Category: For Students
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Positivism vs Interpretivism: The Cheat Sheet
When sociologists carry out research, they don’t all agree on how society should be studied. Some believe sociology should work like a science, using facts and figures. Others argue that society can only be understood by exploring people’s meanings and experiences. These two approaches are known as positivism and interpretivism, and they sit at the…
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Understanding Research Methods in Sociology
When sociologists study society, they don’t just rely on opinions or guesses. Instead, they carry out research to collect evidence about how people behave, think, and interact. This research follows different methods, and those methods are guided by different theories about how society works. If you are studying sociology for the first time, research methods…
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Teaching Social Mobility Through Stories
Using the Intergenerational Ladder in the A Level Classroom Teaching social mobility can be challenging. It’s an abstract concept that students often struggle to visualise, especially when they’ve had limited real-world exposure to how class advantages and disadvantage splay out over generations. Students may understand terms like upward mobility or class reproduction in theory, but…
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Media Representations Magazine Project
Learning Goal To show your understanding of how different social groups are represented in the media by creating a magazine-style cover and layout that explores sociological research and theory on representation. Task Overview You will design a magazine front cover and feature page that explores how the media represents different social groups (e.g. gender, ethnicity,…
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Media in Action: Who’s Influenced and How?
Media doesn’t affect everyone in the same way. Different people interpret, respond to, and are influenced by media in different ways. In this activity, you will read a series of fictional accounts showing how individuals react to media messages. Each scenario links to one or more key models of media. Your task is to identify…
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Classroom Activity: Modern Moral Panics
Moral panics are a powerful tool to help students understand how society reacts to perceived threats, and how media and public perception can shape social reality. To make this concept interactive, teachers can use small group work focusing on contemporary moral panics in Britain. How the Activity Works Students work in groups of 3–5 and…
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From ARPANET to TikTok: The Evolution of New Media Explained
What Makes New Media New? Before we look at how new media developed, it’s important to understand how it differs from traditional (analogue) media such as printed newspapers, broadcast television and radio. Traditional Analogue Media New Media One-way communication (producer → audience) Two-way or many-to-many communication (everyone can interact) Audiences are passive Audiences are active…
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Understanding the New Media: A Guide for A-Level Sociology Students
When we talk about the new media, we mean modern digital forms of communication such as social media platforms, blogging sites, streaming services, online gaming and interactive websites. Unlike older (traditional) media like TV, newspapers and radio, the new media is fast, interactive and user-driven. This shift has transformed how we communicate, access information, and…
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How Social Media Has Changed Moral Panics in the 21st Century
When sociologists like Stanley Cohen first studied moral panics in the 1960s, the media world looked very different. Newspapers and TV controlled what counted as a “threat,” and moral panics spread relatively slowly. Today, moral panics still happen but social media has changed who starts them, how quickly they spread, and how they affect people.…
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Moral Panics – From Teddy Boys to Culture Wars
A moral panic occurs when the behaviour of a group is exaggerated or distorted by the media and wider society, making it appear as a threat to social order or shared values. Those who are blamed or feared are known as folk devils, while those who promote, frame or amplify the panic (such as journalists,…