Seminar in Media Studies

COMM 502 Seminar in Media Studies, Spring 2002
Wednesdays, 4:30 – 7 p.m. Call No. 54854
University of Illinois, Chicago, BSB 1169
Kevin G. Barnhurst, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Communication
Office BSB 1148A. Hours Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:30 – 4:30 p.m. or by appointment
(312) 413-3231 E-mail <kgbcomm()uic.edu> Web Site http://www.uic.edu/~kgbcomm

Description

This seminar provides an in-depth, intensive examination of theories, perspectives, and approaches to media studies. The assignments include roughly a dozen one-page summaries of research and theory readings, a midterm examination, and a term paper.

Purposes
To investigate the symbolic social practices that communication media help sustain.
To examine the political, economic, and cultural implications of those practices.
To understand the history of how scholars have conceptualized and studied the communication media.

These are general objectives; the seminar offers neither information nor facts per se. It is an extended conversation about a series of interesting texts we will read together, which will enable us to analyze and research modern media of communication. The course is interactive, with reading, discussion, reflection, and critical thinking equally emphasized, and expected of you. The seminar will help you examine the way we live day to day and the ways we organize and conduct life in a media-saturated society.

Readings

Expect to read one short book (or several chapters) for each class. The weekly reading assignments include several books, chapters, and research articles. To manage the extensive readings, each member of the seminar will take responsibility to read a share of the week’s assignment and prepare a detailed summary to present during the class meeting. We will divide up the readings at least two weeks in advance.

For the assigned reading, each member will prepare a one-page handout including the following five elements (labeled in this order): Full bibliographical citation, a nutshell statement of one sentence that summarizes the main point or argument of the reading, one to three key concepts (principal terms the author invented or employed), a list of as many as seven one-phrase summaries of secondary ideas and supporting evidence, and full bibliographic citations on a few of the principal sources the author cites.

Paper

The term paper can tackle any topic in media studies. Choose a topic of interest in consultation with the other seminar members, then do a thorough survey of the theoretical literature, identifying in the process a question, issue, or gap in the research. The paper includes five parts: a brief introduction to the issue, a full description of the relevant literature,, a short explanation why the issue has significance, a brief indication of further study needed to help resolve it, and a complete list of references. Early in the semester, submit a one-page topic proposal (which later forms the introduction). It includes the following: topic area (2–3 words), main question (one sentence), several paragraphs stating the central problem and explaining why it matters, and a list of sources to consult. A draft literature review with references is due shortly after midterm. See the outline for deadlines.

Evaluation

The take-home exam takes place at the end in the semester. Several short essay questions may cover any of the readings from the seminar. Questions generally present an issue or social problem related to the media and leave open several options for answers drawing on any seminar member’s areas of interest and strength. In short, the exam is comprehensive but also flexible.

Course grades follow this formula: Participation, 20 percent; Reading summaries, 35 percent; Final exam, 20 percent; Term paper, 25 percent (of which, 5 percent for the proposal and 10 percent for the literature review).

Outline

Assigned books should be examined and summarized in toto, focusing especially on the chapters indicated.

Jan. 9. Introduction to the Course

Delia, Jesse. "Communication Research: A History." In Handbook of Communication Science, pp. 20—98. Ed. Charles R. Berger and Steven H. Chaffee. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1987.

Jan. 16. The 1980s Ferment in the Field and Beyond

All

Barnhurst, Kevin G., and John Nerone. The Form of News, A History. New York: Guilford, 2001. Chapter 1.

Barnhurst, Kevin G., and Diana Mutz. "American Journalism and the Decline on Event-Centered Reporting." Journal of Communication 47.4 (Autumn 1997): 27—53.

Barnhurst, Kevin G. "Politics in the Fine Meshes: Youth, Power & Media." Media, Culture & Society 20.2 (Spring 1998): 201—218.

As Assigned

Whitney, D. Charles. "Ferment in the Field," Communication Research 12.1 (January 1985): 133—43.

Theme Issue: Ferment in the Field. Journal of Communication 33.3 (Summer 1983): 4—5, 51—2, 92—5, 103—16, 128—40, 157—65, 174—84, 249—57, 257—61, 311—13, 330—41, 355—62.

Ong, Walter. "The Orality of Language," "Print, Space, and Closure," "oral Memory, the Story Line, and Characterization," and " ‘Media’ Versus Human Communication." Orality & Literacy, pp. 5—15, 117—38, 139—55, and 175—77. London: New Accents, 1982.

Jan. 23. Guest Prof. Steve Jones
New Technology and the Future of Media Studies

All

Jones, Steve. "Ethics and Internet Studies." Unpublished paper, 1999.

