Darcus Howe
Tags: class, crime/law/deviance, discourse/language, goffman, government/the state, inequality, knowledge, media, race/ethnicity, social mvmts/social change/resistance, theory, violence, collective action frames, politics of signification, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 4:24 Access: YouTube Summary: What shall we name what is happening in London? While investigating gun crimes, police shot and killed Mark Duggan, a 29 year-old Black man who was carrying a loaded gun (though it should be said, he never fired the weapon on police). Catalyzed by Duggan's death, protests, looting, and destruction of public and private property have rapidly spread across London. Is it a riot, an uprising, a rebellion, a social movement, or is it an insurrection? Whatever frame we choose has important consequences for the shape of things to come. For instance, the word riot suggests disorganized destruction, whereas an insurrection suggests an organized effort against oppression. One frame will likely garner more support for this social upheaval than the other. In this clip, the BBC interviews Darcus Howe, a television journalist and long time grass-roots activist. At the 3:08 mark, Howe keys the current turmoil, which is spread throughout London, to that which took place in 1981 in Brixton. He then insists that what is happening in London is an "insurrection of the people." At 3:40, the BBC reporter appears to challenge Howe's credibility by naming him a rioter. "Mr. Howe," she interrupts, "if I could just ask you, you are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you?" Howe refuses this frame in his reply: "I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been on demonstrations that ended up in a conflict." The clip would work well with a class grappling with social movements and the importance of collective action frames. To quote Benford and Snow (2000, p. 613), the confrontation between Howe and the reporter is a rather vivid example of two signifying agents "actively engaged in the production and maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists, and bystanders or observers. [Signifying agents] are deeply embroiled, along with..local governments, and the state, in what has been referred to as a 'politics of signification' (Hall 1982)." Submitted By: Lester Andrist
1 Comment
Tags: art/music, consumption/consumerism, environment, gender, knowledge, marketing/brands, media, social mvmts/social change/resistance, culture jam, détournement, guerrilla semiotics, sociology of culture, subvertising, 00 to 05 mins
Year: (1) 2007; (2) 2008 Length: (1) 1:20; (2) 1:27 Access: (1) YouTube: "Onslaught" (Dove) (2) YouTube: "Onslaught(er)" (Greenpeace) Summary: The pair of clips above by Dove and Greenpeace are excellent examples of commercials which appear to transcend the narrow concern of increasing market share and actually aim to promote social justice. However, more cynical viewers will likely protest that, at least in regards to the Dove spot, the appearance of corporate social responsibility is little more than a sophisticated marketing ploy. By attempting to raise public awareness about the role visual media play in rigidly defining what counts as attractive and truly feminine, Dove is actually attempting to position itself as a responsible brand. In response, Greenpeace created a spoof of the ad, but unlike the original version, viewers are not urged to talk to their daughters before the beauty industry does; rather, they are urged to talk to Dove about Dove's use of palm oil and its role in the destruction of Indonesian forests in order to harvest this oil. The Greenpeace clip can be understood as a practice of détournement, which is a concept originally developed by a Paris-based group of radical artists known as the Letterist International. Détournement refers to the practice of "finding" an artifact, then reconfiguring or re-situating it with the goal of making it newly relevant. The reconfigured artifact typically suggests ideas, which are in opposition to the those promoted by the creator of the original artifact. Thus a commercial about a caring company which bravely invests in exposing dangerous media messages about feminine beauty standards is reworked to expose the caring company's role in the destruction of Indonesian lowland forest. This post is just one in a growing number of posts on The Sociological Cinema, which feature examples of détournement or what is sometimes called culture jamming (see here, here, and here). In the sociological classroom, the clip might work well as a way to discuss what sociologists mean by culture and cultural resistance, which often involves the transformation of meanings and meaning-making practices. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: children/youth, inequality, knowledge, methodolgy/statistics, prejudice/discrimination, psychology/social psychology, race/ethnicity, social construction, essentialism, experiment, racial socializaiton, internalized racism, stereotypes, white bias, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 5:15 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip from Anderson Cooper 360 shows an experiment where a child is given a line-up of children with light to dark skin and is asked to point to the bad child, good child, nice child, and so on. The child, who associates positive characteristics with the lighter skinned children and negative characteristics with the darker skinned children, is asked why he responds that way. He simply states that it is "because they are white" or "they are black." Cooper's guests comment on the experiment, including discussing how the child has developed these racial biases (e.g. his exposure to racial minorities in his neighborhood