Descriptions of Courses Taught

Davis Foulger

I have recently taught a broad range of courses that are commonly taught within the field of communication (over 20 different courses since 2001). I describe those courses below. I have made each course, as might be expected, my own through my selection of specific subject matter and the way in which I order and emphasize the various elements of the course, but each adheres to the principles laid out in the original course design (or general syllabus). Here I describe, in brief, over a dozen courses which I have taught since 2001. I have also designed and thought several new courses which are described on another page of this site.

Media Criticism

The capstone course of the Television and Radio program at Brooklyn College, where I developed the course and have taught it most often. A required upper division course required of communication majors at Adelphi University, where I have also taught it. A fusion of communication theory and qualitative communication research methodologies that is intended to reintegrate the intense production experience of their major with theory and research approaches. Theoretical approaches and qualitative methodologies associated with the course, as I teach it, include semiotics, narrative theory, genre theory, ideological theories, cultural theories, audience response methods, media effects, and, more generally, the message that is implicit to the use of a particular medium for a particular purpose. This is a dense, theory rich, writing course in which students apply the lessons of their production experience to the analysis of media content. Students select a single body of content from radio, television, or movies, apply most of the methods of the course to that body of content in brief, and write two short (three page) and one longer (ten page) papers that utilize a subset of these these methods (their choice) in analyzing that body of content. The papers Medium as Communication Process Primitive and Medium as an Ecology of Genre grow out of teaching this course.

Interpersonal Communication

The introductory course in Interpersonal Communication. An overview of most of the most important research areas in that students will wrestle with in later courses, but packaged in a way that makes it immediately applicable in their relationships and their understandings of themselves. In some ways, a theoretically dense course, but generally presented through the lens of the students own experience of friendships, relationships, family, work, and the way we think about ourselves and other people. A great course for connecting ones research to the classic material we expect every communication student to master. The paper Relationship Equals Sum Media, which connects my research on new media with the literature of relationship development, grows out teaching this course.

Small Group Communication

The introductory course in Small Group Communication. This course integrates practical small group experiences with the current theories of how small groups form, evolve over time, and operate in accomplishing different purposes. As taught in Oswego, Small Group is an alternative to Interpersonal. Hence there is a need to cover many of the fundamental approaches to communication research that would normally be covered in a course in Interpersonal while retaining a focus on the group context. I am currently teaching this course for the first time since graduate school.

Organizational Communication

An upper division course that presumes successful completion of courses in Interpersonal Communication or Small Group Communication. My approach to this course fuses the classic approaches to organizational communication theory with newer approaches based in systems theory, cultural theory, structuration, and network analysis. I add, consistent with my research program and my background in doing communication process reengineering at IBM, an organizational media ecology perspective in which students think about the media choices that organizations make in reaching different constituencies. Practical application of these theoretical approaches is a major focus of the course, with students asked to identify an organization (their choices have ranged from large multi-national corporations to local non-profits) and examine the ways in which they interact with their various stakeholders (employees, customers, business partners, investors, etc). The results of their research in this area has sometimes been startling. There are at least some organizations that have almost entirely rebuilt their media ecologies around relatively high speed and highly distributed communication media over the last fifteen years such that many working groups are composed of people who almost never interact on a face to face basis. My paper Emergent Complexity and the Role Attributes of Media draws heavily on my experience in teaching this course.

CommunicationTheory

A breadth of the field introduction to communcation theory. Covers a spectrum of communication theory literature ranging from Interpersonal Communication and Small Group Theory to Medium Theory and Media Effects; from Language and Meaning to Messages and Rhetoric; from Organizational Communication to Ingtercultural Communication; from perception and the constitution of self to constructivism and structuration.

Persuasion

A return to the subject matter of my masters thesis, this upper division course is an in depth exploration of theories of persuasion and their application in the real world. My approach to the course is to connect theories of persuasions with persuasive campaigns in which multiple messages are structured across time across time and through multiple media to persuade diverse audiences. Student papers focus on theoretical perspectives and the ways in which they can be used in designing persuasive campaigns. Group projects focus on building campaigns based on current theory. Papers and group projects are interrelated such that the papers support the group project.

Intercultural Communication

An upper division undergraduate introduction to Intercultural Communication. As taught at SUNY Oswego, explored the intersection of communication and cultures, starting with the role of communication in structurating culture and extending to the implications of cultural differences to interpersonal, group, and communication encounters. Particular attention was be paid to Internet media as a site of cross-cultural interaction. As taught as a part of a study abroad program in China sponsored by Brooklyn College, explored the experience of communicating interculturally while the students were in an intercultural setting.