As Assigned

Sterne, Jonathan. "Thinking the Internet: Cultural Studies vs. The Millennium." In Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, pp. 257—83. Ed. Steve Jones. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1999.

Baym, Nancy K. "Conclusion." Tune in, Log on: Soaps, Fandom, and On-line Community, pp. 197—218. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000.

Jones, Steve. "Understanding Community in the Information Age." Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, pp. 10—35. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1995.

Jan. 30. Guest Prof. Jim Sosnoski
The Rebirth of Cultural Studies in the 1970s

All

Sosnoski, James J. "Configuring as a Mode of Rhetorical Analysis." In Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, pp. 127—43. Ed. Steve Jones. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1999.

duGay, Paul, Stuart Hall, et al. "Making Sense of the Walkman." Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, pp. 8—40. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1997.

As Assigned

Balsamo, A. "Public Pregnancies and Cultural Narratives of Surveillance." Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women, pp. 80—115. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.

McRobbie, A. "Settling Accounts with Subculture: A Feminist Critique. 1980. Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen, pp. 16—34. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1991.

Grossberg, Lawrence. "The Formations of Cultural Studies: An American in Birmingham." Strategies 2 (1989): 114—110. Reprinted in Bringing It all Back Home: Essays on Cultural Studies, pp. 195—233. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

Clarke, John. "Introduction." New Times and Old Enemies: Essays on Cultural Studies in America, pp. 1—19. New York: HarperCollins Academic, 1991.

Carey, James W. "Communication as Culture." Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society, pp. 13—68. Boston: Unwin-Hyman, 1989.

Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies and the Centre: Some Problematics and Problems." In Culture, Media, Language, pp. 15—47. Ed. Stuart Hall, D. Hobson, et al. London: Hutchinson, 1980.

Clarke, John, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, and Brian Roberts. "Subcultures, Cultures, and Class." In Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, pp. 9—79. Ed. Stuart Hall & Tony Jefferson. London: HarperCollins Academic, 1976.

Hoggart, Richard. The Uses of Literacy: Changing Patterns in English Mass Culture. 1957. London: Chatto & Windus, 1971. (All, but esp. Chapter 10, pp. 238—59.)

Feb. 6. Guest Prof. Jim Danowski
The Mass Culture Debates of the 1940s and 1950s

All

Danowski, James A. "An emerging macro-level theory of organizational communication: Organizations as virtual reality management systems." In Emerging Perspectives in Organizational Communication, pp. 141—174. Ed. L.Thayer, & G. Barnett. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1993.

———. "Postmaterial cultural values predictors of Internet development: A cross-national study." Paper presented at the International Communication Association annual meeting, Washington, D.C., May 2001.

As Assigned

MacDonald, Dwight, "A Theory of Mass Culture," Henry Rabassiere, "In Defense of Television," and Leslie A. Fiedler, "The Middle Against Both Ends." In Mass Culture: Popular Arts in America, pp. 59—73, 368—74, and 537—47. Ed. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957.

Kronenberger, Howe, and David Riesman, eds. "Editorial Statement" and contributions by Newton Arvin, James Burnham, Allan Dowling, Leslie A. Fiedler, Norman Mailer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Philip Rahv, David Riesman, Mark Schorer, and Lionel Trilling. Symposium: Our Country and Our Culture. Partisan Review XIX (1952): 282—326.

Feb. 13. Guest Prof. Rebecca Lind
Mainstream Research Challenges to the Minimal Effects Model

All

Lind, R. A. "The Framing of Feminists and Feminism in News and Public Affairs Programs in U.S. Electronic Media." Journal of Communication, forthcoming.

———. "Diverse Interpretations: The Relevance of Race in the Construction of Meaning in, and the Evaluation of, a Television News Story." Howard Journal of Communications 7 (1996): 53—74.

As Assigned

Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder. News that Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth. "Introduction" and "The Hypothesis of Silence." The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion, our Social Skin, pp. vii—xi, 1—8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. (See Ferment issue.)

Gerbner, George, et al. "The Demonstration of Power: Violence Profile No. 10." Journal of Communication 29.3 (Summer 1979): 177—98.

Blumler, Jay, and Elihu Katz. "Utilization of Mass communication by the Individual" and James W. Carey and Albert L. Kreiling, "Popular Culture and Uses and Gratifications: Notes Toward an Accommodation." The Uses of Mass Communication: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research, pp. 19—32, 225—48. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1974.

McCombs, Maxwell E., and Donald L. Shaw. "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media." Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972): 176—87.

Greenberg, Bradley S., and Joseph R. Dominick. "Racial and Social Class Differences in Teen-Agers’ Use of Television." Journal of Broadcasting 13.4 (Fall 1969): 331—43.

