Media, Culture & Communication (MCC-UE)

Introduces students to the study of media, culture, and communication. The course surveys models, theories, and analytical perspectives that form the basis of study in the major. Topics include dialogue, discourse, mass and interpersonal communication, political economy, language, subject-formation, critical theory, experience, and reception.

This course introduces students to key concepts in history of media and communication, and to the stakes of historical inquiry. Rather than tracing a necessarily selective historical arc from alphabet to Internet or from cave painting to coding, the course is organized around an exploration of case studies in context.

This course examines the role of language in media, culture, and communication. Topics will include language ideologies, register-formation, language politics, standardization, raciolinguistics, code-switching, voicing, speech and text genres, orthographies, fonts, and more. Students will learn to analyze interpersonal and mediated communication-in-context, with attention to pragmatics, performativity and participation frameworks, using key analytics and methods from the fields of socio-linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and semiotics.

Introduces students to several methods of analyzing the content, production, and contexts of media in society. Students explore the basic approaches of textual analysis, political economy, and ethnography. Students adopt, adapt and employ these methods in their own analyses, survey and data collection, and ethnographies. Students create their work by means of digitally mediated image annotation and manipulation, data collection and visualization, and audio/video production.

It should be noted that independent study requires a minimum of 45 hours of work per point. Independent study cannot be applied to the established professional education sequence in teaching curricula. Each departmental program has established its own maximum credit allowance for independent study. This information may be obtained from a student?s department. Prior to registering for independent study, each student should obtain an Independent Study Approval Form from the adviser.

This course will build on a core concept of Lewis Mumford who understood media ecology as a component of spatial and urban ecology. Emphasis will be given on how space socially organizes human meaning and on the 'inscription' of space. How do people, through, their practices and their being in the world, form relationships with the locales they occupy (both the natural world and the build environment)? How do they attach meanings to spaces to create places? and how do the experiences of inhabiting viewing and hearing those places shape their meanings, communicative practices, cultural performance memories and habits? Course themes include; mapping and the imagination; vision and space, soundscape, architecture and landscape; new media and space/time compression; space and identity; spatial violence; spatialization of memory. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Cultures & Contexts

This course is an introduction to digital media, focusing on networks, computers, the Web and video games. Theoretical topics include the formal qualities of new media, their political dimensions, as well as questions of genre, narrative, and history.

This course is for students who intend to seek employment in the media industry. Its focus is the modern history of those industries -- film, TV, radio, newspapers, music, magazines, book publishing -- with special emphasis on the pressures that affect them now. Student are required to do extensive background reading, and we will hear from various professionals with long experience in the industries under consideration.

An exploration of television as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of television as both a cultural product and industry.

An exploration of film as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of film as both a cultural product and industry.

The course approaches video games through the lens of political economy. This means examining games foremost as commodities, transactional goods through which various modes of economic life occur. This course is designed to introduce students to the structure and economics of the game industry since its emergence in the 1970s, particularly across the United States, China, and Japan. Special attention is brought to the dramatic industry changes catalyzed by digital distribution, mobile gaming, live streaming, and other contemporary developments.

Explores the subject of desire in modern media and culture. Freud's ideas have had a profound influence on everything from the earliest manuals on public relations to the struggles of modern feminism. We will read a range of psychoanalytic theorists while studying how their insights have been put to work by both the culture industry and its critics.

An upper level course on the topic of censorship in American culture, from the late 19th century to the present. The course explores many of the areas where debates about obscenity and censorship have been urgently contested, from discussion bout birth control, to literature, film, theatre, art galleries and history museums, to public sidewalks, lecture halls, and the internet. The goal is for the students to have an enhanced understanding of the historical contexts in which important cultural and legal struggles over censorship have taken place, and to bring that understanding to bear on contemporary debates about the arts, sexuality, national security, media technology, privacy, and government involvement in the marketplace of ideas and images.

The course examines the role of media in the lives and cultures of transnational immigrant communities. Using a comparative framework and readings drawn from interdisciplinary sources, the course explores how media practices and media representations define and enable new conceptions and practices of national belonging, identity and culture in the context of global migration.

The cultural context of crime in relation to conventions of news and entertainment in the mass media. Topics include competing theories of criminogenic behavior, news conventions and crime reporting, the aesthetics and representation of crime in the media, the role of place in crime stories, moral panics and fears, crime and consumer culture, and the social construction of different kinds of crimes and criminals.

This course focuses on the essentially communicative aspects of American government, including the preparation of candidates, the electoral process, political advertising and public relations. It also includes the use of strategic communication to influence political agendas, the formation of public policy, and the process of political debate.

This course presents a critical analysis of the development, principles, strategies, media, techniques, and effects of propaganda campaigns from ancient civilizations to modern technological society. The course focuses on propaganda in the context of government, religion, revolution, war, politics, and advertising, and explores implications for the future of propaganda in the cybernetic age.

This course will examine the emergence of advertising as a form of communication, its influence upon other forms of mediated communication and its impact upon culture and society.

An examination of the great debate concerning the effects of mass media and mass communication on our society. Analysis and application of major perspectives and approaches used in formulating modern theories of mass communication.

This course will examine the relationship between mediated forms of communications the formation of identities, both individual and social. Attention will be paid to the way mediated forms of communication represent different social and cultural groupings, with a particular emphasis on gender, race, ethnicity, class and nationality.

Detailed examination of the business models and economic traits in a variety of media industries including film and television, cable and satellite, book and magazine publishing, gaming and the Internet. Emphasis on historical trends and current strategies in both domestic and global markets.

