The messages you see, hear, and read on television and the Internet, in newspapers and magazines, and on movie screens are more than what meets the eye. These messages are a product of complex societal forces—economic, governmental, historical, political, and more. This course will explore these underlying forces and provide analytical tools to critically evaluate how they function within the media. In short, students will collectively engage a critical/cultural perspective to illuminate the complex and constitutive relationship between media and society. The primary goal in learning about this relationship is to become literate, well-informed media analysts, consumers, and critics—an essential factor to the success of a participatory democracy where the role of the media is increasingly important.
Since the dawn of the new millennium, there has been a revolution in communication fueled by the spread of personal computers and the digitization of media. The content of this class focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of this revolution. Through a variety of readings and hands-on digital projects, students will develop critical, sociological, and historical perspectives on new media culture. They will also develop some of the skills they need to be an active participant in this culture and the changing demands and emerging opportunities therein.
This course employs a chronological approach to examine the history and evolution of electronic media in the United States. By exploring a variety of mediums, such as radio, television, film, newspapers, magazines, and more, students will learn about media’s roles at different periods of U.S. history and how historical factors have shaped and influenced these roles. A large focus will be on the shift from the broadcast to the narrowcast model and what this means for the media industry today.
This course focuses on the principles of media aesthetics including light, color, space, time, motion, and sound, and how they are and can be used to optimize media production. Students will work both individually and in groups to apply what they learn about media aesthetics to create a series of projects involving photography, audio and video production, interactive media, and more. At the end of the course, students will construct a digital portfolio to display, promote, and reflect upon their work.
An examination of the actual and potential effects of mass media communication. Initially the course will focus on the theories which have been, and are, used to evaluate the impact of the mass media. Then the course will examine specific mass media effects, including: television and cognitive development, the impact of the mass media emphasis on violence and sex, the media and role stereotyping, agenda setting, the impact of the media on politics, the U.S. media and the world, and the potential of the mass media to educate for positive social change. Mass media effects receiving emphasis will vary from semester to semester.
This advanced course provides an exhaustive survey of the major concepts, methods, theories, scholars, and debates in critical media studies. Students will work on developing questions that can provide insight into media texts, foregrounding an agenda that does the following: (1) fosters an understanding of contemporary media theory; and (2) allows students to think critically about the power and influence of the media as well as the construction and negotiation of social meanings therein. Students will produce a conference-ready paper that questions how a mediated phenomenon of their choice comes to make sense in a particular context at a given time.