Feb. 20. Guest Prof. Andy Rojecki
The Rise of the Limited Effects Model

All

Rojecki, Andrew, and Robert M. Entman. "White Racial Attitudes in the Heartland." Black Image in the White Mind, pp. 16—45. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Chaffee, Steven H., and J. Hockheimer. "The Beginnings of Political Communication Research in the United States: Origins of the ‘Limited Effects’ Model." In The Media Revolution in America & Western Europe, pp. 267—96. Ed. Ev Rogers & F. Balle. Norwood NJ: Ablex, 1985.

As Assigned

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "Prime Time." Colored People: A Memoir, pp. 17—28. New York: Knopf, 1994.

Patterson, Tom. 1993. Out of Order. New York: Knopf, 1993. Prologue, Chapters 2, 4.

Hallin, Daniel. "The Passing of the ‘High Modernism’ of American Journalism." Journal of Communication 42.3 (Summer 1992):14—25.

Schramm, Wilbur. Men, Messages, and Media. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Chapters 1, 2, and 7—14.

Klapper, Joseph T. The Effects of Mass Communication. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960. Chapters 1, 2.

Katz, Elihu, and Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Communication, pp. 1—30, 321—34. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955. Intro., Part I: Chapters 1, 2; Part II, Chapters 1, 13—15.

Feb. 27. Term Paper Proposal due
Guest Prof. Annette Markham
The Critical Theory Response to Quantitative Research

All

Markham, Annette N. "Designing Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Strategic Ambiguity and Workplace Control." Management Communication Quarterly 9.4 (May 1996): 389—421.

Gitlin, Todd. "Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm." Mass Communication Review Yearbook, Vol. 2, pp. 73—122. Ed. G. Cleveland Wilhoit and H. DeBock. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1981.

Sproule, J. Michael. "Propaganda Studies in American Social Science: The Rise and Fall of the Critical Paradigm." Quarterly Journal of Speech 73 (1987): 60—78.

As Assigned

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp. 120—67. Trans. John Cumming. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972.

Adorno, Theodor W. "Culture Industry Reconsidered." The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, 85—92. London: Routledge, 1991.

———. "Culture and Administration." The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, 93—113. London: Routledge, 1991.

Cook, Deborah. "The Sundered Totality: Adorno’s Freudo-Marxist Paradigm." The Culture Industry Revisited, pp. 1—26. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972.

Lazarsfeld, Paul. "Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communications Research." Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9.1 (Spring 1941): 2—16.

March 6. Emergence of the Dominant Paradigm: The Columbia School and Yale Program

All

Barton, Allen H. "Paul Lazarsfeld and the Invention of the University Institute for Applied Social Research." In Organizing for Social Research, pp. 17—83. Ed. Burkart Holzner and Jiri Nehnevajsa. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1982.

Lazarsfeld, Paul F. "An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir." The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930—1960, pp. 270—337. Ed. Donald Fleming & Bernard Bailyn. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969.

As Assigned

Lasswell, Harold D., Nathan Leites, et al. "Why Be Quantitative." Language of Politics, pp. 00—00. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1949. (Chapter 3.) (content analysis)

Hovland, Carl I., Arthur A. Lumsdaine, and Fred D. Shefield. Experiments in Mass Communication. Studies in the Social Psychology in World War II, American Soldier Series, Vol. 3, pp. 3—16, 247—79. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949.

Lazarsfeld, Paul, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet. The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes up his Mind in a Presidential Campaign, pp. 1—9, 150—58. New York: Columbia University Press, 1948. (survey panel)

Merton, Robert, Marjorie Fiske, and Patricia L. Kendall. The Focused Interview: A Manual of Problems and Procedures. 2d Ed. 1956. New York: Free Press, 1990. And cf. Merton, Robert, and Patricia L. Kendall. "The Focused Interview." American Journal of Sociology 51 (1946): 541—57.

Lazarsfeld, Paul. Radio and the Printed Page, pp. 3—47, 329—33. 1940. New York: Arno Press, 1971.

March 13. Early Social Science Research in the United States and Britain

As Assigned

Charters, W. W. Motion Pictures and Youth. New York: Macmillan, 1931. (66 pages)

Lashley, Karl S., and John B. Watson. A Psychological Study of Motion Pictures in Relation to Venereal Disease Campaigns. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, 1922. (86 pages)

Mass Observation. Worktowners at Blackpool: Mass-Observation and Popular Leisure in the 1930s, pp. 1—15, 229—39. London: Routledge, 1990. See also Madge, Charles, and Toom Harrison, eds. First Year’s Work, 1937—1938, by Mass-Observation. London: Harrisson, 1938.

Munsterberg, Hugo. The Film: The Silent Photoplay in 1916, A Psychological Study, pp. v-xv, 1—17. 1916. New York: Dover, 1970. Foreword, Chapter1.