This course examines the production, representation and cultural meaning of Latino Media in the U.S. This class will provide a general survey of Latino media in the U.S. particular focuses on the cultures of production of Spanish and English language television, radio, film, advertising, newspapers, magazines and internet-based media.

This course examines contemporary mass media in East Asia by focusing on media institutions and practices in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. Special attention is paid to such issues as media regulations and censorship, press freedom and journalistic practices, the rise of East Asian media industries, intra-region flows of information and entertainment, and the presence and influence of transnational media companies in East Asia.

This course will track the various manifestations of media amateurism over time and medium, while also exploring theoretical concerns and cultural discourses that surround their work and social construction, especially in relation to notions of professionalism, community, networks, artistic practice, collectivism, and marginalization.

America's founding principles of equality and equal opportunity have long been the subject of interpretation, debate, national angst, and widespread (oftentimes violent) conflict. No more is this the case than when we talk about the issue of race. While biological notions of race have lost their scientific validity, race remains a salient issue in American life as a social and political reality sustained through a wide variety of media forms. The broad purpose of this course is to better understand how notions of race have been defined and shaped in and through these mediated forms. Specific attention may be given o the ways that race is articulated in forms of mass media and popular culture.

In this course, we will examine the significance of technology to the definition and experience of disability; the relationship between disability and the development of new media; the politics of representation; and current debates between the fields of disability studies and media studies. Specific topics will include: biomedical technology and the establishment of norms; the category of “assistive technology”; cyborgs and prostheses as fact and as metaphor; inclusive architecture and design; visual rhetorics of disability in film and photography; staring and other practices of looking; medical and counter-medical performance; media advocacy, tactical media, and direct action.

Students who plan on pursuing careers in the media (professional and academic) will be faced with difficulty choices that carry with them potent ethical repercussions, choices that practical training does not properly equip them to approach in a critical and informed manner. The purpose of this course is therefore twofold: 1) to equip future media professional with sensitivity to moral values under challenge as well as the necessary skills in critical thinking and decision making for navigating their roles and responsibilities in relation to them; and 2) honing those same skills and sensitivities for consumers of media and citizens in media saturated societies.

A project-based, research-intensive course that explores emerging practices and trends in new media with particular emphasis on interactive and immersive environments, such as social networking sites,mulit-player online environments, the blogosphere, the open source movement, social activist groups, and internet-based art. Students engage in a semester-long participatory research project using collaborative web tools.

This class reads architecture and the built environment through the lenses of media, communication, and culture. The course takes seriously the proposition that spaces communicate meaningfully and that learning to read spatial productions leads to better understanding how material and technological designs are in sustained conversation with the social, over time. Through analyses of a range of space - from Gothic cathedrals to suburban shopping malls to homes, factories, skyscrapers and digital cities - students will acquire a vocabulary for relating representations and practices, symbols and structures, and for identifying the ideological and aesthetic positions that produce settings for everyday life.

This course offers students a foundational understanding of the technological building blocks that make up digital media & culture, & of the ways they come together to shape myriad facets of life. Students will acquire a working knowledge of the key concepts behind coding, & survey the contours of digital media architecture, familiarizing themselves with algorithms, databases, hardware, & similar key components. These technological frameworks will be examined as the basic grammar of digital media & related to theories of identity, privacy, policy, & other pertinent themes.

In this workshop-based course, students will become well versed in contemporary debates on social media and its impact on self and society, share their own experiences and observations in this area, design an original research project (using methods such as discourse analysis, virtual ethnography, and interviewing), and write a long-form analysis paper.

Critical making is hands-on hardware practice as a form of reflection & analysis: a way of thinking through what (& how) computing & digital media mean by understanding how they work, building on the literature of media studies & the digital humanities. By turning from software to hardware, to the physicality of computation & communications infrastructure, we will take objects apart, literally & figuratively, & in the process will learn to interpret & to intervene -- using prototyping, reverse engineering, hardware hacking & circuit bending, design fiction, electronics fabrication & other approaches -- in the material layer of digital technologies.

An inquiry into the ways that technology — mechanical, electronic, analog, and digital — shapes and is shaped by cultural, political, and social values. Students become acquainted with key concepts and approaches to understanding the interplay of technology and society (e.g. technological determinism, social construction of technology, actor networks, affordances) and how these have been applied to such cases as the clock, the automobile, the assembly line, household technology, the telephone, and more recent communication technology.

What are the distinctions between facts, data, information, opinion, and understanding? Through what techniques of argumentation are these concepts discovered and/or achieved? Course introduces students to rhetoric—the art of persuasion. We explore techniques of rhetoric related to truth telling and opinion formation. We consider the significance of these activities to the city (polis) and matters held in common (res publica). Activities include participant observations of persuasion in courtroom settings. Optimal for students considering law careers.

This course investigates the mediation of music & music-like sounds in both private & public life. Commercial venues, from restaurants to rest rooms, pipe Muzakl into its spaces; radios broadcast more music than any other content today; soundtracks imprint the texture of signifying associations for television shows & films; we carry personal playlists on mobile music players; & musical media & technological, ideological & metaphysical dimension; as well as the relation of music to mass media (radio, television, the internet) & the film and music industries.

Examines visual culture of the city, from the dynamics of visuality in the 19th-century modern cityscape to the mega cities of globalization. It addresses the visual dynamics, infrastructure, architecture, public art and design imaginaries of urban spaces, taking New York City and Paris as primary case studies and including other cities from the 19th century to the present. The course will examine the politics of urban design, the city as a site of division, disaster, memory, and political activism. Meets Liberal Arts Core requirement for Societies and Soc Sciences.

