| Main | | | Syllabus | | | Lab | | | Lab Projects | | | Legal Studies Home |
|
Legal Studies 497P Professor Gaitenby (gaitenby@disputes.net) TA Dan Barowy (quux@uffish.org) TuTh: 9.30 – 10.45, 130 Hasbrouck This course explores how law is treated as a substantive subject of media and law's mediation more generally. By "law's mediation" we mean not just the manner in which law is presented through news and popular media (i.e. CNN and Cops), but the way law is mediated through a myriad of authoritative and informal mechanisms. All of our understandings of law come from a discrete set of mediations: first hand accounts and second hand knowledge. First hand accounts can be dramatic: an arrest and trial, or long, painful separation and divorce with custody and child support arrangements. Most of our knowledge of law comes from more subtle second hand accounts that are part of socialization and communication. This course is more concerned with second hand knowledge about law as facilitated through various media, especially those which appear as authoritative news, information, or research sources. We are not concerned with law as treated in entertainment media per se. Legal Studies 497P is the department's offering under the University's Service Learning Initiative, a program designed to give students opportunities to apply their skills in community service projects. The Service Learning component of this course provides students with a unique opportunity to research, compose, edit, and ultimately produce public affairs / issues radio segments for WMUA to be aired in the Winter of 2003. Students wishing to participate must sign up for the honors colloquium that runs with the course, LEGAL H03 - schedule number 589176. Students producing radio segments will meet with TA Dan Barowy weekly and must satisfy production checkpoints (often with attendant submissions) throughout the semester. We envision group projects, but we will entertain proposals from individuals. This course was made possible, in part, by a grant from the University of Massachusetts Office of Community Service Learning. Materials: 1. Course Packet available at Collective Copies (in downtown Amherst) 2. 1984 – George Orwell at Food For Thought Books (also downtown Amherst) 3. Trust Us We're Experts, How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future - Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber at Food For Thought Books 4. Online materials - Cases, journal articles, law review articles, news feeds, other (some of this we'll supply URL's to - others you may have to do a little looking) Work: 1. Class participation (10%) 2. Quizzes / assignments (in class and take home) (40%) 3. Midterm and Final Exams (50%) 4. Colloquium / Service Learning WMUA production projects (optional 1 credit honors section) Notes on Work: Class participation consists of attendance and being part of discussions as they arise. I do not take daily attendance, but I will know all of your names in the first few weeks, and I will be aware of your general attendance patterns throughout the cours e of the semester. To aid me in that we have weekly quizzes, these will largely based upon a given reading assignment, sometimes they're closed book, sometimes open, and at others take home. There are no make-up quizzes unless you clear it in advance. A ny late work will be treated accordingly. |