Discussion Sections
and TAs:
- A01 Mon 10-10:50 Briana Iatarola
- A02 Mon 3-3:50 Briana Iatarola
- A03 Tues 5-5:50 Ben Medeiros
- A04 Tues 6-6:50 Ben Medeiros
- A05 Wed 1-1:50 Ben Medeiros
- A06 Wed 3-3:50 Hannah Dick
- A07 Wed 4-4:50 Hannah Dick
- A08 Thurs 8-8:50 Kristine E Vandenberg
- A09 Thurs 9-9:50 Kristine E Vandenberg
- A10 Thurs 10-10:50 Kristine E Vandenberg
- A11 Fri 8-8:50 Todd Woodlan
- A12 Fri 9-9:50 Todd Woodlan
Description: This
course seeks to answer five key questions: What is communication? Where does it
occur? How does it occur? Why does it matter? How do we study it? In answering
these questions the course provides an introduction to major issues in the
field of communication, and also to the main areas of focus in this department.
Course texts Required:
- Daniel Czitrom,
1982, Media
and American Mind. From Morse to McLuhan Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press. Available at the university bookstore, used copies are
often available from Amazon and other online retailers.
- The course reader, An Introduction to Communication is available for purchase from
University Readers. To purchase your textbook, please follow the instructions
below:
Step
1: Log on to https://students.universityreaders.com/store/
Step
2: Create an account or log in if you have an existing account to purchase.
Step
3: Easy-to-follow instructions will guide you through the rest of the ordering
process. Payment can be made by all major credit cards or with an electronic
check.
COURSE:
An Introduction to Communication
INSTRUCTOR(S): Boatema Boateng, Zeinabu Davis, Brian
Goldfarb
- Copies of these texts will be placed on
reserve at the main library. Password: bg10
- Some additional readings will be available on
the TED course site.
Assignments
Course Policies
1. Courtesy and consideration for others (also
required of the professor and TAs). The position taken in this class is that
are no stupid opinions, only uninformed ones. Therefore in disagreeing with
others' opinions, it is necessary to provide them with information that might
persuade them to think differently instead of simply dismissing their views out
of hand. All participants in the class are also required to observe the UCSD
Principles of Community which can be found at:
http://www.ucsd.edulexplore/about/principles.html
2. You are expected to read course materials before
all lectures, sections and screenings. You are also expected to participate in
all section discussions.
3. Attendance at all lectures, sections, and
screenings is required. Unexcused absenses will affect your grade final grade. If you have a legitimate excuse and must miss a class or section meeting, it is your responsibility to: (a) notify your TA in advance if possible; (b) obtain notes and information on what you missed from classmates (c) complete assigned the readings for the class. Do not ask the professor or your TA what you missed before obtaining notes from a classmate.
4. Make-up exams will only be given for valid
and documented medical or legal reasons (e.g. court appearance), and will be
held after the exam concerned and not before. There will
be no exceptions to this policy.
5. All assignments must be turned in on the due
date indicated on the syllabus. You will lose a grade point for each day that
an assignment is late. This means, for example, that ifyou get an A on an assignment that is two days late, your grade will drop to a B+
6. In managing this class the professor and
teaching assistants will function as a team and will consult regularly with
each other on all matters concerning the class. In particular,
they will use identical criteria in grading student assignments and will make
every effort to ensure that grades assigned are scrupulously fair and reflect
the quality of the work concerned. Due to this process of consultation and the
use of uniform grading criteria, teaching assistants have complete authority in
all actions that they undertake regarding the course, and the professor is
unlikely to rescind any of their decisions.
7. You are required to observe university
regulations regarding academic integrity. This means no student shall engage in
any activity that involves attempting to receive a grade by means other than
honest effort; for example:
8. All beepers, cell phones, PDAs, and similar devices must be turned offduring class. Laptops may not be used during lecture.
