UNDERGRADUATE COURSES Gender, Race, and Class in the Media Earlier known as "Women and Minorities in the Media," this course critically examines the role of the media in enabling, facilitating, or challenging the social constructions of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation (GRCS) in our society. The course is organized around different types of media products, such as daytime TV shows, advertisements, films, video games, primetime TV shows, romance novels, music videos etc., where gender, race, sexuality and class are contested. We study both the constructions of GRCS in these media texts and the conditions of production that enable them. Along the way we ask and answer questions such as: How do the media teach us to think about GRCS? How does the production context and the logic of a commercial media system influence the representation of GRCS? Do the media reflect societal views on GRCS or do they set the terms of social discourse? We consider the mass media as one among many other social institutions such as organized religion, the education system, and the family, which strongly influence our everyday notions of race, class, sexuality, and gender. Therefore, this course takes an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing GRSC issues. We draw on research and theories from other disciplines. Broadly speaking, this course challenges you to think critically about issues of economic inequality, oppression, and the power dynamics in our society. In doing so, it adopts a a politically progressive position. Islam, Media, and the Western Imagination
Since the events of
9/11, the image of Muslims and Islam in the West has deteriorated
considerably. The "clash of civilizations" rhetoric, which Media Criticism The way we perceive and act in the social world in which we live is drawn from our cultural experience. Today, the mass media have become the primary means by which culture is produced. This production takes place within an industry that is governed by certain rules. It is vital, then, that we come to understand the complex processes of mass communication. These processes involve every sphere of the social world: economics, culture, politics and everyday life. The purpose of this course is to provide you with a set of critical concepts and theories with which you can ask a range of questions about the mass media and come to a more sophisticated understanding of how the media shape culture and society. Critical Analysis of the News This course critically engages the mainstream news media in the US. It begins by looking at the ideal role of the media in a democracy and then examines the extent to which the mainstream media live up to these ideals. We study the structural, ideological, and professional constraints on the corporate media system in the US. At the end of this class you will gain a richer understanding of the ideals, limitations, rituals, and routines of the US news media, leaving you better prepared for a career in journalism, or a lifetime as a critical consumer of news, or both. Social Movements in the U.S. in the Twentieth Century Social movements have been an integral part of US history. Many of the rights and privileges that we take for granted today, as well as those that we lack, are the product of struggles between different sections of society. We study the labor and socialist movements of the early 20th century; the labor movement of the 1930s; the Cold War and McCarthyism as a period of backlash; the Civil Rights movement; the Anti Vietnam War movement; the Feminist Movement; and the struggle for LGBT rights. We investigate how social change occurs and what role rhetoric (broadly defined as including speeches and written documents as well as mainstream and alternative media) plays in the process. The course begins with social movement theory and then goes on to study the various movements within their specific historic content in order to ground rhetoric in its material conditions. Disney, Culture and Power Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. Many children in the United States, as well as around the world, have grown up surrounded by the images of the “magical world” created by Disney. Given the dominance of Disney in our cultural landscape, it is important to study what sort of world Disney creates. This course takes a critical look at Disney and its universe. We study Disney the company, its marketing strategies, its products and merchandize, its films and the images and stories found in them, its theme parks and the ways in which audiences make meaning of Disney. GRADUATE COURSES Media Theory and Research The study of the media as a scholarly endeavor begins in the 20th century with the rise of several new forms of mass communication. Since then scholars have tried to grasp and theorize the nature of the mass media and their role in society. They have taken various approaches, based on different starting points, and developed several theoretical paradigms. Often the differences between theoretical models have led to debate and discussion within the field. This course introduces you to some of the most influential approaches to the study of the media and the key debates. The course takes an historical approach beginning with the first dominant school of thought—Social Scientific Research. We then move on to the next theory (the Frankfurt School) paying specific attention to the ways in which this theory poses challenges—theoretical, practical, philosophical, political and epistemological—to the previous theory. We then take up the next theory, and so on. We focus on seven theories—Social Scientific Research, the Frankfurt School, Cultural Studies, Political Economy, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism and Feminism—locating them within an historical context so as to understand the social, political and economic conditions from which they emerge. We also look at the three key areas of research in media studies—production (specifically media and globalization), texts, and reception. By the end of this course you should have a broad overview of the field of media studies with a grasp not only of the key media theories but also various research methods that will enable you to begin the process of conducting independent research on the media. Media, War and Imperialism This course employs an interdisciplinary approach to understand US imperialism and its representation in the media. We trace the key periods of war in US history, beginning with the emergence of the United States as an imperial power in the late 19th century and going on to the key conflicts of the 20th and early 21st centuries. In addition to studying the history of each of these periods, we also read and discuss theories of imperialism, the rhetoric/discourses of empire, and the role of the media in propagating imperial doctrine. Specifically, we examine how war and imperialism are articulated in the public sphere. Towards that end, we will study the role played by newspapers, radio, film, television, and the internet as well as other forms of communication such as comic strips and war propaganda posters. While the focus is largely on the mainstream media and their role in winning consent for imperial policies and wars, we also examine the voices of dissent in alternative media. By the end of this course, students should have a broad understanding of how empire has been justified, protested and debated in US history. Media Criticism This course introduces students to a variety of analytical methods used to interrogate media texts. This is a research methods course that introduces students to feminist, psychoanalytic, semiotic, postmodern, ideological/Marxist, postcolonial, historical and other methods of textual analysis. Students learn how to critically analyze the ways in which meanings are encoded into a range of media texts from film to newspapers. The objective of this course is to not only enable students to become more media literate, but to also be proficient at reading texts in a variety of ways. |
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