An exploration of the modern American military industrial complex in relation to the F-35 Lightning II jet. With the project employing hundreds of thousands of Americans throughout the country, canceling the overly-funded project would be an impractical move with grave political repercussions.
A superb video on a controversial study involving gun shot victims in Philadelphia. Is too much medical intervention actually hurting victims' chances of survival and recovery? Researchers want to test this hypothesis by limiting the care given to victims by emergency responders and the issue of informed consent is front and center. As we ask ourselves "is this ethical?", it is important that we not forget the numerous abuses minority populations have suffered in the name of scientific research.
A video detailing the extravagant lives of wealthy young Chinese women living in Canada. The main theme here is the conspicuous consumption of status symbols made possible by being born into a family of high socioeconomic status. This can also be seen through a dramaturgical perspective as staging behavior is rather prominent here, especially surrounding their image online and on television.
Largely based in the biomedical sciences with some psychology, this is a good video on the reproducibility crisis in modern science. The discussion on the scientific process and the social construction of knowledge is rather insightful and made easy to understand.
Original Video: http://www.pbs.org/video/2365934840/
This is a good example of religious privilege in American society—Christian students do not have to choose between honoring a religious holiday with their family or going to school to learn and advance one’s education. While students may commonly view missing a day or so of school as no big deal (or even desirable), missing classes may seriously disadvantage those who are highly invested in their education (especially if education is the key to social mobility). This is also a good example of competing social institutions.
“A new law going into effect in the U.K. gives the British government sweeping new surveillance capabilities. The Investigatory Powers Act grants intelligence agencies and local authorities the right to access the internet history of any British citizen they target. It may be the most extreme surveillance act in the Western world. Later this year, the British government will be able to require internet service providers to record the websites and messaging applications their customers visit and keep that information for one year. The data will then be available for use by 48 different national and local authorities without the need for a warrant”.
How do public works projects get done in a capitalistic system? Privatization is a common answer in contemporary American society. This video highlights some of the problems with this approach through looking at privatized roads, tolls, and city parking.
A timeless classic from poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron, originally written in 1970. This is a version from the 1983 film Black Wax. I think this holds up to a modern audience where we currently talk about sending people to Mars and beyond, all while we continue to look away from the social problems faced by minority populations. #BlackLivesMatter
From Alexis C. Madrigal writing for The Atlantic: "Whitey on the Moon," changed the way I thought about the space race forever. It anchored the flight into the heavens, tethering it to the persistence of racial inequality, and pulling it out of the abstract, universal realm in which we like to place our technical achievements. Though I still think the hunger for the technological sublime crosses racial boundaries, it destabilized the ease with which people could use "our" in that kind of sentence. To which America went the glory of the moon landing? And what did it cost our nation to put whitey on the moon?
Here is another version of the poem: https://youtu.be/PtBy_ppG4hY
A comical look at whitewashing in Hollywood, a phenomenon where white actors are cast for non-white roles. While more of a discussion on the social impacts of the practice would be good to have with a class, we see just how pervasive this practice is.
Available for free for a limited time-- This episode explores how technology and the Internet affected our sexual relationships through 3 vastly different profiles, all loaded with data for context. The couple who met on a BDSM fetish website introduces us to the concept of pervertables and raises questions surrounding consent; the young man in Japan who is in love with Rinko, a character on his Nintendo 3DS, challenges our typical notions of a relationship; and the young woman who had her nude photos posted to over 2,000 revenge porn websites with no legal framework to turn to for help. All of these stories highlight social problems related to sex in our digital world.
Original Source: http://www.sho.com/dark-net/season/1/episode/1
This is a hilarious segment which pokes fun at some of the misconceptions surrounding feminism. The "Moments of Wonder" bit features dim-witted Philomena Cunk in an investigative format with the aesthetic of a BBC nature/science documentary. Kudos to Professor Mary Evans who handles the interview portion like a pro. If men were women, do you think they'd be better at doing feminism than we are?
