COMM 123
Communications and Popular Culture
Popular culture has been variously dismissed as mere trivia,just entertainment; it has been condemned as propaganda, a tool of mass deception; and its consumers have been dubbed fashion victims and couch potatoes. This course considers these critiques, as well as those that suggest that popular culture offers valuable material for the study of social life. We will consider the meanings and impact of popular culture, including its effects on how we see ourselves, others, and American life; who makes distinctions between high, middlebrow, and low or mass culture; and how power and resistance structure the production and consumption of popular texts.
COMM 130
Inroduction to Mass Media and Society
How might we think about the legal, political, economic, historical, and cultural considerations that shape what we watch on TV, read in books, stare at in billboards? What ideas are relevant for examining the enormous changes in the mass media system and the consequences of those changes? The aim of this course is to begin to answer these questions by acquainting you with the workings of American mass media as an integral part of American society.
COMM 140
Inroduction to Film Forms and Contexts
This course will trace the development of the classical Hollywood cinema, as well as significant alternatives to this dominant mode of representation, by relating analyses of the formal elements of film texts to discussions of film industries and audiences as well as the larger social, historical context. A variety of analytical methods and perspectives will be applied to films drawn from different times and countries in order to consider the cinema as a cultural construction.
COMM 262
Visual Communication
Examination of the structure and effects of visual media (film, television, advertising, and other kinds of pictures).
COMM 275
Communication and Persuasion
Theory, research and application in the persuasive effects of communication in social and mass contexts. Primary focus on the effects of messages on attitudes, opinions, values, and behaviors. Applications include political, commercial, and public service advertising; propaganda; and communication campaigns (e.g. anti-smoking).