This RLO is part of "Sociology of Leisure" course. The module discusses some major features of current leisure patterns, but these activities are also central to modern life itself and thus have interests for sociologists. The RLO summarises different approaches to this concept, which offered a way to understand how ‘social opinion’ is mobilised in the media to generate moral campaigns. The concept is associated with some central sociological work on ‘societal reaction’ approaches to understanding deviancy, and with some pioneering work to develop Marxist understandings of the role of the media. In Leisure Studies, the concept has been applied to understand reactions to some spectacular youth cultures, ranging from mods and rockers in the 1960s to rave in the 1990s, and, as the previous work implies, to various health and fitness campaigns as well. As before, students will be expected to work through the whole RLO and then specialise in one of the approaches or debates by following up reading and links.

This resource has been created within the Open Educational Resources project "Evaluating the Practice of Opening up Resources for Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences" [C-SAP OER], undertaken by the Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics based at University of Birmingham, for further information see here: http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/subject_areas/elearning/oer/default.htm. The project is part of UK-wide Open Educational Resources programme [UKOER]. Within the programme, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and the Higher Education Academy are collaborating on the with the aim of enabling higher education institutions, consortia and individuals to share learning materials freely online. The programme supports universities and colleges in exploring processes and policies, intellectual property rights, cultural issues, technical requirements and data management issues.