Assessment
The final
grade will be determined as follows:
- Section attendance & participation 25%
- Take-home assignment 15%
- Mid-term exam 20%
- Final exam 40%
Disability Accomodations
IThe professor is dedicated to making this course as accessible to all students as possible. If you require accommodations or services for disabilities, please communicate with the Professor immediately and register with the Office of Students with Disabilities (OSD) in order to obtain a current Authorization for Accommodation (AFA) letter. This letter is required for eligibility for requests. Receipt of AFAs in advance is necessary for appropriate planning for the provision of reasonable accommodations. OSD Academic Liaisons also need to receive current AFA letters.
For additional information, contact the Office for Students with Disabilities:
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Course Schedule:
Notes:Weekly topics and readings listed here are provisional and may be updated after the course begins--please check this site weekly for updates. Be sure to refresh your web browser so that you are not viewing an older cashed version of the syllabus.
week: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Week One-a
Sept 28 (prezi)
- Introduction and overview
Week One-b
Oct 1(prezi)
- Raymond Williams, 1976,
"Communication," and "Media," from Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (in Introduction to Communication course reader)
Oct 3 (prezi)
- Herbert Schiller, 2000, Living in the Number One Country:
Reflections from a Critic of American Empire New York: Seven Stories Press.
- Horace Miner, 1956, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" American
Anthropologist 58:3, June (TED)
Oct 5 (prezi)
- H.G. Wells ,1911, "The Country
of the Blind" in The Country of the Blind and Other Short Stories. (TED)
- George Herbert Mead, 1993, "The Self, the
I, and the Me" (1929) Social
Theory: The Multicultural and Classical Readings Charles Lemert, ed.
Boulder, CO: Westview.
Week Two
Oct
8 (prezi)
- Marcel Danesi, 1999,
"What does it Mean? How Humans Represent the World" in Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things: an Introduction
to Semiotics. St. Martin's Press.
Oct 10
(prezi)
- Stuart Hall, 1997, "Introduction" and
part of "The Work of Representation" Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices Sage
Publications.
Oct 12
(prezi)
- Robin Lakoff, 1990, "Language, Politics, and Power" Talking
Power: The Politics of Language in Our Lives. New York: Basic Books.
- Scott Kiesling, 2003,
"Dude" in American Speech Vol. 79, No.3.
- Watch before class: Deborah Tannen's "he said she said." On digital media e-reserves, and also on reserve in the Art Library on the lower level of Geisel Library. To access the streaming reserve you will need the password "bg10". You will also have to be on campus or use a secure connection such as VPN or a proxy server. For instructions go to: http://libraries.ucsd.edu/services/remote.html
Week Three
Oct 15 (prezi)
- Geneva Smitherman, 1980,
"White English in Blackface or Who Do I Be?" The State of the Language, eds. Leonard Michaels &
Christopher Ricks UC Press.
- Gloria Anzaldua, 1987, "How to
Tame a Wild Tongue" Borderlands/La Frontera: The New MestizaSan Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
Oct 17 (prezi)
- Dwight McBride, 2005, "Why I Hate Abercrombie and
Fitch" Why
I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch New York: New York University Press.(now on TED) Also available as an e-book via the Library website. The link to the item is here (you need to click on the link below "get it online") : https://roger.ucsd.edu:443/record=b6254733~S9
- Dick Hebdige, 1979, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (selection)
Oct 19 (prezi)
- Vickie Rutledge Shields "The Less Space We
Take the More Powerful We'll Be"
- Anna McClintock,
"Soft-Soaping Empire"
- Optional: View Merchants
of Cool and reading interviews on PBS website
Week Four
Oct 22
(prezi)
- Elizabeth Eisenstein 1980 "The Emergence of
Print Culture in the West" Journal
of Communication Winter. (TED)
- Daniel Czitrom, 1982, '''Lightning
Lines' and the Birth of Communication, 1838-1900" Media and American Mind.
