Course Outline
The following is a list of readings and study questions for each section of the course. Tentative dates when the material will be covered are listed after each heading; do the readings before the date listed for discussing them in class. In each section, the "theory" readings are listed first, and the "events" readings second; usually your discussion list assignment will be to apply something from the "theory" readings to something in the "events" readings. The questions will both guide you in learning the course material throughout the semester, and will serve as study questions for the exams. Look them overbefore doing the reading or attending lectures. In all likelihood, it will be necessary to make minor changes in the readings, schedule, and questions during the course; such changes will be announced in class, and you are responsible for finding out about changes whether or not you attend lectures. MediaMakingrefers to the textbook. Most other readings are on reserve in the library.
Introduction (9/3-9/8)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 1
Why is the textbook titled "MediaMaking"? What are the differences between interpersonal media, mass media, and network media? How can media be distinguished according to channel modalities, economic modalities, institutions, technological manifestations, content, and information technologies? What are institutions, cultural forms, and mediation? What are the differences between a transmission and a cultural model of communication? How can media power be understood as effects? as determination and control? What are the differences between the conflict and consensus models of society?

Modernization, History, Social Development (9/10 - 9/19)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 2

2. Warren St. John, "Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It," The New York Times, May 18, 2003.

3. Bertolt Brecht, "Radio as a Means of Communication," (a talk delivered in Germany in 1930), from Mattelart and Mattelart, Communication and Class Struggle Vol 2, (New York International General, 1985 pp. 169-171; uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/brechtts043.

4. Raymond Williams, "The Social History of the Uses of Television Technology," from Television: Technology and Cultural Form, pp. 19-31.

What are the differences between Braudel's event, conjuncture, eras, and epochs? What are the different theories of mass society? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What happens in the transition from oral to print to electronic culture? What is technological determinism and what are the problems with it? What are modernization, modernism, modernity, and postmodernism? What is meant by "stages of development" in social theory? What are some common way of categorizing the stages, and how are they relevant to understanding media? What are some of the differences between oral and print societies? What is mobile privatization? What is its importance for media? What are the key technological breakthroughs that accompanied the transition to the "print" and "electronic" eras? What is technological convergence in communications? What distinguishes manuscript, oral, and print cultures? What were the limitations of preprint written culture? What different technologies make up the printing press, and what are their origins? What roles did social conditions play in the spread of printing? What role did copyright play in the evolution of books? The rise of publishing companies? How are publishing companies organized? What new trends have been introduced in publishing in the twentieth century? How did the rise of print shape science? the Protestant Reformation? the formation of dissident political movements? modern bureaucracy?

How was the formation of radio broadcasting early in the twentieth century like the formation of the internet today? What were the contributions of Marconi, and De Forest to radio? What were the first uses of radio technology? What role did amateurs play in radio's history? the military? entrepreneurs? Why were large corporations interested in broadcasting at first? How did advertising become the principle funding source of American broadcasting? How did this shape broadcast content? How and why did government regulation arise in radio? What were the principle radio networks in the 1930s, and what has happened to them since? What is the significance of the Communications Act of 1934? What does the law say about regulation "in the public interest?"

People and Organizations (9/22 - 10/3)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 3

2. "Expert Opinion: How to Shoot a Nude Scene [and other insider advice]," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 11/3/2002, pp. 28-32; uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/verhoevents043.pdf .

3. Josh Rottenburg, "The Insider's Indie: how a low-budget flick by a no-name director became a major studio's Christmas release," New York Times Sunday Magazine, 11/3/2002, pp. 22-24;uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/rottenbergts043.pdf .
4. CHRIS BALLARD, "How to Write a Catchy Beer Ad," New York Times, January 26, 2003.

5. Doug Underwood, "Assembly-line Journalism," Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1998, pp. 42-44 cjr.org/year/98/4/assembly.asp.

