Confronting the Social Context of the Classroom: Media Events, Shared Cultural Experience, and Student Response

Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 463-470
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/131894


I chose this article because it provides teaching techniques for incorporating current events into sociology courses, which is something I would like to do. I think it is important to discuss the things that are going on in the world which affect and interest students and to explain the events sociologically and have students attempt to explain them sociologically as well.

The article discusses one teachers attempt to bring a discussion of rape and media into the classroom and why it seemed to fail during one semester. The authors explained that because the media was blaming video games, music, popular culture etc. for the violent acts of youth students were particularly determined to defend music, games, and other things which might promote violence and to dismiss sociological arguments. Therefore the authors suggest that part of having successful discussions on current events involves discussing how and why the media frame news coverage in particular ways they state that their goal is: “Our goal is to encourage students to consider the ways in which the news, as a source of information, mediates between public events and personal knowledge. We hope that these exercises will demystify the news production process, and help students to reflect upon their personal responses to the media and to consider possible alternative readings of the social landscape” (pg. 468). The authors then provide three teaching techniques critical consumption, comparing media sources, and analyzing overall news coverage.

The first requires that students individually or in a group do a thorough analysis on a news article, which is over substantial interest to the class (a current event or something which pertains to the course topics). The student(s) would be required to answer questions such as:
“Who is making statements about the issue? Is the person an expert? A politician? An activist? A religious leader?
What are their qualifications?
Who might benefit from these statements?
Who might be harmed?
How do the statements characterize the group being discussed?
Are the group members characterized as victims, heroes, or deviants?
Does the discussion focus on individual or systemic explanations?
Does the discussion focus on individual or systemic solutions?
How else might the facts in the article be interpreted?”

The point of having students deconstruct news articles is to show them how people’s viewpoints are in part shaped by the “explanations and solutions” of prominent media figures.

The second teaching technique entails having students break into groups and giving them many articles on the same event from different media sources both mainstream and alternative and having them look at how the events/issues were covered differently and why. Why did one choose to interview someone while another interviewed someone else or presented the story differently? The point is for students to see the range of ways a single event can be covered and why or why not it would be beneficial for particular people/groups to present the news in those ways.

The final teaching exercise is for students to do content analysis on the overall coverage of a particular event and to then write a reflection paper “in response to the patterns found in the coverage:
Which stories were most prominent?
What point in the event was the coverage most extensive?
Which topics received the most space?
What are the consistencies across the coverage?
Are there missing pieces?”

The students can then present their findings to the class.

The importance of this article is that you can apply the teaching techniques to other course material such as having students modify the same types of questions to have students deconstruct an individual’s argument, research, theories etc. I think only by students deconstructing things themselves will they understand that some groups have a vested interest in presenting things a particular way and excluding some things all together which applies to what they are taught in school, what is in textbooks, mainstream music, mainstream art, news…(this to me was the most important part of the article- teaching students to critically think)