for the shootings. These accounts may influence future perpetrators.
Preindustrial societies exhibited a wide range of cultural beliefs and expectations about adolescence. During industrialization, adolescence became institutionalized as part of the life course. The social cultural beliefs common to preindustrial society were replaced by strong normative pressures to conform to age‐defined behaviors within mass systems of education. Adolescents in developed nations are enrolled in school for most of this stage. The extension of schooling and the affluence of democratic capitalist nations sustained the development of youth cultures in many nations. Both national and world school cultures interweave elements of scientific studies (from medicine and developmental psychology) with historical or traditional narratives about adolescence. These depictions of adolescence are repeated in traditional media, social media, and educational or social policy at national and global levels. Adolescence typically is portrayed as a time of intense change, unstable identity formation, and predilection for at‐risk and rebellious behavior.
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