6. Katharine Q. Seelye, "TV Drama, Pentagon-Style: A Fictional Terror Tribunal," New York Times, March 31, 2002

7. Katherine Rosman, "JonBenet, Inc." Brill's Content, February 2000, pp. 96-107, 128.

Optional -- Peter Maass, "Good Kills," New York Times Sunday Magazine, April 20, 2003: uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/Good_Kills.html

What are the different levels of analysis for understanding people and organizations in media? How do they relate to one another? What is the resource dependence perspective? What are roles, reference groups, and routines and how do they matter in the media? How do formulas, trackrecords, predictability, efficiency, and "borrowing" work in the media? What are the forms of censorship? What other ways does government relate to media? Other institutions to media institutions? What is meant by the "television-industrial-complex?" What does it have to do with the relation of program producers to their audience? What is the difference between direct and structural forms of advertising influence on television content? How do the structures and characteristics of television contribute to the industrialization of culture? How are program ideas and programs created?

Media and Economics (10/6 - 10/13)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 4

2. Robert McChesney, Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy, New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997.

3. "Synergizing Private Lynch," New York Times, June 15, 2003.

4. JIM RUTENBERG, "To Interview Former P.O.W., CBS Dangles Stardom," New York Times, June 16, 2003.

5. Paul Farhi, "Mega Hurts: Clear Channel's Big Radio Ways Are Getting a Lot of Static These Days," Washington Post, Wednesday, May 29, 2002; Page C01, uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/Farhi_Mega_Hurts.txt.

6. Matt Witt, "We Rarely See Those Who Labor: Newspapers and broadcasters favor corporate views, ignoring those of people who do America's work," 8-26-99: ibew1613.org/library/those_who_labor.html.

7. Gloria Steinem, "Sex, Lies, and Advertising," from Joan Gorham (ed.), Mass Media Annual Editions 99/00, Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, pp. 139173-181; originally published in Ms. Magazine, July/August 1990, pp. 18-28.

8. Bill Moyers "Now: Media Concentration" (8 MB quicktime video; requires Quicktime player.)

What are monopoly, oligopoly, and limited competition in media structure? What are the differences between freedom of consumer choice and consumer control? What are the differences between direct and indirect payments for media products? What is vertical integration? "Synergy?" What are use value, exchange value, commodities, the labor theory of value, surplus value, and economies of scale? What are the different sources of media support? What forms of competition are important to media? What are the roles of break even points, royalties, hit-to-release ratios, and secondary markets? How do media try to reduce risk? What is the difference between vertical and horizontal integration?

How does advertising support change the economic relation of media to its audience? What is the traditional economic view of the nature of advertising? What are some problems with it? According to Gloria Steinem, why was Ms. Magazine forced to downsize and stop accepting advertising? What role does marketing and advertising play in a modern industrial consumer economy? Why are packaging and trademarks important in the history of advertising? Why did some industrialists advocate shorter hours and higher wages for workers at the turn of the century? Why is their strategy important to understanding consumerism, advertising, and media?

Meaning, Semiotics, Ideology (10/17 - 11/7)
1. Soc. 43 Semiotics and Media Web Site, uvm.edu/~tstreete/semiotics_and_ads/index.html

2. Ellen Seiter, "Semiotics and Television," from Robert C. Allen (ed.), Channels of Discourse, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987, pp. 17-41.

3. MediaMaking Chapter 5, "Meaning"

4. MediaMaking Chapter 6, "The Interpretation of Meaning"

5. MediaMaking Chapter 7, "Ideology"

6. MediaMaking Chapter 8, "Producing Identities"

7. Sut Jhally, "Tough Guise" (videotape) (To see Part 2 online, click here; requires Quicktime.)

What is the role of signs in culture and society? What are some problems with representational and conceptual theories of meaning? What is semiotics? What is its theory of meaning? On what principles is semiotics based? What is the principle of difference? of the arbitrariness of codes? What is the meaning of the following terms, and how are they related: sign, signifier, signified, iconic/motivated sign, arbitrary sign, metaphor, metonymy, paradigm, syntagm, denotation, connotation, myths, codes, articulation? How does one conduct a semiotic analysis? What role can semiotic codes play in social life? How does semiotic competence matter for media and children?

What questions does an interpreter ask of a text? Why is the notion of the author and the author's intention problematic? What are the following techniques of interpretation: theme and symbol analysis, content analysis, genre theory, and narrative analysis? What is the meaning of the following terms: discourse, narrator, narratee? What is the commutation test? What are binary oppositions? What is polysemy? aporias? What are the techniques for analyzing visual texts?

