Time Schedule:
Deborah N Kaplan
POL S 306
Seattle Campus
Explores how society and culture are both represented in and shaped by communication technologies and media content. Media include film, advertising, news, entertainment television, talk shows, and the Internet. Explores how media represent and affect individual identity, values, and political engagement. Offered: jointly with COM 306.
Class description
Description: This course is designed to introduce students to sociological and critical perspectives on the mass media and to current debates on the medias consolidation, global reach and increasing power to shape public culture and social identity. Rather than examine each major medium separately (TV, radio, film, newspapers, magazines, books, music, advertising and the Internet), the course looks at the media as a web of interlocking cultural industries that are in the business of producing cultural meaning as much as salable products and profits. The course also looks at how individuals, subcultures and social movements mediate the medias messages to change or challenge their meanings, thus becoming cultural producers in their own right.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Exams: The first multiple-choice exam will be Tuesday, January 25 during class and will cover weeks 1 through 3. The second multiple-choice exam will be Tuesday, February 22 during class and will cover weeks 4 through 7. The exams will cover information from the lectures, assigned readings, discussion sections and in-class screenings of documentaries and video clips. A study guide will be posted on the course Web site (address TBA) about a week in advance of each exam, and the documentaries screened in class will be on reserve at Odegaard Media Center for further review. Lecture notes will not be posted.
Class assignments and grading
Assignment: The courses goals are threefold: First, to introduce students to sociological and critical perspectives on the mass media; second, to familiarize students with key concepts, theories and current debates about the medias social and cultural power; and third, to help students become critical consumers of the media, able to read, or analyze, the media as a force shaping peoples personal and political worlds.
Grades: Students grades will be based on two multiple-choice exams, a three-page analytical essay examining a culture jam, and participation in class discussions. There will be no final exam.
