Thursday, 6 September 2012

Trigger Happy Tv breaching the norm

So if ethnomethodology is an individuals understanding of things and breaching experiments test this understanding, then Trigger Happy Tv is the perfect way to see this in action. Dom Joly goes to very public areas where it is often acceptable to answer your phone (sometimes not), however he pushes the boundaries of this acceptabilities by screaming into the phone. Observe: Hello
My particular favourites are at 1:01 (on a boat in Holland) and 5:10 (in the bathroom).
I would thing Garfinkel would be impressed with Joly's practical jokes - eh I mean experiments - as they breach the norm but expose how much people in each environment have relaxed themselves into the norms, understanding that a private conversation, should probably remain private.

Another hilarious example is from The Chasers War on Everything pretending to be a Citizen infringement officer. This particular link shows the Chasers actor pretending to have the duty of giving fines to individuals who have jokes written on their shirts. In the process of doing this it becomes obvious that these kind of fines are not part of the norm or are accepted by anyone in the public as some of the victims become very insulted and upset. Observe: t-shirt jokes.

Both of the clips shown above are breaching experiments as they show social reactions;
"Breaching experiments involve the conscious exhibition of 'unexpected' behaviour, an observation of the types of social reactions such behavioural violations engender, and an analysis of the social structure that makes these social reactions possible" (Rafalovich, 2006: 156).



Reference:
Rafalovich, A. 2006, "Making Sociology Relevant: The Assignment and Application of Breaching Experiments",Teaching Sociology, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 156-163.