Platforms are instrumental in mediating a wide range of phenomena, including social interaction, economic transactions, resource access, information circulation, cultural experiences, and more. Their ubiquity in everyday life is documented in concepts of platformization and platform capitalism and an emerging discipline of platform studies. This course explores the metaphors, histories, logics, and materialities of platforms. Through lenses of media studies, political economy, and anthropology, students investigate the implications of platforms in contemporary life.

Cultural meanings of health and disease are shaped not only by scientific and medical discourses but also by media and communication technologies. This course examines the role of media – from scientific instruments to public health campaigns to data visualization techniques – in shaping what counts as normal and pathological; governmental logics of care, public understanding of biotechnology; and the ways individuals and collectives understand and contest biomedical knowledge. Course materials are drawn from anthropology, history, science and technology studies, communication studies, and medical memoir.

A deep sense of a descending dystopian future has become more pronounced with the global pandemic, economic shutdowns, and the rise of extremism and authoritarianism. Scholars, novelists, journalists, filmmakers, and activists around the world have been writing and speaking about political systems and leadership classes incapable of addressing such issues for decades. Students explore dystopia through literature, film, and scholarly works, and examine strategies for resisting dystopia. Students participate in a social action project and create video projects.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter and #metoo, the field of social good advertising has rapidly expanded as brands seek social relevance, governments and nonprofits look to inform, and activists try to persuade. In this course, students will learn to plan and execute powerful social advertising campaigns, while thinking critically about the blurred lines between advertising and information, and branding and politics, in what Sarah Banet-Weiser calls “Shopping for Change.

This course examines the political movement of queer and transgender artists and programmers who are creating games and computational media. Throughout the semester, we will read work by queer, trans, and feminist scholars and designers and play the games they created in order to situate today’s queer and trans games movement within the histories, contributions, and politics of queer and trans people & people of color. How might we re-imagine the radical potentiality of video games and software by centering game studies on queer and trans life, history, & politics?

In these courses, students learn to plan and execute successful strategies for socially conscious branding, advertising, and marketing campaigns by cause marketers, grassroots organizations, nonprofits, government agencies, and NGOs, while thinking critically about the blurred lines between profit-seeking and propaganda, persuasion and activism. Subtopic courses focus on such topics as cause marketing, socially responsible branding, advertising campaigns for social impact, and governmental propaganda for social good.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter and #metoo, the field of social good advertising has rapidly expanded as brands seek social relevance, governments and nonprofits look to inform, and activists try to persuade. In this course, students will learn to plan and execute powerful social advertising campaigns, while thinking critically about the blurred lines between advertising and information, and branding and politics, in what Sarah Banet-Weiser calls “Shopping for Change.

This course teaches students to research, plan, and craft social impact messages for audio, digital, social and email, mobile and experiential platforms. The goal is not only to become better copywriters and content strategists, but to critically deconstruct and examine methods of persuasion used by advertisers and marketers. Through weekly readings and class discussions, we’ll explore the benefits and risks of persuasive communication and models for creating ethical and engaging social messages.

Throughout history, effective activists have utilized the affective power of arts to win campaigns for social change. The goal of this participatory and discussion-oriented interdisciplinary seminar is to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of this "artistic activism." Informed by scholarly writings as well as current and historical case studies from around the world, students will put theory into practice as they develop their own artistic activist interventions.

This course examines the role played by media events & spectacle in the shaping of belief, attitudes, & actions, with particular attention paid to the concept of the masses & its changed meaning over time. The course examines concepts of mass culture, the decentralization of cultural forms, & the rise of convergence culture. It explores the history of the media event & the theories that have shaped it, & the role of spectacle in society from the Renaissance to modern society to the age of digital media.

The internship program promotes the integration of academic theory with practical experience. Internships expand student understandings of the dynamics of the ever-changing field of communication.

This seminar develops themes addressed in “MCC-UE 1009 Psychoanalysis: Desire and Culture.” The course expands and deepen understanding of core Freudian and post-Freudian concepts via texts by Melanie Klein, W.R. Bion, Jacques Lacan, Jean Laplanche, and others. These texts will be considered alongside a series of media-cultural artifacts selected for study by seminar participants.

This course explores the ways in which popular Hollywood films construct the historical past, the ensuing battles among historians and the public over Hollywood's version of American history, and the ways such films can be utilized as historical documents themselves. We will consider films as products of the culture industry; as visions of popularly understood history and national mythology; as evidence for how social conflicts have been depicted; and as evidence of how popular understanding and interpretations of the past have been revised from earlier eras to the present.

This course examines the vast & rich myth-making power of Hollywood film narratives that influence dominant cultural views of American identity. Students view films that explore problems & promises of American culture & society such as equality, democracy, justice, class, gender, sexual orientation, & race/ethnicity. Students analyze films while considering the work of historians, sociologists, film critics, media studies scholars, anthropologists & journalists. Students will screen films outside of class. Assignments include creating a short film that explores the city where myths are both lived out & refuted on a daily basis.

This course will introduce students to critical video—the use of documentary, ethnographic, and research-based video to investigate and critique contemporary culture. The class offers students a theoretical overview of documentary video, a set of conceptual tools to analyze video, and an introduction to the practice of video production for small and mobile screens. Students will apply texts on video’s history, culture and distribution, as well as on the ethical challenges of video production, to their own research-based video project. No prior experience in video production is required.

New York has played a crucial role in the history of media, and media have placed a crucial role in the history of New York. New York has been represented by media since Henry Hudson wrote his reports to the Dutch. Media institutions have contributed centrally to its economy and social fabric, while media geographies have shaped the experiences of city living. This course explores media representations, institutions, and geographies across time and is organized around the collaborative production of an online guidebook to the media history of New York.