What is realism? the willing suspension of disbelief? What are realist, phenomenal, and social constructionist theories of ideology, and what are their strengths and weaknesses? What is interpellation? How does it relate to ideology? What are the varieties and sources of identity in the modern world? How do these matter to understanding the media? What are the different ways of constructing the audience as a market? What are their social implications? What is the difference between essentialist and nonessentialist ways of understanding identities? What is subjectivity?

Understanding Audiences: Consuming the Media (11/10 - 11/14)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 9

2. Todd Gitlin, "The Problem of Knowing," pp. 19-30, and "By the Numbers," pp. 47-55, from Inside Prime Time (New York: Pantheon, 1983).

3. Oscar H. Gandy, Jr., "Tracking the Audience," from John Downing, Ali Mohammadi, and Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi (eds.), Questioning the Media: A Critical Introduction, Newbury Park: Sage, 1990, pp. 166-179.

4. ROB WALKER, "The Marketing of No Marketing," New York Times, June 22, 2003.

5. Amy Harmon, "Star Wars' Fan Films Come Tumbling Back to Earth," New York Times, April 28, 2002

6. Marshall Sella, "The Remote Controllers," New York Times, October 20, 2002.

What factors make the audience "mysterious" to media producers and social scientists? What is the long term historical context of media consumption? What is meant by the term "mass" in "mass media?" What does it connote about the audience? What are some limitations to the term? How does the industry tend to view the audience? Why is it helpful to say that meanings resides in audiences, not in texts? What is the encoding/decoding model? What are preferred, oppositional, and negotiated meanings? What is functionalism? What are the different kinds of functions of media? What are the assumptions of functionalist approaches to the audience? What are some problems with functionalist accounts? How are they circular and conservative? What are the three main aspects of the social psychology of consumption of media? How do the differences between public, private, and transitional spaces matter to the sociology of consumption? What is the role of the home in the sociology of consumption? How do anonymous, institutional, and family relations influence the sociology of media consumption? What are fans, fashions, and subcultures, and how do they matter to media consumption?

What are the key features of the audience ratings system for television? What aspects of the system have led the audience ratings to become the major measure of success of television programming? What are the major criticisms of the ratings system? Why is Oscar Gandy concerned about audience surveillance? What is meant by "the active audience?" Uses and gratifications? Reception analysis? Dominant, negotiated, and oppositional decodings? What role does information gathering play in modern industry? What is the significance of the metaphor of the panopticon? How is digital distribution changing the ways that people think and act towards pop music?

Media and Behavior (11/17 - 11/21)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 10

2. MediaMaking, Chapter 11

3. Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "TV Addiction," Scientific American, February, 2002.

What are the main theories of media effects? What methods are used to study them? Why did cultural approaches to media studies develop in opposition to media-effects research? What is the difference between cognitive, affective, and conative components of media effects. Why was Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast important in the history of media effects? What are the different dimensions of media effects? What are social learning and "contagion" theories? What is the McGuire Process model? the theory of reasoned action? information-processing approaches? What are the general findings of media violence research? What is desensitization? the scary world syndrome? What are the general findings of research into the effects of pornography? of research on educational effects of media on children?

News, Politics, and the Public (12/1 - 12/3)
1. MediaMaking Chapter 12

2. MediaMaking, Chapter 13

3. Jim Edwards, "Wrong Turns," Brill's Content, January 2001, pp. 113-169; uvm.edu/bhreserves/soc/edwardsts043.pdf

4. "Race Against Prime Time" (video, California Newsreel): available in the Bailey-Howe library media center, or online: click here for part 1, and here for part 2. (Requires Quicktime.)

5. Sharyn Wizda, "Parachute Journalism," American Journalism Review, July/August 1997, pp. 40-44. uvm.edu/~tstreete/readings/Parachute_Journ.txt

Why is news important to modern democracies? What factors constrain news gathering and dissemination? How do reporters decide what is news? How does economics influence their decisions? What are the main categories of news and reporting? What are their characteristics? How are newspaper and television newsrooms organized, and how do they differ in the ways they present news stories? What role do wire services play in the news? How have news consultants and new technologies influenced broadcast news? What is the theory of objective journalism? What is its history? What news practices and techniques is it associated with? How do these techniques influence the content of news? What are some of the limits to and criticisms of news objectivity? What is the difference between criticizing the news for bias and analyzing it as socially constructed? What is public journalism? Deliberative democracy?

