J-Term at Carthage

J-Term 2011

Crime and Media  

Exploring the Cultural Messages Regarding Crime in America 

March 25, 2011

As week one of J-Term drew to a close on Friday, Jan. 7, criminal justice professor Kathryn Johnson instructed her Crime and Media class to bring a crime-related newspaper article to Monday’s session.

The next day, a gunman opened fire outside a grocery store in Tucson, Ariz., killing six people and wounding 14, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

When I made that assignment, I had no idea that such a heinous crime would be committed over the weekend,” Prof. Johnson told her students the following Monday morning. “Let’s just talk about this. Did any of you choose to focus on the shootings for your assignment?” When several in the class nodded, Johnson started a discussion about the tragedy and its media coverage.

What strikes you about the way the story is being told?” she asked.

In Crime and Media: Topics in Criminal Justice, students were challenged to look for the story behind the news: How do mass media outlets portray crime, victims, suspects and the criminal justice system? In the course, students analyzed images of crime that are presented through American mass media, including newspaper articles, crime movies, television crime dramas, and even popular music and video games. They watched and discussed such films as In Cold Blood, Fargo, Dirty Harry, and Legends of the Fall.

Visual media have become an important part of our culture,” said Prof. Johnson. “Americans spend more time watching TV and movies than they do reading books. It is therefore important to be good consumers of media and know how to understand it from a scholarly perspective.”

It is her goal that by the end of the course, students “learn how to glean themes and cultural messages from the media,” she said. Topics addressed in the course included the role of media in defining criminality, what types of crimes get the most attention, whether that attention is proportionate to crime statistics, and whether the media actually cause crime problems to worsen.

Prof. Johnson has taught Crime and Media before, but this was her first time teaching it at Carthage during J-Term.

I like the J-Term concept because of the intensity and focus it brings to one academic subject matter,” she said. “It is unique not to have to divide time and attention between often disparate disciplines and content areas.”

Students also enjoy focusing on one topic. “I like having the same class every day,” said Illana Brooks, ’14. “My professor is amazing and it’s really good to see the same professor every day. Dr. Johnson is a great professor, and I really enjoy learning about topics that are going on in the world around us.”

See the course syllabus. 

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Kasey Dallman, ‘14