This course explores the multi-faceted nature of New York City as a cultural and economic hub for media and the arts, arguably the cultural capital of the world. Classroom instruction is supplemented by site visits, guest lectures, and field research to develop an appreciation of the ways that media and the arts have shaped the work and leisure of life in New York City for the past one hundred years. How did New York City become such a focal point for the creative industries? What goes on behind-the-scenes? Topics include: Time Square and live spectacle, the Broadway theatre, Madison Ave and modern advertising, the museum of New York, galleries, artists, and the art market, the Harlem Renaissance, alternative media and Bohemian arts.

Project-based course designed to guide students through three advanced projects: data visualization with APIs, games that communicate specific experiences, and cooperative networked interactions where two users work together to achieve a common goal. Each project is split into 3-4 weeks, so students have ample time to thoughtfully design a program, think through the technical architecture, develop it, and iterate based on in-class feedback.

This course explores the multi-faceted nature of New York City as a cultural & economic hub for food & media. Food is never just something we eat, but in New York City food has taken on an increasing prominence in public life. Food shapes communities & is an increasingly important marker of social & cultural identities. Media of all types fuel & shape our connections to food. Tastes are defined; diets & food habits are promoted & demoted; food fortunes & food celebrities are made. How has New York City become so important to the business of taste? What goes on behind-the-scenes? Topics include: Food-related publishing & broadcasting; green markets, food trucks, & systems of supply & distribution; marketing; Chinatowns, diversity, fusion, & identity. Open to majors & non-majors including special students. Classroom instruction is supplemented by site visits, guest lectures, & field research.

This umbrella course focuses on specific time periods, technological developments and cultural contexts relevant to understanding the development of digital computing technology over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st. This course familiarizes students with the social forces and techno-cultural innovations that shaped the computing industry. Specific themes may include: personal computing; Cold War computing; computing and globalization; the quantified self; computational aesthetics; artificial intelligence and machine learning; computing and gender.

This course focuses on technological developments and cultural contexts relevant to understanding the development of digital computing technology. The course familiarizes students with the social forces and technocultural innovations that shaped the personal computing industry, and uses primary documents, academic history and critical theory to contextualize and problematize popular frameworks of technological progress and challenge narratives of computing's inevitability.

Production-based course designed as a structured classroom environment for hands-on, critical inquiry. Students receive research guidance, feedback & support for individually-designed & executed digital media/computational projects. May be taken in conjunction with another MCC course or as a stand-alone course in which students develop an independent project that may be an outgrowth of a previous MCC course. Open to graduate students by permission of instructor.

MCC Research Inquiry Seminars, taken early in the major, expose students to the department’s culture of scholarly inquiry. Course topics reflect faculty research interests, offering students a chance to explore emerging issues in the field of media studies.

Seminar for students who have been approved by the department to pursue honors in the major. Extended primary research in Communication Studies, focusing on the development and sharing of individual research projects. Students will enroll concurrently in two points of independent study under the director of a faculty honors sponsor, as outlined in departmental guidelines.

Specifically for students in the Global Media Scholars program, this course is the required culminating experience taken in the senior year, alongside a travel component during the January term. Course topics reflect faculty research interests, offering students a chance to explore emerging issues in the field of media studies, and will be site-specific based on the country chosen for January travel.

This course examines the broad range of activities associated with the globalization of media production, distribution, and reception. Issues include: the relationship between local and national identities and the emergence of a 'global culture' and the impact of technological innovations on the media themselves and their use and reception in a variety of settings.

Few values have been as unalterably disturbed as privacy by developments in new media and other information technologies. This course presents an inquiry into the impact of information and digital communications technologies upon privacy and its meanings. In order to examine at a deep level technology's place in society and the complex ways that technology and privacy each shape the other in interactive cycles of cause and effect. Philosophical analysis is balanced with significant contributions by legal scholars, computer scientists, social scientists, and popular social critics.

This course examines public policy issues and institutions of media governance at the international level. It provides an historical overview of the various institutions and actors involved in global media governance, and assesses the various principles and practices that constitute the regime of global media governance, including regulation of broadcasting, telecommunications, the Internet, and trade in media products. Special attention will be paid to current debates within multilateral bodies such as UNESCO, the WTO, and the International Telecommunication Union.

This class examines the intersecting dynamics of media genres and geo-linguistic cultural markets in the configuration of global and regional media flows. It looks in particular at the way media genres travel and how their circulation raises issues about the cultural power of certain media narratives in specific historical, political and social conditions of consumption. We will examine the battle for national, regional, and global media markets as a struggle for the 'Slegitimate' cultural and political view of the world expressed through information (news), scientific discourse (documentaries), and popular culture (films, tele novels, reality television, music) to understand the complex global flow of television programs and films.

What does it mean to be "urban" in China & how is Chinese urbanism mediated by new cultural formations? In this course we will examine the culture & media that define city life in China, including Chinese state & popular media, television & film, music, fashion, verbal art & literature (in print & online) & visual art. we will focus on the period from the building booms of the mid-to-late nineties to the present. Students will work in teams to make presentations on urban culture, & use primary sources in translation & secondary sources to write individual essays. Chinese language ability appreciated but by no means required.

This course introduces students to the intertwined histories of philosophy and the digital, from cybernetics and German Idealism to postmodernism, Machine Learning, and the platform economy. We will read Claude Shannon, George Boole, and Immanuel Kant; John von Neumann, Karl Marx, and Ada Lovelace. While the seminar aspect of the course builds this theoretical-historical understanding of the digital, the lab component will serve as ompetenceoriented illustrations and live engagements with the theoretical materials. To live in the digital world is to engage both practically and theoretically with the processes and effects of ubiquitous computing. This course thematizes both and cultivates digital citizenry.