Fenton, Frances. The Influence of Newspaper Presentations Upon the Growth of Crime and Other Anti-Social Activity. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1911. (96 pages)

March 20. No class. Spring Break.

March 27. Literature reviews and references due.
Guest Prof. Amit Kama, Visiting Scholar
The Chicago School of Sociology and Social Action Theory

All

Kama, Amit. "The Quest for Inclusion: Israeli Gay Men's Perceptions of Gay Actors on the Public Stage," Feminist Media Studies, under review.

Schoening, Gerald T., and Anderson, James A. "Social Action Media Studies: Foundational Arguments and Common Premises." Communication Theory 5.2 (May 1995): 93-116.

Joas, Hans. "Pragmatism in American Sociology." Pragmatism and Social Theory, pp. 14—51. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Chapter 1.

As Assigned

Park, Robert E. "The Crowd and the Public." The Crowd and the Public, and Other Essays, pp. 3—83. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.

Cooley, Charles H. "Communication." Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind, pp. 16—103. New York: Schocken Books, 1963. Part II.

Dewey, John. "Search for the Great Community." The Public and Its Problems, pp. 143—84. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1927. Chapter 3.

Mead, George Herbert. "Democracy and Universality in Society" and "Obstacles and Promises in the Development of an Ideal Society." Mind, Self & Society, pp. 281—9, 317—28. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1934.

Thomas, William I., and Florian Znaniecki. "Methodological Note," "The Wider Community and the Role of the Press," and "Conclusion." The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, pp. 1—86, 1367—97, 1822—27. 2 Vols. New York: Knopf, 1927.

For Background & Reference

Rock, Paul E. "Symbolic Interactionism as an Understated Sociology." The Making of Symbolic Interactionism, pp. 1—23. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1979.

Blumer, Herbert. "Schemes of Life." Movies and Conduct, pp. 141—91. 1933. New York: Arno Press, 1970. Chapter 10.

April 3. The Great War and Its Aftermath

As Assigned

Bourne, Randolph S. "Twilight of the Idols." War and the Intellectuals: Essays, 1915—1919, pp. 53—64. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Chapter 6.

Lasswell, Harold. "Propaganda." Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, pp. 521—27. New York: Macmillan, 1937.

Lippmann, Walter. "The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads," "The Self-Centered Man," and "The Self-Contained Community." Public Opinion, pp. 3—32, 161—74, and 263—75. 1927. New York: Macmillan, 1945. Chapters 1, 16, and 17.

Royce, Josiah. "Provincialism." Race Questions and Other American Problems, pp. 57—108. New York: Macmillan, 1908. Chapter 3.

Mock, James R., and Cedric Larson. "The American Mind in Wartime," "Blueprint for Tomorrow’s CPI." Words that Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Relations, 1917—1919, pp. 3—18, 337—46. New York: Russell & Russell, 1968.

April 10. Nineteenth Century Rise of the Social Sciences

As Assigned

Schutz, Alfred. "Subjective and Objective Meaning" and "Transition to the Analysis of the Constituting Process." The Phenomenology of the Social World, pp. 31—44. Trans. George Walsh & Frederick Lehnert. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967.

Weber, Max. "Politics as a Vocation" and "Science as a Vocation." From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 96-99, 129—56. Ed. and Trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. 1958. London: Routledge, 1991.

Durkheim, Emile. "Sociology in France in the Nineteenth Century." On Morality and Society, Selected Writings, pp. 3—22, 230. Ed. Robert N. Bellah. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

Marx, Karl. "Alienated Labor" and "The Materialist Conception of History." The Portable Karl Marx, pp. 131—46, 163—71. Ed. Eugene Kamenka. New York: Penguin, 1983.

Comte, Auguste. "Population Increase and the Law of Three Stages." Sociological Theory, 4th ed., pp. 592—94. Ed. L. Coser and B. Rosenberg. New York: Macmillan, 1976.

April 17. Term papers due.

April 24. Enlightenment and Eighteenth Century Media

Heyer, Paul. "The Eighteenth Century." Communications & History: Theories of Media, Knowledge, and Civilization, pp. 3—48. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Foucault, Michel. "Speaking." The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences, pp. 78—124. New York: Pantheon, 1971.

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. "The Concept of Enlightenment." Dialectic of Enlightenment, pp. 3—42. Trans. John Cumming. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. Chapter 1.

Innis, Harold. "The English Publishing Trade in the Eighteenth Century." The Bias of Communication, pp. 142—55. 1951. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Essay on the Origin of Languages. 1773. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Locke, John. "Of Words." An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 225—79. 1690. Ed. & Abbr. John W. Yolton. London: Everyman, 1993. Book iii.

April 26. Final deadline (no late work accepted after this date).

April 29, 5 p.m. Take-home Exam due