Time Schedule:
Kenneth A Rufo
B CUSP 178
Bothell Campus
Introduces topics in the study of human communication. Focuses on key goals such as identities, relationships, and communities; modes of interaction such as linguistic, kinesthetic, visual, and mediated; and settings such as one-to-one, small group, organizations, virtual, and mass media. Offered: ASp.
Class description
This course treats communication as a phenomenological activity, which is just a fancy way of saying that communication reveals quite a bit about who we are and how we negotiate our world. To do so we must understand how communication positions us relative to other individuals in the world, and how the media we utilize for communication enhance, detract, and substantively alter an activity that seems so simple, so natural, that it often escapes our notice. We will explore a variety of perspectives, through a variety of readings and other media (all available online), and will engage some of the core issues that surround and structure communication: ethics, identity, conflict, simulacra, community, and technology.
Student learning goals
Students will learn to reflect upon their own communication habits and practices.
Students will learn to assess how different venues for communication influence the content being communicated (i.e. that the medium is the message).
Students will assess what communication as a phenomena reveals about the possibilities for community inherent in communicative acts.
General method of instruction
Instruction will include some combination of lecture, conversation, reading, outside-the-classroom activity, fun, confession, introspection, explosions, testing, and singing. Please note, the exact combination of methods will vary quarter to quarter.
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