This course examines contemporary media in (primarily Arab parts of) the Middle East and media about the Middle East, and Islam within the U.S. it analyzes the role played by these media in representing and reproducing the perceived rift between Islam and the West. Readings and media examples focus on the politics of culture, religion, modernity, and national identity as they shape and intersect with contemporary geopolitical events, cultural formations, and media globalization.

This course investigates cultural influence and exchange between Africa, the African diaspora, Europe and America with a particular emphasis on sound and music. How has the sound of Africa been transcribed, recorded, stored, transported, and represented in the West? What can this tell us about global cultural flow? How do specific recording techniques articulate with global music markets? The course analyzes the transatlantic feedback between Africa, America and Europe; evaluates the politics of transcription, ethnographic description, and recording; and examines the changing role for traditional African music in a global world.

This course examines fashion as a form of communication and culture. Through cultural and media studies theory, we will examine how fashion makes meaning, and how it has been valued through history, popular culture and media institutions, focusing on the relationship between fashion, visual self-presentation, and power. The course will situate fashion both n terms of its production and consumption, addressing its role in relation to identity and body politics (gender, race, sexuality, class), art and status, nationhood and the global economy, celebrity and Hollywood culture, youth cultures and subversive practices.

Fame, notoriety, renown – the desire to be recognized & immortalized is the most enduring & perhaps the most desirable form of power. Culture, commerce, politics, & religion all proffer promises of fame – whether for fifteen minutes or fifteen centuries. This course will investigate this subject by asking, what is fame? Why do people want it? How do they get it? What can they do with it? In other words, what kind of good is fame? Drawing on texts from history, ethnography, theory, literature, philosophy, & contemporary media, this course will reflect on the ethics, erotics, pragmatics & pathologies of fame.

Whether large, small, wide, high-definition, public, personal, shared, or handheld, screens are one of the most pervasive technologies in everyday life. From spaces of work to spaces of leisure, screens are sites for collaboration, performance, surveillance, and resistance. This course traces the cultural history of screens from a range of forms - from the panorama to the cinema, from the radar system to the television, and from the terminal to the mobile device - to provide a way of thinking about the development of the screen as simultaneously architectural, material, representational and computational.

Data is often considered the domain of scientists and statisticians, but its increasing dominance across nearly all aspects of life – from political and advertising campaigns to social media, dating, education, and public health — has social, political, and ethical consequences, presenting both new possibilities and new hazards. In this course we think critically about how collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data affects individual and social life, with a focus on the ways in which it reproduces and creates new structural inequalities and power asymmetries.

This course examines the proposition that contemporary war should be understood as media. Was has become mediatized and media has been militarized. This course treats war and political violence as communicative acts and technologies and focuses on how they shape our understanding and experience of landscape, vision, body, time and memory.

This course examines the role of media in the history of empires and revolutions and the history of media empires. It focuses on the investment in media forces by both empires and revolutions, and the tendency of media to form empires that are subject to periodic 'revolution' in the marketplace with the contexts of colonization, decolonization and globalization. Media discussed include prints, paintings, photography, journalism, fiction, cinema, the Internet and digital media.

This course examines globalization as it is inscribed in everyday practices through the transnational traffic of persons, cultural artifacts and ideas. The course will focus on issues of transnational mobility, modernity, the local/global divide and pay specific attention to how categories of race, gender and ethnicity intersect with transnational change.

Explores the various political and philosophical debates within western Marxism. Pays particular attention to the influence of the cultural turn in twentieth century Marxist thought on feminism, postcolonialism, and theories of mediation. Themes include: the commodity, alienation and reification, surplus value, culture, ideology, hegemony and subjectivity.

This class addresses how colonialism and postcolonialism are shaped and mediated through images and the gaze. The dynamics of colonial history motivate and shape colonial and postcolonial perceptions and influence their patterns of global circulation when the boundary between the world out there and the nation at home is increasingly blurred. Course surveys a range of image texts through various media (photography, television, cinema) and sites (war, the harem, refugee camps, prisons, disasters); nationalist mobilization, counter-insurgency, urban conflict, disaster management, the prison system, and the war on terror.

This course examines the culture of money& finance, and the role of the media & popular culture in making sense of economics. It engages with the ways that money, finance, & economics are shaped in part through media representations, that finance is not simply a system but also a culture, & that capitalism shapes world views. The course examines the history of ways of thinking about money, the centrality of financial markets in 20th-21st century globalization, & the examination of financial systems in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. Students will explore the role of money media in shaping attitudes toward consumerism, financial decisions, & finance systems.

Examines the basic tenets and operative principles of the global copyright system. Considers the ways in which media industries, artists, and consumers interact with the copyright system and assesses how well it serves its stated purposes: to encourage art and creativity. Special emphasis on the social, cultural, legal, and political issues that have arisen in recent years as a reult of new communicative technologies.

This course examines how globalization impacts the construction of gender and sexuality. Through discussions of contemporary issues in various global sites, the course addresses the politics of gender as it is shaped by trans-border flows of media, people and cultural products.

In this course, we explore queer and transgender identity through practice, theory, and politics. Approaching media from queer, trans, and intersectional lenses can inform the way we understand the circulation of power around media technologies, and enable us to better understand their histories and cultural contexts. Our approach is grounded in theories, case studies, and readings from communication and media studies. Students are equipped to bring tools from queer theory & trans studies to their everyday encounters with media, technology, and culture.