Original Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06t3r8p
An interesting and contemporary look at South Korean immigrants in the United States. We learn that 88% of young South Koreans (millennials) want to leave the country, but why? The answer seems to be in the unbearably competitive (i.e., long) work schedule. It appears that South Korea's neoliberal economy has created unattainable standards of materialism and an unsatisfying work/life balance. As a result, many young South Koreans see the social status structure of America as more desirable-- a view made more interesting when we consider how many Americans feel that Europeans have better policies towards vacations, parental leave, shift length, and more.
Despite the popular view that technological advancement will one day solve all of our social problems, here we can clearly see that technology reflects and perpetuates inequalities in a society. The focus of this clip is on color film but it concludes with how our cultural bias for lighter skin is embedded in modern facial recognition technology.
Vice News Tonight on HBO -- Vice Media, 2016, 2:09 -- https://youtu.be/EjkWpu9JvS0
A short clip detailing how companies can exclude racial and ethnic minority groups from seeing their advertisements on Facebook. Pardon the quality here as the original source has not uploaded the video to YouTube... yet... (but they totally should!).
Max Weber would have a fit if he saw this for here we see the iron cage of rationality applied to the home. WeWork is a company which applied McDonaldization to the work/office space and now is branching out into the home/apartment market with WeLive. The residents- in this rationally-ordered "commune" seem to view domestic life as just another burden best taken care of by some dispassionate expert. The goal seems to be a aimed at creating a maximum-efficiency environment where one can fully and completely devote their energies to their work. For $4,875 per month you can enjoy a dorm-like environment where your physical space and living schedule has been planned in a manner that can be called "the WeWork circle of life".
Here is a frightful manifestation of broken windows policing taken to the extreme. We see a police force largely composed of non-natives to the city set up a panoptical surveillance system in an attempt to combat crime. The city's residents, who were alienated from the decision-making process here, feel as if their community has been invaded by this new police force. Although the crime rate drops slightly, is it worth the social damage to the community?
“Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest and most drug-ridden cities in the country; its murder rate is 12 times the national average. In 2011, the city cut its police force almost in half, with nearly 80,000 residents regularly being policed by 12 cops at a time. The state stepped in to overhaul the department, introducing an experimental “Metro” security apparatus equipped with futuristic technologies like gunshot detecting, triangulation microphones, and automatic license-plate readers. As similar surveillance systems are implemented across the country, Vikram Gandhi went to Camden to see how these tactics are working, how residents feel about their loss of privacy, and what the future of policing looks like.”
A look at the price differences between men's and women's items in Walmart, Target, and Hudson's Bay. Spoiler-- Women pay more across the board (this has been called a Pink Tax). We also get to see a marketing team create fictional gendered toothpaste and are given information as to how we can combat gender price discrimination. Although this video is from Canada it touches on New York City's legislation barring such discrimination. Yet laws can't solve this issue alone as a 2015 study from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that, on average, women's products were 7% more expensive than similar products for men. This more recent study is discussed in another short video from CBS News.
From the show Adam Ruins Everything, this video explores the xenophobic origins of US marijuana laws and briefly touches on the political rationale behind the War on Drugs.
This fascinating video asks a question ripe for sociological analysis-- Why do we accept structural or institutional surveillance but reject individual surveillance? Are they not the same thing? In an age where cameras are ubiquitous this issue lends itself to a discussion students find engaging and meaningful. You can use this to discuss levels of analysis (institutions vs individuals), power and social control (active vs. passive surveillance), the law's ability to keep pace with technological development (personal drones, for instance), and much more...
A brilliant satire on comedian Russell Brand's communist/socialist politics. Students generally recognize Brand (formerly married to singer Katy Perry) and although this is humorous marxist rhetoric, it is nevertheless true. In the Truevolution episodes, Brand analyzes commercials (aka "mind control pellets") demonstrating how they preserve the status quo of inequality and social oppression. The language used here is particularly impressive and serves as a fine example of the conflict perspective applied to everyday life.
Introduction-- https://youtu.be/anc51ErPBxg?t=2m47s
Truevolution 1 (commercials & Ikea): https://youtu.be/bSmP4q3oQ6c?t=18m22s
Truevolution 2 (kids shows): https://youtu.be/3An8mzU1HGE?t=9m40s
Russell Brand as Prime Minister: https://youtu.be/EKDKt0lh3Y0
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0520y52