Week 1: Thinking about social problems

Citations for week's readings

• Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich. 2011.The Truth Exposed by Occupy Shows That the Real Elites Are the Thieves of the 1%, Not The Liberals of Conservative Myth. December 15, The Nation.
• Michael Norton and Dan Ariely. 2011. Building a better America: One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science 6:9-12.
• Rich Lowry. 2011. The Left’s pathetic Tea Party. Oct 4, National Review. Online at www.nationalreview.com/articles/279057/left-s-pathetic-tea-party-rich-lowry
• Tables:
  1. Mean family net worth over time
  2. Top 1% income share, 1913-2008
• C. Wright Mills. 1959. Sociological Imagination. New York: Pelican (chapter 1, 'The Promise'). Available online at www.lclark.edu/~goldman/socimagination.html

By the end of this week, you should have a pretty good handle on what we mean by 'structure,' what is the difference between a 'structural' and 'individualist' explanation of a social problem, and how social problems are really 'social constructions.' In other words, you should be ready to practice thinking about social problems and how to analyze them.

back to schedule

Week 2: Do we have a free press?

Monday:	FAIR, Media Research Center
Tu/Th:	Magazine advertising
Wednesday:	Farley, Center for Media and Democracy
Friday:	mediachannel.org. 2002. Shah

Citations

• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. 2010. How to detect bias in news media.
• Media Research Center. 2010. Media Bias Basics. 
• Robert Farley. 2010. Our favorite pundit fact-checks of 2010. Dec. 29, Politifact.  
• Anup Shah. 2009. Media concentration, mergers, concentration of ownership. mediachannel.org.
• Fake news--watch two of these videos from the Center for media and democracy. They're VNRs, video news releases, fake news produced by the public relations industry for a client and distributed to news outlets as, yes, news.

Optional

• John Nichols and Robert McChesney. 2003. Media monopoly versus democracy. Commondreams.org. Online at http://commondreams.org/views03/0521-06.htm
• Eric Alterman. 2003. Bias, slander and BS. Chapter 1 from What liberal media? New York: Basic Books. Online at http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/intro.pdf (13 pp)

This week we're trying to understand about the news media, how it might influence how the public thinks about social problems, and how media outlets themselves may be influenced by powerful forces in society. Are the media biased? And if so, to whose benefit? And why would this be important in understanding social problems?

Week 3: Free press and democracy

Monday:	watch the Corporation video
Tu/Th	A junk food tax?
Wednesday:	Lessig
Friday:	Silverstein, Graves

Citations

• • Ken Silverstein. 2007. Their men in Washington. Harper's Magazine, July.
  • Center for Media and Democracy. 2011. What is ALEC?
  • Lisa Graves. 2011. About ALEC Exposed. July 13, Center for Media and Democracy.
  • Lawrence Lessig. 2010. Democracy after Citizens United. September, Boston Review.

Can anyone be president? Governor? Mayor?? Or does the office often go to the highest bidder? If so, who's funding the campaigns and what do they get out of it?

Week 4: What (or who) is causing global warming?

Monday:	have read: Science Daily. Ice-free arctic ocean ... Walsh. Dire fate ... Vincent. Ice shelf in peril ... Reuters, acid seas
Tu/Th:	What's a living wage?
Wednesday:	have read: Wall Street Journal, no need to panic Kolbert's chapter (in Blackboard)
Friday:	have read: Chris Mooney, Some like it hot Craven's video (no, not Wes!)

Citations

• Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury. In Blackboard
• Reuters News Service. 2009. Climate change turning seas acid. May 31, Reuters. Online at www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/31/us-climate-oceans-idUSTRE54U1ZB20090531
• Science Daily. 2009. Ice-free arctic ocean possible in 30 years, not 90 as previously estimated. April 3, Science Daily.
• Michael Vincent. 2009. Antarctic ice shelf in peril as bridge snaps. April 6, ABC News. Online at www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/06/2535739.htm
• Bryan Walsh. 2009. The dire fate of forests in a warmer world. April 14, Time. Online at www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1891121,00.html.
• Wall Street Journal. 2012. No need to panic about global warming. Jan. 27.
• Chris Mooney. 2005. Some like it hot. May/June, Mother Jones Magazine.
• Greg Craven, 'How it all ends' (video)

Is the earth warming, and are humans a major contributor?

