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ABOUT


Welcome to the Media Writing Lab at DePauw University. This site features commentary and criticism written by students enrolled in Professor Kevin Howley's Media, Culture & Society course.

Throughout the semester, students organize and publish a weeklong series of thematic essays (500-600 words each) that address some aspect of media and popular culture. Modeled after the Media Commons project, In Media Res, this site promotes collaborative research, interactive learning, multi-modal writing.

The views and opinions expressed in the Media Writing Lab are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the instructor, the Department of Communication & Theater, or DePauw University.

 Instructor: Kevin Howley
Teaching Assistant: David Petrushka
Technical Assistance: Jin Kim

For more information regarding the Media Writing Lab write to us at: khowley@depauw.edu.

Popular posts from this blog

BORN (TOO BLACK) THIS WAY

By Faith Blakey  My nighttime routine consists of scrolling through my Facebook timeline. More recently, it has been filled with social issues that are both domestic and international; from fashion, politics, to personality tests. One of the most striking posts that I have come across recently was a clip from a documentary; “So when you bleach it makes you look more nicer, look more sexier, and look more cuter than you once was”. These words from a middle aged Jamaican women describes the sentiments that are sold with the global trend of skin bleaching. Her opinions towards skin bleaching, or “bleaching”  as they call it in Jamaica, are common. This 2012 Vice documentary explores the idea that skin bleaching and colorism are practices that have  become well known and respected in popular Jamaican culture. Although this documentary reveals the deep seated colorism that is prominent in Jamaica, it seems as if colorism has developed into a worldwide epidemi...
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THE "ROTTEN APPLE" IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

By Brogan Miller Since 2002, the Catholic church has been under fire for its ongoing sexual abuse scandals within the church. These allegations are coming out more consistently as victims and the families of victims are beginning to challenge the hegemony that has been occurring in the Catholic church. Any church is supposed to be a place where people can feel safe, and those who hold positions in the hierarchy of the church are meant to be trusted. Unfortunately, this state of mind is changing very quickly within the Catholic church. The Catholic church is trying to do things to fix these ongoing issues by enforcing new laws and claiming that the people responsible for these scandals are simply "rotten apples" (White & Terry, 2008). Our class examined this issue earlier in the semester and compared it to police brutality. As the abuse within the Catholic church has been dated back decades, ruling it out as a few "rotten apples" responsible is a disgrace....
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Blameless OR Blameworthy?

By Yongjie Li Rhonda S. Black and L. Pretes (2007) quoted Farnall and Smith that individuals have more positive attitudes towards real physical disabled people when they watch positive depictions of them through movies (p.79). It is more acceptable for young people who consider movies as a popular platform, thus, movies can be a tool to build right standards with unfamiliar experiences especially treating with disability people. In general, previous movies focus more on individual personalities and ignore causes, but to underline disabled people personalities is a stereotype. It is because disability defined by social conditions instead of themselves or medical certifications. The reason why people categorize disabled or ordinary people is that individuals regard disabled people as out of normal people type (Kidd, 2014, p.172). The trend which leads people feel blameless originally changes gradually emphasizing the social structure which calls for senses of guilty, especially the ...
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