From Morse to McLuhan Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Take-home assignment due (Use TurnItIn on TED)
Oct
24 (prezi)
- Daniel Czitrom, 1982,
"American Motion Pictures and the New Popular Culture, 1893-1918" Media and American Mind:
From Morse to McLuhan Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Oct 26
(prezi)
- Raymond Williams' chapter "The Technology
and the Society" in Television:
Technology and Cultural Form
- Julie D'Acci,
"Television, Representation and Gender" in The Television Studies Reader, ed., Robert C. Allen and Annette
Hill
Week Five Oct 29 (prezi)
- Nicolas Carr, 2008, "Is Google Making Us
Stupid?" Atlantic
Monthly (July/August). (TED)
- Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, 2006. Control
and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics, Introduction p
1-30 (TED)
Oct 31:
No reading assigned to allow you a break from reading in prep for the midterm.
Nov 2 Mid-Term
Exam
Week Six
Nov 5 (prezi)
- Walter Lippmann, 1922, "The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads" Public Opinion New York: Free Press. (TED)
- Daniel Czitrom, 1982, "The
Rise of Empirical Media Study: Communications Research as Behavioral Science,
1930-1960, "Media
and American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Nov 7
(prezi)
- Theodore Adorno and
Max Horkheimer, 1993, "The Culture Industry:
Enlightenment as Mass Deception," The
Cultural Studies Reader Simon During (ed.) New York: Routledge.
Nov 9
(prezi)
- Todd Gitlin, 2003,
"Introduction" and "Media Routines and Political Crises," The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in
the Making and Unmaking of the New Left University
of California Press.
Week Seven
Nov 12:
Veterans Day Holiday
Nov 14 (prezi)
- Michael Schudson, "Political observatories, databases & news in the emerging ecology of public information" (TED)
- Jane Rhodes 1993 "The Visibility of Race and Media
History" Critical
Studies in Mass Communication 20:2.
Nov 16
(prezi)
- Laura Mulvey 2003 "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
Amelia Jones, ed. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. London; New York: Routledge.
Week Eight
Nov 19 (prezi)
- bell hooks, 1992,
"The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators" Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press.
- Lorna Roth, pages 1-10 of "Looking at Shirley, the Ultimate Norm: Colour Balance, Image Technologies, and Cognitive Equity," Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 34 (1) (TED)
Nov 21
No class meeting today. I will be available for office hours from noon-3pm for individual or small group meetings. Check with TAs about their office hours for today. Read the text on your own.
- Alexandra Juhasz, 1992, "'They said we were trying to show | reality - all I want to show is my video': The politics of the realist I feminist documentary," Screen 35:2 (TED)
- Optional further reading for those interested: Bill Nichols, 1991, "The Ethnographer's Tale," Visual Anthropology Review 7:2, Fall (TED)
Nov 23: Happy Thanksgiving!
Week Nine
Nov
26 (prezi)
- Stuart Hall, 2002, "The West and the Rest: Discourse and
Power" Susanne Schech & Jane Haggis (eds.) Development and Power: A Cultural Studies Reader, Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishers.
- Binyavanga Wainaina, "How to
Write About Africa" Granta 92: The View from Africa January 2006. Access it online
at http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1 (TED)
Nov 28
(prezi)
- Sean MacBride and Colleen Roach, "The New
International Information Order" in The
Globalization Reader, pp. 286-292;
- John Sinclair, et al., "Peripheral
Vision," in The Globalization Reader,
pp. 301-306;
Nov 30
(prezi --same as for Nov 28th)
- Arjun Appadurai, 1996, "Disjuncture & Difference in the
Global Cultural Economy" Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Week Ten
Dec 3
(prezi)
- Tim Cresswell 2006
"The Production of Mobilities at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam" On the Move: Mobility in
the Modern Western World New York: Routledge.
- Akosua K. Darkwah 2002 "Trading Goes Global: Market Women in an
Era of Globalization" Asian Women Vol. 15. (TED)
Dec 5
No reading assigned to allow you a break from reading in prep for the final exam.
OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL READING (won't be on the final exam):
- Vicente Rafael 2003 "The Cell Phone and the
Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines" Public Culture 15:3. (TED)
- Merlyna Lim, 2012, "Clicks, Cabs, and Coffee Houses: Social Media and Oppositional Movements in Egypt, 2004 – 2011" Journal of Communication 62(TED)
Dec 7
Finals Week:
Final Exam Wed, Dec. 12, 3 – 6 p.m.