Week 5: Can we spare an extra planet or two?

Monday:	Garrett Hardin. 1968. The tragedy of the commons.
Tu/Th:	Tea Party vs OWS: Who to shoot?
Wednesday:	Jared Diamond. What's your consumption factor? Corwin, Sixth extinction
Friday:	Wrap-up, prepare for midterm

Citations

• Garrett Hardin. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162: 1243-1248. Online at dieoff.org/page95.htm
• Jared Diamond. 2008. What's your consumption factor? New York Times, Jan 2. Online at www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html
• Jeff Corwin. 2009. The sixth extinction. Nov 30, Los Angeles Times. Online at www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-corwin30-2009nov30,0,7760875.story
• George Orwell. 1949. 1984. (You should be seriously thinking about getting started).

Optional:

• William Catton. 1998. Malthus: Now more relevant than ever. npg.org, forum series, Online at www.npg.org/forum_series/catton_malthus.htm
• EnergyBulletin. 2007. Peak Oil Primer. EnergyBulletin.net. Online at www.energybulletin.net/primer.php#primer

Week 6: Midterm, start McDonaldization

Monday:	individual midterm (Feb 2)
Tuesday	2nd day of midterm: small group 're-test' (Feb 3)
Wednesday:	The Corporation
Thursday:	have read: Ritzer, chapter 1
Friday:	have read: Ritzer, chapter 3

Citations

• Ritzer, G. 2011. The McDonaldization of Society (6th edition). Pine Forge Press. Chapters 1 and 3
• George Orwell. 1961. 1984. New York: Signet. (begin reading this--the paper is due May 30)

Week 7: Applying McDonaldization to the social world

Monday:	have read: Ritzer, Chapter 4
Tu/Th:	Endangering species
Wednesday:	have read: Ritzer, chapter 5
Friday:	have read: Ritzer, chapter 6

Citations for week's readings

• Ritzer, G. 2011. The McDonaldization of Society (6th edition). Pine Forge Press. Chapters 4, 5 and 6.

back to schedule

Week 8: So what?

Monday:	have read: Ritzer, chapter 7 (and we'll discuss Orwell this week)
Tu/Th:	McMusic
Wednesday:	have read: Sanneh
Friday:	have read: Ritzer, Chapter 9

Citations for week's readings

• Ritzer, G. 2011. The McDonaldization of Society (6th edition). Pine Forge Press. Chapter 7.
• Kelefa Sanneh. 2011. The reality principle. May 9, The New Yorker.

Week 9: War and terrorism

Monday	New Internationalist. Facts on war and peace.
Tu/Th:	Who's watching whom?
Wednesday	Bacevich, These colors run red PNAC: Letter to Pres. Clinton ... Nelson, The time of the hangman (in Blackboard)
Friday	Klare, the Great Superpower Meltdown

Citations:

• New Internationalist. 1999. The facts on war and peace. Online at www.newint.org/features/1999/04/01/thefacts/
• Andrew Bacevich. 2009. These colors run red. Oct 1, The American Conservative. Online at www.amconmag.com/article/2009/oct/01/00018/
• Project for the New American Century. 1998. Letter to President Clinton on Iraq. Online at www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
• Joyce Nelson. 1989. Sultans of Sleaze. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. Chapter 2, 'The Time of the Hangman.' In Blackboard.
• Michael Klare. 2009. The great superpower meltdown: Welcome to 2025. Oct 29, TomDispatch.com. Online at www.tomdispatch.com/dialogs/print/?id=175113

back to schedule

Week 10: Globalization gets tricky

Monday:	Wrap-up of week 9
Tu:	Ritzer, chapter 9
Wednesday:
Thur:	Leonard, Story of Stuff
Friday:	final exam prep

Citations

• Annie Leonard. 2010. Story of Stuff. NY: Free Press (pp 236-67 in Blackboard)
• Rent-a-womb: Outsourcing surrogacy in India (video). Youtube.

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Week 11 Final