British sociology students to study hit TV cop show The Wire

IT INSPIRES devotion in its fans, is hailed as addictive viewing – and now television drama The Wire is to become the subject of a British university course.

The American cop show will be studied at the University of York from this autumn as part of its sociology degree.

The 10-week module, thought to be the first of its kind in Britain, will be offered to all final-year students.

Titled, The Wire as Social Science Fiction?, it will use the HBO series to look at topics including class, race, political process and the city.

The lecturer behind the course believes the popular show could challenge traditional methods of teaching and presenting social science.

Professor Roger Burrows, head of sociology at the university, said: “We look at The Wire as a form of entertainment that does the job some of the social sciences have been failing to do.

“It’s a contrast to dry, dull, hugely expensive studies that people carry out on the same issues.

“We spend an enormous amount of our time trying to craft books and articles that are read by so few people and it could challenge how we represent the work that we do in the academe.

“I find it odd that we’re still using 19th and 20th century forms as a way of disseminating what we do.”

In a multimedia age, he added, students find it increasingly difficult to concentrate on a lecturer “standing up and talking in front of a power point presentation”.

He said: “It’s easier to get students to use The Wire as a way of looking at the current political system than it is to get them to read a dull book on it.”

But the 24 students who have already signed up for the course will still have their work cut out for them – they will need to have watched all 60 one-hour episodes beforehand.

And the programme will just be a “point of departure”, Prof Burrows added.

“I find that students, and people in general, are more willing to work their way through difficult stuff if they’ve already become interested in the issues by watching The Wire,” he said.

“After watching the show, people are keen to discuss things they weren’t previously interested in.” “The show was doing a better job than we were in interesting people in the profound problems of urbanism.”

Set in Baltimore, The Wire follows the fortunes of the American city’s drugs dealers and the police officers trying to battle against them.

It counts US President Barack Obama among its fans and has already become the subject of academic study in the States, where Harvard University runs a course on it.

In Britain, academics and others gathered at Leeds Town Hall for a conference on the TV show in November.

Prof Burrows denied that teaching it in university seminars amounted to “dumbing down”.

He cited American TV shows The Sopranos, The West Wing and Mad Men as others that could be used for academic study.