This course offers students the opportunity to engage with theories of communication & culture through the context of consumption & contemporary consumer society. Our focus will be on the role of commodities & consumer practices in everyday life & in culture at large. We will give particular attention to consumption's role in the construction of social & cultural identities. Students will consider critical responses to consumer culture, including the resistance & refusal of consumption as well as the attempted mobilization of consumption toward social change.

This course examines the imagery of science and technology, the role of visuality in the construction of scientific knowledge, artistic renditions of science, and the emergence of visual technologies in modern society. It looks at how visuality has been key to the exercise of power through such practices as cataloguing and identification; the designation of abnormality, disease, and pathologies; medical diagnosis; scientific experimentation; and the marketing of science and medicine. We will examine the development of the visual technologies in the emerging scientific practices of psychiatry and criminology; explore the sciences of eugenics, genetics, pharmacology, brain and body scans, and digital medical images of many kinds; the marketing of pharmaceuticals, and the emerging politics of scientific activism.

This course is an introduction to the key issues of the field of visual culture, looking at the social role of images & visuality (the structures & power relations of looking, being seen & unseen, & vision in society). It introduces students to some of the foundational aspects of visual culture theory & concepts, in contemporary culture, with particular attention to the US context in relation to the global. This course will introduce some of central themes of visual culture, looking at the history of modern forms of visuality & the history of visual technologies, concepts of spectacle & scale, museums & image collections, image icons, taboo images, & the relationship of images to memory. We will examine how images circulate through digital media, remakes, & viral networks, & the cross-fertilization of images between various social arenas, such as art, advertising, popular culture, comic books, news, science, entertainment media, video games, theme parks, architecture, & design.

This course examines how cultural memory is enacted through visual culture in a comparative global context. It looks at the rise of a memory culture over the last few decades, in particular in the United States, Europe & Latin America, & how this engagement with memory demonstrates how the politics of memory can reveal aspects of nationalism & national identity, ethnic conflict & strife, the legacies of state terrorism, & the deployment of memory as a means for further continued conflict.

An overview of the history and cultures of print. Examines typography communication and the persuasive power of print. Topics include print 'revolution' in early modern Europe, printedness and the public sphere, as well as contemporary relationships between print and digital media. How are digital media making it possible to see new things about print? What can e-books tell us about books?

This course examines the role and history of photography within the historical landscape of media and communication. Special emphasis is placed on the accumulative meaning of visual archives, tracing how images relation and establish cultural territories across a variety of texts and media. The course investigates and contrasts the mimetic visual strategies within western and nonwestern traditions, looking at historical and contemporary images in a variety of forms.

This course examines the emergence of the Internet as a commercial business. It pays particular attention to the various business models and practices employed in media-related enterprises, tracing their development from the late 1990s to the most recent strategies and trends. Case studies include the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), portals, search engines, early game platforms, the Internet presence of traditional media organizations, social network platforms.

“Creative Coding” is a practice-based course designed to teach basic programming skills in the context of critical & cultural media studies & the digital humanities. The course requires no prior programming experience, simply a willingness to explore code at a more technical level with the aim of using computation as an expressive, analytical, critical & visualizing medium. Students will learn basic coding techniques such as variables, loops, graphics, & networking, all within a larger conversation on the social, cultural, & historical nature of code & coding practices.

This course explores the ways people create, maintain, and augment the meaning of gender, developing insight into understanding gender ideology and the media representation of gender. The course examines how ideas about gender shape our communication practices, and how our practices of communication produce gender.

This course examines theories, technologies, and practices of listening in the modern world. How has our experience of sound changed as we move from the piano to the personal computer, from the phonoautograph to the mp3? How have political, commercial, and cultural forces shaped what we are able to listen to, and how we listen to it? Finally, how have performers, physiologists, and philosophers worked to understand this radical transformation of the senses?

This course focuses on the principles and practices of successful interviewing techniques. Students are provided with background on the structure of an interview and learn how to analyze success and/or potential problems. Review of case studies and practice in holding interviews enables students to gain experience and to improve their own abilities.

This course is designed especially for students entering business, health care, and educational settings who are assuming or aspiring to positions of leadership. Through case studies and class discussion, course work focuses on strengthening communication competency in presentation skills, persuasive ability (i.e., marketing and sales), leadership in meetings, and problem-solving skills.

Public relations means different things to different things to different people but it has one undeniable element: communication. This course is concerned with arranging, handling, and evaluating public relations programs. Students work with actual case histories and deal with contemporary topics such as the use of the computer in public relations.

This course focuses on techniques of communication in public relations including creation of press releases, press packets and kits, and developing public relations campaigns.

This course is an analysis of changing trends in marketing ranging from corporate social responsibility to guerrilla and viral marketing. Discussion of theoretical concepts are applied through fieldwork and project-based learning. Guest lectures on emerging topics are featured.

This course will investigate the cultural geography of a specific commodity, assessing historical & contemporary issues that inform modes of production & development of international or domestic trade. The subtopic may vary. Students will work as a team to produce a project that analyzes the intricacies of the commodity—in this case, coffee. The course will include on-the-ground research and site visits.

An introduction to the professions of marketing, promotion, and advertising, with an emphasis on industry structure, branding, integrated marketing communication, effective techniques, and changing communication strategies.

This course teaches students who have a basic understanding of advertising techniques how to develop a complete advertising campaign across a range of media for a product, service or nonprofit organization.

