Room 611: Tuesday, May 20. 2025

Today's schedule is CDAB

Thanks to the crew who came along for our final Mount Rainier/Mount Saint Helens this past weekend...Year 17 - The Last Blast!

A Block Physical Geography - Today we'll really make sense of the Coriolis force. Let's get this out of the way right now...no, toilets are not affected by the Coriolis force, but both meso (middle scale) and macro (large scale) scale weather patterns are.

We will look at winds and pressure circulations. We'll understand where the permanent areas of high and low pressure are on the planet and figure out what that means for a macro-scale pressure gradient wind pattern. We'll try to understand what the Coriolis force is and see how it affects wind. We'll also talk about the Horse Latitudes, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Doldrums.

You will need to complete some questions from the Geosystems Core text. Don't forget that every day we are going to start by looking at the synoptic forecast along with weather maps.

Envrionment Canada: Weather Office Comox

B Block Criminology - As a blog entry, you have some media analysis questions you need to work on about the Highway of Tears video from Friday:

What main story do you think Investigative Reporters Bob Friel and Peter Van Zant wanted to tell (Is it about Madison Scott? Loren Leslie? Cody Legebokoff? Colleen MacMillen? Pamela Darlington? Gale Weys? Bobby Jack Fowler? Ramona Wilson?) How can you infer that? How much of the episode focused on the actual missing women from the Highway of Tears? (Look at the Media Smarts article Media Portrayals of Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women) compare that to the Gloria Steinem Woman episode and/or “Highway of Tears” film by Natanael Johansson
Why did the show focus on Madison Scott first, Loren Leslie next and then the victims along the Highway of Tears afterwards? (Look at the article NEWSWORTHY” VICTIMS? Exploring differences in Canadian local press coverage of missing/murdered Aboriginal and White women along with the NPR article What We Know (And Don't Know) About 'Missing White Women Syndrome' or the New Yorker article The Long American History of “Missing White Woman Syndrome")
What audience do reality crime shows appeal to & why do you think so (think demographics - age or gender or social class or occupation - and Psychographics - personal attitudes and values like security or status or caring or exploration/growth) What can Uses and Gratification Theory do to help explain the audience for True Crime stories? What techniques did the editors and storytellers of the 48 Hours Mystery show use to get you invested in the story of the episode? Compare that to the Gloria Steinem Woman episode and/or “Highway of Tears” film by Natanael Johansson
What "values" does the 48 Hours Mystery on the Highway of Tears communicate to its audience? Why do you think the producers and editors framed the story the way that they did? Compare that to the Gloria Steinem Woman episode and/or “Highway of Tears” film by Natanael Johansson

If you would like some academic reading check out "Theorizing Media and Crime" which is chapter one of Media and Crime written by Yvonne Jewkes. OR you could check out the yesterday's video on Agenda Setting and Framing to help with question #4 above. AND I loved the show the Newsroom...more on it when we look at the portrayal of women in crime media...but here's a discussion on what is newsworthy

Time Magazine (article) "Murder Shows—The New Soap Operas for Women?" and "Why We Are Drawn to True Crime Shows?"

Washington Post (article) "My Favorite Murder’ and the growing acceptance of true-crime entertainment" and the My Favorite Murder Instagram site
Entertainment Weekly (article) "Confessions of a Court TV Addict"
New York Times (article) "Is True Crime as Entertainment Morally Defensible?"
Globe and Mail (article) "Our addiction to true crime has a human cost"
CBS News This morning (article) "Why women are fueling the popularity of true crime podcasts"
The Guardian (article) "Serial thrillers: why true crime is popular culture's most wanted"
Quartz (article) How “true crime” went from guilty pleasure to high culture
The Atlantic (article) The New True Crime
Vulture (article) "The Ethical Dilemma of Highbrow True Crime"...from the article

Network news magazine shows like Dateline and 48 Hours are somber and melodramatic, often literally starting voice-overs on their true-crime episodes with variations of “it was a dark and stormy night.” They trade in archetypes — the perfect father, the sweet girl with big dreams, the divorcee looking for a second chance — and stick to a predetermined narrative of the case they’re focusing on, unconcerned about accusations of bias. They are sentimental and yet utterly graphic, clinical in their depiction of brutal crimes.

Consuming Television Crime Drama: A Uses and Gratifications Approach