This course explores critical and aesthetic approaches to the understanding of contemporary media content. While our focus will be television, the approaches explored can be applied generally to the content of a wide variety of media, particularly mass media like movies, books, radio, online gaming, and Internet streaming media. We will examine the meanings, pleasures, and practices associated with both the production and consumption of media content using a variety of approaches that have been developed in such academic displines as art history, cultural studies, literary theory, film studies, mass communication, and the study of visual culture. By the end of the semester stdents should be able to recognise and apply the key concerpts and strategies associated with these approaches to a wide range of media texts.
We not only live in our media, but try to make sense of our culture, its traditions, customs and artifacts, using our media. We spend more time engaged in communication than we spend in any other activity, and much of that time is spent making sense of the texts and images we encounter. We don't always consciously think about the ways in which we are socialized by media content, but it remains that much of what we think of as "normal" is that which we have grown accustomed to in the behavior of others, including the behavior that is emulated in mass media content. In this course, we will work on becoming "anthropologically strange" by actually thinking about the ways in which mass media messages shape who we are (or seem to be). 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.
Critical analysis is not learning how to write a newspaper review. It is learning how to apply a consistent perspective to media content and seeing what that perspective reveals about how that content shapes us and how we shape that content. 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.
Recommended Text
Allen, R.C. (1994). Channels of discourse, reassembled: Television and contemporary criticism. The University of North Carolina Press.
The Allen text should cost about $20-$35 in print form. I don't recommend you buy a hard copy, however, as it is available at less than half the price in an electronic edition from Amazon.com. The Brooklyn College bookstore should have copies, but I expect you will prefer the electronic edition, which is designed to work with Amazon's Kindle e-reader and software. At last check it was NOT available for the Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader or the SONY e-reader, but you may want to check for availability on these platforms.If you choose to use the electronic version (I will be) from Amazon, it can be used in any of three ways. You can use it on your Windows PC using free software that can be downloaded from Amazon. You can also use it on an iPhone and iPod Touch using free Kindle software that can be downloaded for free from the Apple Apps store. One presumes that it will also work on the new Apple iPad and is supposed to work soon on MacIntosh computers. The third and most expensive option is Amazon's Kindle e-books. I use the smaller (six inch screen) version that currently sells for about $260 (considerably more than the text).
The value of the Allen text is that it directly addresses most of the major approaches we we examine in the course in ways that many of our course readings (which will often be original sources) will not. It is, as such, a valuable supplement to those course materials.
A body of content of your choosing. You will need to obtain this body of content yourself. You will view it repeatedly.
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 a critical essay that will be due at the end of the term which will count for 40% of your course grade and a series of class presentations, worth 20% of your course grade, which will explore both the critical methods that the course explores and their application to a body of content. Participation will be assessed through in-class participation (10% of your grade), think assignments (5% of your grade), and submission of readings based questions (5% of your grade). Finally, your understanding of the course material will be tested in a single final exam that will be worth 20% of your overall 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.
Point your web browser at http://messageecologies.com/ed
Attendance is required for all classes, including the final exam period. Punctuality is much desired.
Attendance is mandatory. The Brooklyn College Bulletin states that "Students are expected to attend all scheduled sessions of every class for which they register. Students late for class may be excluded from the room. An instructor may consider attendance and class participation in determining course grade." While I am unlikely to lock the door, I will take account of missed class time in computing grades. You should not, as a general note, ask me for "permission" to miss class. While I will try to be understanding of documented emergencies, the basic reality (which has more to do with your ability to learn when you aren't in class than anything else) is that absences make your grade grow smaller.
I have caught a number of students attempting to pass off other people's work as their own. Such behavior is unacceptable in any classroom, and I won't accept it in mine. My usual practice will be to zero any assignment on which a student has been found to be cheating and consult with the department chair on what other actions may be appropriateExamples of cheating include:Bottom line: Write in your own words and reference the ideas you use to the sources you read them in.
- Duplicate test answers. I cannot prevent students from studying together or comparing notes on a take home exam (should I give any). Test answers should always be in your own words (e.g. not copied out of a book or off of someone else's test paper).
- Plagiarized term paper content. I encourage you to look at content from a wide variety of sources, but the content of your term paper should be in your own words.
- Unreferenced term paper content. Where, in the course of writing a term paper, you present the ideas of others, you must indicate where they came from with a reference. This is true even when you have stated the ideas in your own words or if the ideas or their sources seem obvious.
It is your responsibility to ensure that all assignments are submitted by the due date. I will reduce the grade on an assignment by one half letter grade if one period late and one full grade thereafter. As a general rule, it is always best to turn in assignments on time, but not turning in an assignment at all is far worse than turning them in late. A letter grade penalty is far less onerous than a zero.
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.
Students who have a disabling condition which might interfere with their ability to successfully complete this course are encouraged to speak to me confidentially. I will be happy to cooperate in identifying alternate means of demonstrating such mastery where there is a demonstrable need.
Bottom line: I'm here to help.
If you have a question I encourage you to ask it in class. There are no stupid questions; only answers that didn't need to be. If you don't know the answer to a question it is likely someone else is curious as well. Please ask. The worst that can happen is that I defer my answer to a meeting after class or during office hours.
If you have a problem in the class I encourage you to contact me as quickly as possible. Several means of contact are listed at the top of my Brooklyn College home page, including telephone, e-mail, and instant messenger. I also maintain regular office hours. Note, in particular, that I will not grant an incomplete for the course unless you talk to me about it in advance or I am aware of conditions which would make it impossible for you to complete the course during the semester.