Introduction to Mass Media

A relatively standard Introduction to Mass Media course. Students are introduced to the range of mass media starting with books, magazines, and newspapers and ending with television and Internet media. Intended to provide a broad practical and theoretical introduction to the history, business, processes, and effects of mass media and mass audiences.

Industries, Institutions and Audiences

A fairly deep examination of the business of radio, television, and the Internet mass media. Intended to provide students with a strong sense of the history, workings, and processes of these media along with a clear sense of the career paths that are available to media professionals. These media are examined not only in the U.S., but Internationally such that students get a clear sense of the different economic models, varying content models, and contrasting regulatory frameworks associated with mass media around the world.

Regulation of Media

As taught as a masters level course at Brooklyn College, reviews a variety of forces that act to regulate the content and operation of media. Principle among these forces is the law, and the largest portion of the course is spent exploring the legal issues and precedents associated with the mass media. Normative, market, and architectural forces are also explored as we examine the structure and process of media regulation in the United States, and to a lesser extent, around the world.

Advanced Interpersonal Communication

An upper level course in Interpersonal Communication taught in the manner of a graduate seminar, with readings drawn from specialized topic areas in Interpersonal Communication. In past incarnations of the course I have had students looking at the literature of Relational Communication, Nonverbal Communication, and Mediated Interpersonal Communication. The first two literatures are research areas that undergraduate students seem to enjoy. The third is a personal research interest and has subsequently developed into a standalone course. In this course I want students to do systematic observation of other peoples communication, and I ask them to do group projects involving conversation analysis and individual research on one or more theories within a specialized topic area. The structure of a class evolves into student-directed discussions in which individual students come into class that day with a set of questions based on the readings. Every student is assigned the task of coming up with questions several times over the course of a semester. Discussion and lecture (to the extent there is any lecture, and many days there is not) follows directly from those questions.

Communication and Social Cognition

A mid-level course in the Interpersonal Communication designed to bridge the span of communication theory that connects perception, cognition, and intrapersonal communication to the role of communication in building and maintaining our relationships and communities. I taught the last edition of this course at Oswego and then designed and taught the first edition of its replacement, which focused more on the role of Interpersonal Communication in the structuration of relationships, groups, organizations, and communities: Communication Relationships and Communities.

Communication Ethics

A upper division undergraduate examination of the obligations that communicators owe others when the create, consume, and enable messages. I ask my students to apply the classic ethical philosophies of Kant, Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and others to the specific ethical problems faced by all of the people who make media possible, including both the usual suspects (creators and consumers of messages) and the supporting cast: producers, directors, retailers, cameramen, accountants, managers, and makeup artists, among many others. The result has been a wonderful set of student papers and group projects that explore practical ethical decision making in a wide variety of real world media. It has also proved to be a rich source of research output, including such papers as Roles in Media, Measuring Complex Ethical Decision Making, and Fractally Complex Decision Spaces and the Efficacy of Ethics Instruction. Perhaps the "luckiest" course (in the sense of opportunity meeting preparation with unexpected results) I've ever taught.

Communication Techniques

The hybrid communication course. Public speaking (Informational and Persuasive Speaking) combined with an introduction to communication theory, interpersonal communication, listening, small group interaction, and new media. As can be seen from the syllabus, a straightforward course, but one which I needed to structure with an interleaving of public speaking and introduction of communication content that is not directly supported by standard texts.

Fundamentals of Speech Communication/Public Speaking

The basic public speaking course communication course. Talk according to the preferences of the institution at Montclair State and Oswego, but following the classic paradigms of informative, persuasive, and celebratory speaking. Similar, in many respects, to the course I taught under Lucas as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. I've used several different texts in teaching this course, including both the Lucas and Engleberg and Daly texts. A relatively easy and fun to teach introductory course.

Interpersonal Communication (for Health Professionals)

An adaptation of the Interpersonal Communication course to the needs and experiences of health professionals (especially nurses). The principle adaptations involved bring

Sophomore Engineering Clinic Public Speaking

A variation of the basic public speaking course communication course oriented to the presentation requirements associated with engineering. Used Lucas as the text, but made adaptations, based on my considerable experience doing public speaking as a software engineer that aligned the principles of public speaking with the engineering paradigm.

I have taught, proposed, and expressed interest in teaching other courses as well. None that are left out of the above are uninteresting or less likely to intertwine with my research interests. My research is indelibly intertwined with my teaching. I find it impossible to teach without finding connections and new research interests. I find my research benefits immensely from the challenges of the classroom. They are threads in a single strand of rope, and the strength of that rope is in the reinforcement they give each other.