3.6 Summary The common-sense narratives of the crime problem in the UK can be broken down into a series of distinct claims that make assessing them easier. Those claims can be tested against quantitative and qualitative evidence. Both types of evidence suggest that the narrative of change from a secure to an insecure society is at best partial, overestimating the tranquillity of the past, and the uncertainty and riskiness of the present.
3.2 Counting the crime problem What kind of evidence would support the claims of the common-sense narrative? Where would it come from and where would you find it? Most social scientists would start with the people who actually spend their time counting these things – governments. Government agencies of all kinds spend a great deal of time and money producing official statistics, recording crime rates, conviction rates, the size of prison populations, and so on. Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: identify criteria to evaluate the politics of racial violence. Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this References 2.1 Activity 1: Oil Lives Oil Lives consists of a series of photographs of an individual and some written text based on interviews with them. Two of these series are reproduced in this section, with Logan's ‘War Scrapbook’ in between them. Take some time to look at the photographs and to read the words accompanying them. Try to work out first what parts of the photographs have been brought together from different originals. What do Owen Logan's decisions about how to picture the industry and some of its workers su 3.3 The downside of the new economy During the US boom of the 1990s, some economists attributed the paradox of economic growth, rising productivity, but stable or only modestly rising wage costs, to the growing sense of insecurity in the labour force (Greenspan, 1998). Employment insecurity is also emphasised by sociologists such as Ulrich Beck (2000) and Richard Sennett (1998). This section outlines some of their arguments because they are central to those who take a critical view of the new economy. Their arguments also conta 3.2 The benefits of the new economy The benefits claimed for the new economy are mainly concerned with technological change, productivity and economic growth. Manuel Castells (2001) argues that we have entered a new technological paradigm centred around microelectronics-based information/communication technologies. The development of the internet, in particular, is said to have profound implications for the organisation of economic activity and for increasing productivity. The internet provides a new communication medium Introduction This course considers four ways in which some social scientists have claimed that there might be a ‘new economy’ coming in to being: the switch from manufacturing to services, globalisation, new technology and flexible labour markets. The good and bad points of economic change, its benefits and costs, are discussed. For example, what does it mean for people trying desparately to balnace the urgent demands of work and life? This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 1 study in Acknowledgements This course is subject to Creative Commons licence (attribution, non commercial, non derivative). For copyright reasons any third party materials must not be used in isolation from the course or for any other purpose. Acknowledgements must always accompany use of course. Any adverts contained in this course are for the purposes of academic analysis only and d Introduction This course introduces ideas which are likely to be of interest to a range of professionals interested in English language education, and is accessible to those who have not yet undertaken masters level study but might be interested in doing so in the future. It includes a variety of activities which help learners to relate theoretical discussion to professional practice. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of postgraduate study in Author(s): Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to 5 Celebrities and newsworthiness Celebrity has become one of the principal ways in which information is disseminated, including information about such apparently different fields as entertainment and politics. Even health advice is provided through stories about celebrities’ encounters with illness and their recoveries. For example, on the back of the announcement of Kylie Minogue's breast cancer treatment, the press were full of breast cancer reports and personal stories all of which began with a reference to Kylie. This Introduction What value does art have in the school curriculum? This unit, primarily aimed at colleagues teaching art in schools, explores the justification for including art in the school curriculum together with some of the current criticisms commonly heard. Find out more about studying with The Open University by visiting our online prospect Learning to learn: Exploring learning 3.4 As core or secondary texts The final categorisation of texts is especially useful when looking at celebrity texts. It allows us to distinguish between: the ‘core’ texts representing the work (the films, television shows, sound recordings, books, sporting performances) which provide the basis on which the individual's celebrity is founded; and the secondary texts of several genres (including gossip ones) which promote the core works and/or the celebrity her- or 2.1 The semiotic approach to textual meaning We can talk of the process of meaning-making as one where producers encode information into texts and consumers decode meanings from them (Hall, 1980). This idea of encoding and decoding implies that the process is one-way – producers create texts that are then read by consumers – but movement can occur the other way as well: texts can be created as a response to consumers’ expression of their enjoyment of existing ones and desire for similar texts (which is how producers Conclusion This free course provided an introduction to studying sociology. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner. 1 The purpose, efficacy and regulation of CCTV John Muncie presents a series of opposing views about the purpose, efficacy and regulation of CCTV. The audio programme was recorded in 1994. Participants in the audio programme were: John Muncie Professor of Criminology at The Open University; Bob Patison Superintendent with the Newcastle Police force; Andrew Puddephat General Secretary of Liberty (civil rights organisation); Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: illustrate how CCTV is used for general surveillance give examples of how CCTV can be used for crime control.
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In this free course, Learning to learn: Exploring learning, we encourage you to consider two additional perspectives that can illuminate your learning. The first is the perspective that other people you know can provide; the second is the perspective that can be provided by academic theories about learning. We think that these two perspectives can help you prepare for personal change. PLEASE NOTE: this course is currently being reviewed. An updated and improved version of the course can be found