Looking at the rhetoric of public relations we examine the principles and assumptions in the process of analyzing the process of political campaigns. Focuses on an analysis of what is reported to the mass media and how the 'gatekeepers,' reporters, editors and producers of news filer the messages. Also, discussion on how public relations participates in the creation of viewpoints that eventually become well established and widely held.

Analysis of the problems of speaking to groups and practice in preparing and presenting speeches for various purposes and occasions. Hours are arranged for student evaluation and practice.

Analysis of factors inherent in the persuasive process, examination and application of these factors in presentations. Hours are arranged for student evaluation and practice.

This interactive & discussion-oriented course provides an introduction to the politics & tactics underlying five broad categories of media activism: media interventions at the levels of representation, labor relations, policy, strategic communication, & “alternative” media making. The course will rely on both a survey of the existing scholarship on media activism, as well as close analyses of actual activist practices within both old & new media. As a class, we will examine a wide-range of digital media as well as local, national, and global media activist institutions.

The application of various systems of communication analysis to specific behavioral situations. Through the case-study method, students apply communication theories and models to practical, everyday situations.

An examination of the art of debate using current issues of public policy & social justice. Students will learn the skills of critical thinking, evidence evaluation & persuasion. Hours are arranged for fieldwork & student evaluation.

Introduces students to the study of media, culture, and communication. The course surveys models, theories, and analytical perspectives that form the basis of study in the major. Topics include dialogue, discourse, mass and interpersonal communication, political economy, language, subject-formation, critical theory, experience, and reception. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent for Societies and the Social Sciences.

This course introduces students to key concepts in the history of media and communication, and to the stakes of historical inquiry. Rather than tracing a necessarily selective historical arc from alphabet to Internet or from cave painting to coding, the course is organized around an exploration of case studies in context. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent for Societies and the Social Sciences.

An exploration of television as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of television as both a cultural product and industry.

The course approaches video games through the lens of political economy. This means examining games foremost as commodities, transactional goods through which various modes of economic life occur. This course introduces students to the structure and economics of the game industry since its emergence in the 1970s, particularly across the United States, China, and Japan. Special attention is brought to the dramatic industry changes catalyzed by digital distribution, mobile gaming, live streaming, and other contemporary developments. Examines the emergence of video games as sites of contemporary cultural production & practice. Special attention is given to the symbolic & aesthetic dimensions of video games, including their various narratives forms and sub-genres, & concentrates on their interactive dimensions. The course provides insight into the emerging trends in the interface between humans & media technologies. The course also situates video games within the business practices of the entertainment industries.

Debates about the role of crime in the media have been among the most sustained and divisive in the field of communications, and they are dependent on a foundation of equally divisive debates about “media influence.” This course will broaden this discussion to consider the culture of crime in relation to conventions of news and entertainment in the mass media, and its larger social and political context. Topics will include crime reporting, the role of place in crime stories, the aesthetics of crime, moral panics and fears, crime and consumer culture, and the social construction of different kinds of crimes and criminals.

Introduces students to methods for analyzing the content, structure, production, and context of media in society, including textual analysis, political economy, archival research, and ethnography. As students employ these frameworks in their own analyses of mediated communication, they build media-specific projects using image-editing, visualization, and web-based archival technologies.

This course will examine the emergence of advertising as a form of communication, its influence upon other forms of mediated communication and its impact upon culture and society.

An examination of the great debate concerning the effects of mass media and mass communication on our society. Analysis and application of major perspectives and approaches used in formulating modern theories of mass communication.

This course will investigate the dominant critical perspectives that have contributed to the development of Environmental Communication as a field of study. This course explores the premise that the way we communicate powerfully impacts our perceptions of the “natural” world, and that these perceptions shape the way we define our relationships to and within nature. The goal of this course is to access various conceptual frameworks for addressing questions about the relationship between the environment, culture and communication. Students will explore topics such as nature/ wildlife tourism, consumerism, representations of the environment in popular culture and environmental activism.

In this workshop-based course, students will become well versed in contemporary debates on social media and its impact on self and society, share their own experiences and observations in this area, design an original research project (using methods such as discourse analysis, virtual ethnography, and interviewing), and write a long-form analysis paper.

In 2010, WikiLeaks, in a partnership with some of the most important news publications, began releasing thousands of classified diplomatic cables sent between the U.S. State Department and consulates and embassies around the world. Three years later, Edward Snowden leaked top secret information about surveillance activities by the NSA. More recently, the Panama Papers became the biggest data leak in the history of journalism. These events signal the beginning of the big leak era, which this course will focus on. We will analyze the role of media concentration and technological innovation as twin driving forces in the inception of this big leak era over recent years. We will study the consequences of these changes at three different levels: (i) the legal consequences for whistleblowers; (ii) the resulting birth of global networks and partnerships that expose technical, cultural and economic limitations in the traditional media; and (iii) the geopolitical implications, as a breach in one government ́s security apparatus is a victory for that government ́s opponents. Finally, we will confront one larger question: whether the big leak era means that transparency will (could?) replace fairness as journalism ́s main paradigm. .

This course explores Tango as an aesthetic, social and cultural formation that is articulated in interesting and complex ways with the traditions of culture and politics in Argentina and Latin America more generally. During the rapid modernization of the 1920s and 1930s, Tango (like Brazilian Samba), which had been seen as a primitive and exotic dance, began to emerge as a kind of modern Field available for additional information in footer primitive art form that quickly came to occupy a central space in nationalist discourse. The course explores the way that perceptions of a primitive and a modern converge in this unique and exciting art. In addition, the course will consider tango as a global metaphor with deeply embedded connections to urban poverty, social marginalization, and masculine authority. .