Take Home Assignment:
Due: Friday Oct 19th
Format: Title page (not included in pages), 3-4 pages, double-spaced, font: Times 12 point, 1.25" margins.
Use citations and bibliography for quoted and paraphrased materials.
Submit through TurnItIn
Prompt:
Select an object that can be considered as an example of communication. This can be a piece of textual or audio-visual media or anything that might be discussed in terms of communication.
Describe your object in detail (especially if it isn't broadly recognized/familiar).
Drawing on our readings and lectures/section discussions thus far in class, discuss multiple ways that this object/example might be analyzed. Present at least two distinct methods or approaches that could be used to yield deeper understandings or interpretations of the object. Discuss the methods of analysis one might employ and/or other fields that might contribute to the communication studies approaches you are suggesting (anthropology, linguistics, media studies, sociology, political economy, feminist or gender studies, etc).
Further Details on how to approach this:
First, and most important, don't stress. We know that this is new to most of you and that you don't yet have a grasp on much of the terminology or concepts that this assignment is getting you to start thinking about. You will be graded largely on effort, creativity, and thoughtfulness of your response—not whether it is "correct." This essay will give you an opportunity to begin to explore the key questions of this course:
- What is communication?
- Where does it occur?
- How does it occur?
- Why does it matter?
- How do we study it?
It will be much easier for you if you select a specific object/example rather than a broad catagory or type of communication. You can use your example to talk about some aspects of a broader catagory or genre if you like.
The essay requires some description and analysis of your object. But you may also indicate approaches to studying your object that you cannot do right now, but are proposing. For example you could describe how interviews, ethnographic methods, surveys, or historical/archival research could allow you to answer a set of important questions about your object. This might entail a discussion of what questions you seek to answer, what sources of information or informants you would turn to.
Note: We are not asking you to argue why this is an example of communication or to prove that it is. We want you to select an example of communication and think about what might be important or interesting about it from a scholarly perspective, and to talk about how you could study that.
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Outline:
I. Description of your object and its function as communication (1 page or less)
- Introduce and describe your specific object giving enough detail to let the reader know what you will be analyzing and raising questions about.
- Provide a brief consideration of the context and importance of the form of communication that you are considering. Here you might talk about how your object is a specific example of a more general type of communication (you are talking about the lyrics of "call me maybe," and here you talk a bit about how it is an example of contemporary pop music and some of the general characteristics of pop music as a form/mode of communication)
- Between or among who (what groups or types) does this object mediate communicate? (In this case: who makes the music—artists, large record producers, marketers. Who uses it to communicate what?
- Generally note why this is significant. Here you might want to focus in on the particular aspect of how this object serves as a mode of communication. For example, you might be considering how pop songs mediate (or express) current ideas or experiences of intimate relationships or friendships.
II. Analyze the object/example using methods that you can employ without extended research. For example you could choose one of the following approaches (1.5-2 pages):
- You might do a close semiotic reading of how various elements convey meaning, and how those elements relate to one another. In this case you would consider both denotative (literal) meanings and connotative (implied / contextual) meanings.
- You might analyze some social or cultural aspects of the object. How does it convey or involve particular gendered, ethnic, class, generational meanings.
- You might do discourse analysis; looking closely at the types of language (terms and/or grammatical forms) and expressions used in dialog or other interaction in your example.
- You might examine the role of your example in relation to a given (set of) political debate(s), struggle(s) or conflict(s) or dynamic. IN this case you might look at the relations between the institutions that create or shape the communication object/example
III. Discuss how your object might be further studied through some other method(s) (that might entail extended research, fieldwork, experimentation, etc) and what sort of questions it might help you answer (1-1.5 pages).
- How might this object/example be observe in action—in a real life context. And what might you want to find out.
- How might you gain a better understanding of how a particular group or groups use or interpret this object? And what might you want to find out.
- What types of historical background could you seek to find out about this, and where would you look for this (what historical clues, sources or accounts could you turn to). And what might you find out.
- How could you find out more about the social or economic institutions that support or create this mode of communication and how they work? And what might you find out.
Keywords Document (Not a study guide!)
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