and school) and the importance of talking to children about race. Students can be encouraged to think about how children internalize conceptions of race, where these conceptions come from and how this may lead to the development of stereotypes and racial inequality. Submitted By: Paul Dean Loretta Ross Tags: gender, intersectionality, knowledge, race/ethnicity, social mvmts/social change/resistance, feminism, identity politics, women of color, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 3:00 Access: YouTube Summary: Here is a clip of Loretta Ross, co-founder and national coordinator of SisterSong-Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, commenting on the origins of the term "women of color". As Ross suggests, people often forget that the term "women of color" is not a biologically-based description but has a political and ideological history. Ross explains that the term stems from meetings in 1977 at the International Women's Year Conference (WYC) in Houston, Texas. In response to the growing awareness that the unique concerns and challenges of Black women were not being addressed in the women's movement more broadly, a group of Black women from Washington DC traveled to the conference to propose a Black women's agenda. At the conference, groups representing other minority women joined the Black Women's Agenda (BWA), and the new alliance adopted the more inclusive term "women of color". Thus Ross notes that the term is "a solidarity definition; a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color." Ross recounts a history which emphasizes the need for women of color to come together as a distinct political community. She emphasizes a moment of affiliation for a political cause within the women's movement, but she is also implicitly discussing the importance of recognizing the varied and distinct, intersectional identities of women. After showing the clip, instructors might provocatively ask students to consider how they would respond to the usual attack leveled against identity politics, which would claim that the BWA splintered the women's movement and made it less effective. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: art/music, children/youth, discourse/language, education, knowledge, pedagogy, performance poetry, spoken word, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2011 Length: 18:29 Access: TED Talks Summary: In this TED Talk, 22-year-old spoken word poet Sarah Kay discusses her personal and professional experience with spoken word performance poetry. Throughout the talk, Kay highlights the pedagogical possibilities of spoken word, describing the ways in which New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club became her “classroom” when she was just 14 years old, as well as her current educational work with students across the country, using spoken word as a site of engagement. Such pedagogical possibilities point to the ways in which spoken word poetry might serve as a productive site for sociological analysis as well, in that it provides an accessible and entertaining medium through which students can “figure things out,” allowing them to draw upon their personal stories and experiences to explore something previously unknown to them. Echoing insights from C.W. Mills, Kay describes the pedagogical utility of using our personal stories (i.e., biographies) as a way through which to discover and connect to social phenomena “out there," seemingly detached from our own lives (i.e., history). As sociology instructors, we can draw upon this pedagogical approach. A class assignment might ask students to write (and perform) a spoken word poem about a topic germane to the class content; this can involve an explicit requirement for students to weave their personal stories into a potentially abstract sociological concept or subject area (the subject can be anything, e.g., social networks, gender violence, disability, stratification, hegemonic masculinity, rural poverty, conspicuous consumption, etc). This video clip can serve as an introduction to the assignment, providing a background on spoken word performance poetry; Kay also offers a few poetry writing exercises in the clip. Examples of how spoken word poetry can serve as a site for sociological analysis can be found here and here on The Sociological Cinema. Other TED Talks on the site can be found here, here, and here. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: education, inequality, knowledge, race/ethnicity, colorblind racism, pedagogy, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2010 Length: 12:20 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 features a debate between Tom Horne (Arizona superintendent of public instruction) and sociologist Michael Eric Dyson on the need for school curricula to incorporate alternative racial or ethnic histories of the United States. Amongst other things, Horne argues "we should be teaching our kids that this is the land of opportunity, and if they work hard, they can achieve their dreams, and not teach them they're oppressed"; noting that teaching oppression is a "downer" and that it teaches children a "race-obsessed philosophy." Dyson notes that much of American history is taught as finding relief from British oppression; he argues that the stories of Caesar Chavez, Dr Martin Luther King, and others must be told to understand American history and democracy, and that full knowledge of our past helps us find relief from oppression. The video may be used as a launching point for discussions on colorblind racism; racially influenced pedagogical practices in the United States (how is race taught in schools?); and the need for engaging with subaltern histories. Submitted By: Jillet Sarah Sam Tags: