Week 14 — Media, Crime, Criminal Justice

Our Class

Week  of December 2, 2018 – Future of Media & Justice 

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To stay on trace, you should be: 1) working on your journal from the second meeting to last class (to be submitted), and 2) if you have a “no grade” because of missing discussion question sets/questions, resolve ASAP before it becomes a “0”. 

Dates to Remember:

   — December 5th at the beginning of class — Visual Project’s Overall Learning Assessment due

   — Monday, December 10th – Last Day of Fall Classes 

Preparatory Readings:

• • Potter and Kappeler. Constructing Crime . Epilogue
  • Rafter. Shots in the Mirror. Chapter 8.
  • Surette. Media, Crime and Criminal Justice . Chapter 11.
  • Documentary:  “Reefer Madness”  (to be shown in class)

Lecture related links:

• W.I. Thomas “Definition of the Situation
•  Theory, Policy, Practice 
•  “Who’s Habermas? Why Habermas?”

Concepts to be covered:

• • illocutionary discourse
  • definition of the situation
  • social constructionism
  • perception v. reality
  • 6Cs

Discussion Questions:

Note: In order to answer these discussion questions, you will need to do this week’s readings. Due: Friday, December 7th. 

1.   When focusing on the future of media, crime, criminal justice, what is the significance of “Reefer Madness”? Why. 
2.   Which author — Potter & Kappeler, Rafter or Surette — do you agree with the most when discussing the future of media & justice? Why. 
3.   Based on the materials presented in this course, what is the future direction of media and justice? Why. Is the direction more pessimistic or more optimistic? Why. 

Sneak Peek of next week’s discussion questions  due Monday, December 10th.

1.  What is the most important thing that you learned from this course? Why.
2.  What did you like best about this course? Why. What did you like least about this course? Why.
3. What ideas and suggestions do you have to improve this course. (Constructive criticism only). 

Learning Beyond:

Note:  Other things you might want to explore beyond this week’s materials. 

• • Watch “The Enemy of the People.”Discuss the concerns of living in a high-surveillance society. [from Surette]
  • Trace a recent example of the media-based anti-crime effort. How successful was this effort?
  • Research CrimeStoppers International and other comparable programs. How successful are such programs? 

 Recommended Readings:

— Ray Surette. Justice and the Media.

— Ray Surette. The Medic and Criminal Justice Policy.

— G. O’Keefe. Taking the Bite out of Crime: The Impact of a Mass Media Crime Prevention Campaigns.

— D. Rosenbaum.  Crime Stoppers: A National Evaluation of Program Operations and Effects.

— George Orwell. 1984.

— Aldous Huxley. Brave New World.

— Lawrence Lessig. Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. 

• • Gaye Tuchman. The TV Establishment.
  • Herbert Schiller. Mind Managers.
  • Herbert Schiller. Information Inequality.
  • Todd Gitlin. Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelm Our Senses.
  • Todd Gitlin. The Whole World is Watching.
  • Robert McChesney. Rich Media, Poor Democracy.
  • Bernard Goldberg. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.
  • Bernard Goldberg. Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite.

 

Our Creativity

takata@uwp.edu

 Updated: November 29, 2018