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Develop your critical thinking skills through ‘true’ crime. This course examines the influence of media on conceptions of crime and justice, equipping learners with tools to analyze, evaluate, or even challenge dominant narratives.
After a course session ends, it will be archived.
Overview: In our everyday life, we are constantly interacting with social media. Much of this interaction occurs at a fast pace. Given this, how often do we stop to think critically about what we hear and read? This course is designed to develop your critical thinking skills when engaging with the media. This course takes a novel approach to help you learn how to engage with social media with a critical lens by drawing upon the growing global interest in true-crime documentaries, podcasts and other socially mediated representations of crime and its control. We offer learners a ‘critical thinking toolkit’ that is transportable to their academic courses, workplace and, more broadly, in their daily life.
Structure: The course is a six-week self-paced, online course. The course is divided into 6 sections. While we encourage students to follow the structure of the course, each section can be used/studied independently as part of a course or research focus.
Topics covered: Critical thinking: tools, narratives, and critiques * Sex work * Drug use and supply * Investigative journalism * Wildlife and animal trafficking * Human trafficking * Selling sex in cyber space * Online sleuths and scam baiters
Key questions explored: What is critical thinking? What is crime? What is media? How does the media influence our understanding of crime? How does the media help and hinder our perceptions about crime? How does the digital age shape our understanding of crime? How does media shape our perceptions and fears of the control of crime? Is social justice helped and/or hindered by social media?
Speakers: This course is developed by the University of Hong Kong, but we have experts joining us from around the world. Our course is multi-disciplinary with experts with backgrounds in criminology, journalism, media studies, gender studies, law and criminal justice. Moreover, our speakers include academics, journalists, police detectives, NGO workers and volunteers, and barristers.
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By the end of the course,
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1. Introducing and Defining: Critical Thinking, Media and Crime
We begin the process of critical thinking by defining what critical thinking is and why it’s important. We also begin to critically think about our key terms ‘crime’ and ‘media’, and how they are related.
2. Our Critical Thinking Toolbox: Tools, Narratives and Critiques
This part is divided into two modules, in which we introduce you to our ‘critical thinking toolkit’. The tools consist of short lectures on specific topics of critical thinking. In the first module we focus on developing skills related to the way we think (bias), how we interact with specific types of information (statistics or evidence), or how language can shape and mislead our understanding and perceptions of events. Then, we focus on narratives and critiques, overarching stories/ideologies and theories. They are explored through their application to crime and media by a team of global-leading criminology experts.
3. Crime and Media
We explore the question “How does the media influence our understanding of crime?” with topics of sex work, drug use and supply and investigative journalism. We also examine the question “How does the media help and hinder our perceptions about crime?” including in the context of animal and wildlife trafficking.
4. Crime in the 21st Century Digital World
We shift focus and enter the world of online crime. We investigate buying and selling sex in cyber space, human trafficking and the secret yet open commerce to critically explore the question “How does the digital age shape our understanding of crime?”
5. Law and Order
We work on the depictions of crime and policing on reality TV shows and TV series to explore the question “How does the media shape our perception and fears of the control of crime?” Moreover, we investigate the role of social media through a discussion on online sleuths and scam baiters. Here we critically explore the question “Is social justice helped and/or hindered by social media?” Finally, we explore the role of media in policing in speaking with a detective in the Australian Federal Police.
6. Moving Forward: Beyond Crime
We develop a set of tools and critiques that can help us in an everyday context. We focus on tools for making decisions, a new critique that encourages us to explore cultures and history, and tools for managing emotions as critical thinkers. We hope these skills and others learned will help learners develop and refine their critical thinking skills in work and more broadly in everyday life.
