Final Blog!

Writing this final blog entry, I can scarcely believe how much time has gone by.  Reflecting back on the course my favorite topics were learning about the news media and how it sucks.  I especially liked the plethora of daily show and Colbert report clips shown.  Learning how much our modern 24-hour cycle of new entertainment sucks was simultaneously engaging and depressing.  I didn’t really enjoy talking endless about murder for several weeks.  Even if it was comforting to learn that the odds of me being slain by a brilliant serial killer are extremely slim, it just wasn’t as interesting to me.  I would like to see the beginning topic of social constructionism expanded.  It seemed to be the core theory that was underlying most of the course, but was only presented for one week.  If I were to teach a class on media and justice I would be way harsher.  After discussing the articles in class I would have the students write a paper on the topic instead of doing a blog entry (which just boils down to a simple participation grade).  Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve hated to write papers every single week, but it would have forced me to put more thought into each of the topics and expand on the discussions started in class.  My “ideal” course content would contain a lot of the topics covered already in addition to other topics more taboo, such as religion.  Overall, I’m glad I took this course and would recommend it to other justice majors as a good way to apply justice theories to culture in a real-world context.