knowledge, race/ethnicity, war/military, collective memory, culture, museums, sites of memory, symbolic power, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 4:20 Access: The Daily Show Summary: In this clip Jon Stewart notes that next year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War and takes the opportunity to respond to an educational video produced by the Sons of Confederate Vets, which appears to celebrate the South's secessionist history. Stewart is joined by "senior Black correspondant" Larry Wilmore and the duo level a satirical critique against those who celebrate this history, arguing that celebrating secession is akin to celebrating slavery. It's not the case that slavery is only discussed in politically correct accounts of the American Civil War, Wilmore explains, slavery is in fact explicitly mentioned in actual succession documents. In my view, the clip would work well in a class grappling with the sociology of collective memory and can be used to help demonstrate why sociologists analyze museums and other projects of commemoration. The video lays bare the fact that interpretations of historical events are always political projects. They are, in a sense, more about symbolic power in the present than the accuracy of events in the past. Thanks to Sociological Images for suggesting the clip. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: children/youth, education, knowledge, medicalization, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2010 Length: 11:40 Access: YouTube Summary: Narrated by Sir Ken Robinson, this clip lays out Robinson's argument for the need to reform public education. Set against the backdrop of an illustrator drawing a visual representation of the argument, Robinson argues that the institution of public education is outdated, having emerged out of a fundamentally different social, intellectual and economic context: the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Times have changed, argues Robinson, and the disconnect between an outdated education system and contemporary social realities causes chaos, privileging some but alienating the vast majority of the population. Today, kids are trying to learn in an intensely stimulated environment, and prescription drugs are used as a crutch to keep kids focused. Robinson draws a parallel between the rise in ADHD diagnoses and the rise in standardized testing, claiming that ADHD is largely a "fictitious epidemic" and the real problem is that kids are bored at school. Robinson stresses the importance of arts curriculum to help students' senses operate at their peak; instead, students are anesthetized by drugs that shut off their senses. Robinson says we need a paradigm shift. Rather than moving toward conformity and standardization, the institution of public education should be moving in the opposite direction, encouraging divergent thinking and fundamentally reconceptualizing human capacity. This engaging clip demonstrates for students the ways in which our institutions are products of particular social, economic and cultural contexts, and invites a discussion about institutional change--both the possibilities and challenges involved. Moreover, the clip might be particularly useful for a lesson on the sociology of education, and how our current education system alienates different groups of students. Finally, the clip is useful for illustrating how institutional trends operate in concert with one another, as the rising dominance of the prescription drug industry has had specific consequences on the institution of education. The clip is also available with Spanish subtitles. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: social construction, knowledge, gender, cross-cultural differences, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2008 Length: 10:37 Access: YouTube Summary: This short video, in the form of a narrated slide show, does a great job of explaining the complex concept of social construction. Can be used in a variety of contexts in order to drive home the sociological perspective on some of the most naturalized elements of daily life including gender, diet and language. Discusses many examples and why it is important. Submitted By: Michelle Smirnova Tags: knowledge, marketing/brands, media, social mvmts/social change/resistance, culture jam, sociology of culture, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2010 Length: 9:49 Access: YouTube Summary: The caption below this YouTube clip notes that "culture jamming...is a mechanism [that seeks to] disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions or corporate advertising. Culture jamming is often seen as a form of subvertising. Many culture jams are simply aimed at exposing questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture so that people can momentarily consider the branded environment in which they live. Culture jams re-figure logos, fashion statements, and product images to challenge the idea of "what's cool," along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption." In teaching an introduction to sociology, I found this clip useful for underscoring the definition of culture as a set of ideas and meanings which people employ to carry out their collective lives. The clip further illustrates the way those meanings are always contested and negotiated. This clip works as an excellent accompaniment to the Frontline episode on the "merchants of cool," and works well to set the stage for a culture jamming video assignment, also posted on The Sociological Cinema. Submitted By: Lester Andrist |
Tags
All
.
Got any videos?
Are you finding useful videos for your classes? Do you have good videos you use in your own classes? Please consider submitting your videos here and helping us build our database!
|