This course analyzes writing from 1845 to the present, surveying African-American history and literature beginning with the writings of Frederick Douglass and the Harlem Renaissance writers that originate from Washington, DC’s Howard University (Zora Hurston and Alain Locke). From this historical foundation, the course will move to examine issues of race and caste from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoire Between the World and Me, a text that focuses on the death of Coates’ Howard classmate at the hands of police. In addition to the selected texts, the course will use the location of Washington, DC as a resource, visiting sites related to course content, including the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Howard University, the National Museum of African-American Culture and History and the Martin Luther King Memorial Site.

This course examines fashion both from its diffusion in a globalized society, and as a form of communication and culture. We will examine how fashion has been valued through social sciences - history and sociology on the one hand, and economy on the other hand, from its production to its consumption. The course will address fashion in terms of issues of consumerism and sustainability in a post-industrialized society.

Fame—celebrity, notoriety, renown—confers both recognition and immortality. It is the most enduring and desirable form of social power; a uniquely human ambition and a central force in social life. Culture, commerce, politics, and religion all proffer promises of fame, whether for fifteen minutes or fifteen centuries. Drawing on texts from history, anthropology, sociology, literature, philosophy, and contemporary media, this course will reflect on the ethics, erotics, pragmatics and pathologies of fame. We will compare fame to other forms of recognition (reputation, honor, charisma, infamy, etc.), and look at how fame operates in various social and historical circumstances, from small agricultural communities to enormous, hyper-mediated societies such as our own. How does the fame of the oral epic differ from the fame of the printed book or the fame of the photograph? We'll consider the enduring question of fame as it transforms across space, time, social boundaries, and technological conditions.

A veritable buzzword globalization refers to several newly emerged trends. To name the three most visible ones these are the economy, culture and politics. Media do not only describe and interpret globalization but also are its important part. A study of globalization is inherently diverse and eclectic. So is this course. Students will read, watch, analyze and discuss. In class discussions and writings they are expected to engage questions connected to globalization, culture and the media. Through a series of lectures and discussions the course explores how the process of globalization transforms the media and examines the impact of new technologies on global communications. Emphasizing the transnational context of media and culture the course approaches global media and cultural production from a wide range of theoretical frameworks relevant to contemporary condition.

Examines the basic tenets and operative principles of the global copyright system. Considers the ways in which media industries, artists, and consumers interact with the copyright system and assesses how well it serves its stated purposes: to encourage art and creativity. Special emphasis on the social, cultural, legal, and political issues that have arisen in recent years as a reult of new communicative technologies.

The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.

This course aims to bring together diverse issues and perspectives in the rapidly evolving and changing area of international/global communication. Through a historical perspective, a framework will be established for the appreciation of the development of the immense scope, disparity, and complexity of this rapidly evolving field. Students will be encouraged to critically assess shifts in national, regional, and international media patterns of production, distribution, and consumption over time, leading to a critical analysis of the tumultuous contemporary global communication environment. Essential concepts of international communication will be examined, including trends in national and global media consolidation, cultural implications of globalization, international broadcasting, information flows, international communication law and regulation, and trends in communication and information technologies. The focus of the course will be international, with attention being paid both to Western-based multimedia conglomerates, as well as to the increasing global prominence of media corporations based in other regions, contributing to the reversal of international media flows and challenging the global hegemony of the Western media producers. Particular emphasis will be on the Czech Republic, as an empirical example of a national media system affected by global media flows.

This course introduces students to the basic structures and practices of media in Europe and their relationship to everyday social life. It pays special attention to the common models and idioms of media in Europe, with an emphasis on national and regional variations. Specific case studies highlite current rends in the production, distribution, consumption, and regulation of media. Topics may include: national and regional idioms in a range of media genres, from entertainment to advertising and publicity, to news and information; legal norms regarding content and freedom of expression; pirate and independent media; and innovations and emerging practices in digital media.

Using a historical perspective, the course aims to acquaint students with Latin American theories, practices and representations of the media. Departing from a critical approach to Habermas theory of the public sphere, the course will trace the arc of the media in Latin America since independence to the incumbent post-neoliberal area and the so-called “Media Wars”. Given that Argentina is facing an extraordinary conflict between the government and the Clarín media conglomerate (the largest of its kind in Latin America), the students will engage in the current incendiary debates about the role of the media, the new media law and the complex relationship between the media, politics and the state.

In this seminar- based subject, students will discuss the latest global media developments in the context of key theoretical frameworks. Central topics include: the increasing disruption of established information flows; challenges facing the fourth estate and democracy itself; the role of soft power and popular culture; trust in journalism and traditional media; the rise of social platforms as near-sovereign technocracies; gender and diversity biases in media and emerging media tech; ethics and regulation; the proliferation of fake news and deep fakes; the potential erosion of privacy; the emergence of citizen journalism; the phenomenon of cancel culture; the influence of hacktivism and digital activism; inequality after #metoo and #blacklivesmatter; the emerging architectures of the metaverse and VR/AR; advancements in Web 3.0 and blockchain; as well as the suite of emerging implications resulting from generative AI, including the intensifying and sometimes intimate relationships between humans and machines. The focus will be international, with an emphasis on Australia. Ultimately, the course will examine the ways in which global communication is undergoing a ceaseless paradigm shift.

With an emphasis on British and European news and journalism, this course explores globalization from a wide range of theoretical frameworks including political economy, cultural analysis, theories of representation, and critical race and postcolonial studies. It considers how technologies, diasporic and transnational communities, and international institutions impact global communications, and how these networks and organizations are challenging, re-imagining and re-shaping social, cultural and geographic boundaries via mediated discourse.