Assignment:
Social Construction of a Criminal Justice Issue (Analysis Paper)
Directions:
This assignment requires that you select an issue in Criminal Justice and Media and analyze it in terms of social construction through the issue's depictions in the media. The content must be supported by valid academic research, and that research must be properly cited.
This is not, for instance, research on police brutality. This is, perhaps, research on the social construction of police brutality (or some other topic), and the product should reflect that. Chapter will be a great resource.
Examples
- Depictions of law enforcement in entertainment media
- Social construction of crime and race
- Media treatment of white-collar crime
- Television news coverage of violent crime
- Social media depictions of police, courts/lawyers, or criminals
Parameters
- Must cite any outside sources used
- A minimum of 2,000 words
- Double-spaced, New Times Roman, 12-point type
Plagiarism
You are expected to write primarily in your own voice, using paraphrase, summary, and synthesis techniques when integrating information from class and outside sources. Use an author's exact words only when the language is especially vivid, unique, or needed for technical accuracy. Failure to do so may result in charges of academic dishonesty.
Overusing an author's exact words, such as including block quotations to meet word counts, may lead your readers to conclude that you lack appropriate comprehension of the subject matter or that you are neither an original thinker nor a skillful writer.
Readings:
Lessons from McKinney: Social Media and the Interactive Construction of Police Brutality
By Meredith D. Clark, Dorothy Bland, & Jo Ann Livingston