A more detailed version of this syllabus is available online at http://davis.foulger.net/brooklyn/fall2009/mediacriticism/syllabus.htm .
This course explores critical and theoretical approaches to understanding contemporary media, particularly mass media such as television, radio, and Internet streaming media. We will examine the meanings, pleasures, and practices associated with our production and consumption of media content.
We live in our media. We spend more time engaged in communication than we spend in any other activity, including sleeping, and there are media choices associated with every minute of that communication. In this course, you will learn how to analyze the media and the messages they enable. To do this we need to step back from the way we usually think about media and consider alternate perspectives; we need to learn how to use those perspectives to view, hear, read about, think about, discuss, and write about the media we use and the content we consume from those media.
To do so, we will survey several major methods associated with media theory and criticism. Media theory considers the ways in which, "in the words of Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message"; the ways in which the possibilities, uses, effects, practices associated with media imbue messages with meaning. Various methods of media criticism apply differing theoretical premises to identifying the message of the medium. The critical methods examined in this course include semiotics, narrative theory, genre theory, ideological theories, cultural studies, and media ecology.
This course is designed to help you to think about the media you use to make and consume messages. It will present a variety of of different perspectives on the media within a framework that should complement your production experiences and goals. You will be asking questions, exploring possibilities, and writing intensively (this is a writing intensive course) about difficult and sophisticated ideas, and cultivating skills that are crucial to your development not only as future media makers and storytellers, but also as participants in our evolving media culture.
Allen, R.C. (1994). Channels of discourse, reassembled: Television and contemporary criticism. The University of North Carolina Press.
Students should understand a variety of theory-based qualitative/critical methodologies and be able to apply them to mass media content. It is expected that these methods will help students to reintegrate their existing production experience.
Your understanding of critical methodologies and ability to analyze mass media content will be assessed through three papers comprehension of reading assignments will be evaluated through three papers which will count for 60% of your course grade. Your ability to write in the style of communication scholarship will be developed in the first two papers, but principally assessed in the third, which is worth 30% of your overall grade. Your understanding of critical methodologies and the "message of the medium" will also be tested in a single essay style exam worth 20% of your grade. Participation will be assessed through your in-class participation (5% of your grade), online participation (5% of your grade), submission of questions (5% of your grade), and submission of "think" assignments (5% of your grade). While many assignments will be submitted online, papers MUST be printed out and submitted as hard copy.
My usual practice is to make my lecture/discussion notes directly available to the class via the Internet. I will frequently display those notes during class. You can print them out later. You may be able to print them out before class, but I don't guarantee that you will. I frequently change my discussion notes right up to the beginning of class (and sometimes during class). The version posted at the end of class can generally be considered to be reliable, but I occasionally modify them after class based on class discussions.
Three and a half hours (the scheduled meeting time) is a long class. I will therefore try to keep class sessions shorter and conduct a portion of the class online using a class discussion/learning space called a "Moodle" located at http://messageecologies.com/ed. There will be required discussions and assignment submissions there. You can also use this group to exchange of any class-related information or questions. Only class members (and perhaps one or two selected others) can post to or read messages in this discussion space. You will be registering into this Moodle on the first day of class. You'll have assignments to complete there for the second day of class and most subsequent days. There is a possibility we will also use online discussion environments. I will inform you of any such change in advance.
Attendance is required for all classes, including the final exam period. Punctuality is much desired.
The reading and writing load for this course is fairly heavy. This is intentional. TVR 30.5 is both the capstone course in Television and Radio and the department's writing course. If you can't keep up with the readings, papers, or other assignments, you may want to drop the course early on and try again in another semester.
# | Day | Class/Date | Subject | Assignments (complete before class on the day scheduled) |
01 | Mon | July 13 | Introduction | No Reading. |
02 | Wed | July 15 | The
Landscape of Media Criticism; |
Read Models of the Communication Process and Introduction To Media Criticism |
03 | Mon | July 20 | Doing Media Criticism; Semiotics | Read Read Allen, Chapter 1; Read Levinson, Chapters 1-3; Read Bring body of content to class |
04 | Wed | July 22 | Read Allen, Chapter 2; Read Levinson, Chapters 4-6, Read An Introduction To Five Paragraph Media Criticism. First Annotated Bibliography Due. | |
05 | Mon | July 27 | Read Allen, Chapter 4; Read Medium as an Ecology of Genre; Short Paper 1 Due | |
06 | Wed 29 | July 29 | Read Allen Chapters 3 and 5; Optionally Read Allen, Chapter 7 | |
07 | Mon | August 03 | Read Allen, Chapters 6 and 8; Short Paper 2 Due | |
08 | Wed | August 05 | Production-Oriented Approaches; Medium as Message Theory; Postmodern Deconstruction | Read Allen, Chapter 9; Read Levinson, Chapters 7-10; Term Paper Outline Due; Second Annotated Bibliography Due |
09 | Mon | August 10 | Uses of Media; Term Paper Presentations | Read Levinson, Chapters 11, 12, 13 |
10 | Wed | August 12 | Read Message Ecology; Read Allen, Afterword. Read Levinson, Chapters 14 and 15. Final Submission of Term Paper for Grading | |
11 | Mon | August 17 | Final | Exam; Term Papers will be returned |