Tuesday, January 15. 2019

Today's schedule is CDAB

A & D Blocks Human Geography - Since we lost last Wednesday to snow and Thursday we worked on the key issue "Where Are Business Services Distributed"?, today we'll work on what we were supposed to get at last Thursday. So, Today our key issue is, "Why Do Services Cluster in Settlements"? Services are clustered in settlements. Rural settlements are centers for agriculture and provide a small number of services; urban settlements are centers for consumer and business services. One-half of the people in the world currently live in a rural settlement, and the other half in an urban settlement. We'll look at clustered (circular and linear) and dispersed rural settlements and a brief history of cities:



The process by which the populations of urban settlements grow is known as urbanization. Urbanization has two dimensions: an increase in the percentage of people living in urban settlements and an increase in the number of people living urban settlements. These two factors have different global distributions and occur for different reasons. So, Vancouver?


Would you live in the downtown of a city or out in the suburbs?


Lastly questions...

1. How are strips of land allocated in a clustered rural settlement? 
2. In a linear rural settlement, why are settlements clustered around roads and/or rivers?
3. What early structures and permanent man-made features were associated with early public services?
4. What early structures and permanent man-made features were associated with early business services?
5. Why did large urban centers collapse with the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE?

B Block Criminology - Today we start our week long look at Russell Williams. Canada hasn't seen a case that has drawn so much media attention since Robert William Pickton or Paul Bernardo. The case received coverage in Canada (both "Above Suspicion" and "The Confession" from The Fifth Estate on CBC and "Fall From Grace" shown on Global's 16 X 9) and in the United States as well ("Name, Rank & Serial Killer" on CBS 48 Hours, "Conduct Unbecoming" on NBC Dateline). Today we'll start by looking at the case in detail and then we'll watch "Above Suspicion".

There are lots of places to find information on the case but a good place to start is the accompanying website to the CBC documentary "Above Suspicion" and the Vice article "He Was a Top Officer in the Military, and Also a Serial Killer".  By the way the documentary was originally aired on September 24th, 2010 which was three weeks before Russell Williams plead guilty to all charges in the matters against him.

Be an active consumer of media for this one. Remember:

• Who created this media product? What is its purpose? 
• What assumptions or beliefs do its creators have that are reflected in the content? 
• What is the commercial purpose of this media product (in other words, how will it help someone make money)? How does this influence the content and how it’s communicated?
•  If no commercial purpose can be found, what other purposes might the media product have (for instance, to get attention for its creator or to convince audiences of a particular point of view)? 
• Who and what is shown in a positive light? In a negative light? Why might these people and things be shown this way? 
• Who and what is not shown at all? What conclusions might audiences draw based on these facts? 
• What techniques does the media product use to get your attention and to communicate its message? 
• In what ways are the images in the media product manipulated through various techniques (for example: lighting, makeup, camera angle, photo manipulation)? 
• What are the expectations of the genre (true crime television programming) towards its subject?

We will be comparing this true crime piece from the CBC with American coverage tomorrow.