Wonder or Wander

Wotherspoon, Terry. (2004). 2nd Ed. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Sociology, which was first used by the French writer Compte in the nineteenth century to read the rapidly changing society after the Industrial revolution, is foremost a study of society and is divided into diverse fields which are determined by the perspective each study takes. Three major perspectives are structural functionalism--focusing on the orderly social structure, like a living organism, thus fundamentally aiming to stablize the structure by identifying and removing harmful elements in the social structure--interpretative analysis--emphasizing a micro level human interactions and social symbols on the basis that the world is socially constructed and the reality exists only through the member's relationship with other members, language, knowledge, etc--and critical sociology--as seen in Marxism and feminism, analyzes fundamental structural inequality of the society and aims to subvert the underlyin...

The original purpose of mass education was to train people to be able to do their job after the Industrial Revolution and this impetus obtained the public consensus in that the education gave people the equal opportunity, which still holds true in theories of education. However, critical approaches attest that the acclaimed equal opportunity only keeps the existing social structure and perpetuates class divisions because students bring different social/cultural/symbolic capitals to class (Pierre Bourdieu), which makes the starting points different, thus they argue that fairness in education has to be emphasized. In a similar context, critical education/pedagogy comes into play in the fields of education by questioning Euro-centric knowledge and education system and attempts to teach different perspectives in the main education system.

Chapter 14: Socialization in the Changing Information Environment (Veronica Kalmus) Because of increasing digital media in information society, instrumentalization and commodification of knowledge become dominant. The Net generation is technically savvier than their parents and teachers and get information easier than ever through the net, however, it is shown that they cannot easily evaluate the information and the majority still think that schooling should be important. This situation suggests "two-way socialization", cooperative learning process between students and teachers. Warshauer(1999, p37) stated that the beliefs of individual teachers are influential to the way of how students use computers. It could mean the importance of teacher's role for computer education, but the word of "beliefs" seems too abstract. Chapter 15: The Hyper-Reality That Never Happened (Marcus Breen) Development theories have in common that technology is essentially linked with nat...

Chapter 11: Media Knowledges, Warrior Citizenry and Postmodern Literacies (Peter McLaren and Rhonda Hammer) Media knowledges are accumulated through collective cognitive engagement in various cultural forms such as film, television and radio, and the complexity of media forms calls for postmodern literacies. To that extent, media knowledge is refered as "perpetual pedagogy" delivered by the postmodern flaneur, who carries a camera and bombard audience with assembled images in which geohistorical context of an event is annihilated. The power of media subjugates our subjectivities and cognition of social structure and struggles, and thus controls political life; therefore education on critical media literacy is necessary and the aim of the education is to create "communities of resistance, counter-hegemonic sphere and oppositioned pedagogy." (P.137, dilemmas on the credibility of the critical pedagogy of media literacy are explained, but I don't get it.) Chapter 1...

Chapter 6: Chomsky, the Empire, and Media Literacy (Joe Kincheloe) Introducing the next chapter written by Chomsky in 1991. Kincheloe calls the 21st century, where free-market policies and neo-conservatists prevail and justify neo-imperial invasions, the recovery movement as a continued passion from the "Vietnam syndrome" and points out media responsibility for failing to investigate the claim made by the U.S. to justify the pre-emptive war against Iraq. Chapter 7: The New World Order (Noam Chomsky) According to Chomsky, the New World Order is being created by the political leadershop in Washington and London, where corporate interests dominate their governmental decisions, and it turns their countries into "mercenary states" and the global Mafia with their exploitative military power; Furthermore, while German-led Europe and Japan "Latin-Americanize" the old Soviet tyranny, the rest of the Third World is controlled by "economic pressure if possible, ...

Chapter 2: Preface to the Myth of the Liberal Media (Noam Chomsky) Historically political/economical elites have tried to grant limited rights to the public. In the U.S., this tendency is well reflected in the market control of media. According to Edward Herman, the audiences are the "product" sold to markets all linked to state power. Chapter 3: Word Tricks and Propaganda (Edward Herman) Frame works of the usage of words to serve state propaganda. (1) Purring: reform, responsible, flexible, national security, moderate, etc. (2) Snarling: extremist, terrorist, dictator, welfare(--why is this a snarling word?). Provokes public anger. (3) Putdowns: less aggressive words, such as noisy leftist vs. quiet neoliberalist. (4) Playing down violence: violence executed by the state or client state is described only "tough" action in the pursuit of security, thus justified. (5) Obscuring appeasement of client state terror: commercial diplomacy, quiet diplomacy, constructive en...