What is the history of news? Why is it hard to define newsworthiness? What are news beats? How do reporters routinize the unexpected? What is the news net? Why do some worry about reporters' tendency to "go native"? Where does the initiative for most news stories come from? Why do news reports in different media so frequently resemble each other? Why does journalist objectivity fit the standards of an ideology? How do media influence political behavior? What are opinion leaders? Early-, campaign-, and late-deciders? What is agenda-setting? priming? third person effects? the spiral of silence?

What are some different definitions of the public? Why do some say the public is in decline? What are the different ways of representing the public? What is civic or public journalism? What roles do media and campaign advertising actually play in elections today? How has television transformed the campaign process in the last forty years?

Media Policy and the Future of Global Democracy (12/5 - 12/10)
1. MediaMaking, Chapter 14

2. MediaMaking, Chapter 15, "Media Globalization"

3. Global Culture: a photo essay by Joe McNally, with text by Joel L. Swerdlow and Erla Swingle, National Geographic Vol. 196, No. 2, August 1999, pp. 2-33.

4. Umberto Eco, "Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare," from Travels in Hyperreality, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986, pp. 135-144.

5. Jonathan Weinberg "Internet Governance"

6. Lawrence Lessig, "The Architecture of Information"

7. Michael Curtin and Thomas Streeter, "Media," in Culture Works: The Political Economy of Culture, University of Minnesota Press, 2001, pp. 225-249.

8. John Downing, "Alternative Media and the Boston Tea Party," from John Downing, Ali Mohammadi, and Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi (eds.), Questioning the Media: A Critical Introduction, Newbury Park: Sage, 1990, pp. 180-191.

Can you talk back to your TV? What is the enlightenment heritage? What are classical liberal ideas of press freedom? Why have they eroded in the twentieth century? What are social responsibility theories? What are the Marxist critiques of the media? What are cultural arguments about ideologies? What conditions underlie international communication? What is media imperialism? What are theories of hegemony and globalization? How are modern and postmodern theories of hegemony different? What is "semiological guerrilla warfare?" What does it have to do with the nature of contemporary media?

Sociology 132a/b Theories of Mass Communication - registrar.uwo.ca/ACCALS/2003/crs_2512.htm

Syllabus: Popular Culture
Spring 2004 Instructor: Phil Rutledge, Email: prutledg@email.uncc.edu
uncc.edu/socant/syllabi/spring2004/socy2112-001.doc

TEXTS:
'MEDIA/SOCIETY: Industries, Images, and Audiences' by David Croteau and William Hoynes. Third Edition. Pine Forge
Press, Ca.; 2003; ISBN: 0-7619-8773-p.

'TELEVISION MYTH AND THE AMERICAN MIND' by Hal Himmelstein. Second Edition. Praeger, Conn.; 1994. ISBN:
0-275-93157-9

'UNDERSTANDING POPULAR CULTURE', by John Fiske. Unwin Hyman; Boston. 1989.

'READING THE POPULAR', by John Fiske. Unwin Hyman; Boston. 1989.

Download my lecture notes at www.zaxistv.com/sociology.htm. These notes are essential material, especially during the first
weeks of class.

INTRODUCTION:
Popular culture typically refers to what we do in our leisure time. In this society, much of what we do involves consumption. We are a culture of mass consumers. Almost every aspect of our modern leisure lifestyle (i.e., music, TV, sports, nightlife, etc) is based on purchasing something that was initially made by someone else (probably on an assembly line) and is then sold to us.
Historically, this is new, because in less technologically advanced societies people must know how to make or produce much of what they consume - including their own leisure entertainment. What is also new to our society is the rise of powerful, influential private corporations driven by the primary goal of making a profit through the encouragement of (mass) consumption of their (mass-made) products.
The study of leisure in a mass society requires the study of the mass media - perhaps the primary agent of 'massification.' We live in a society saturated by mass media. Virtually all forms of leisure have been affected by this increasingly powerful agent of
socialization. Of all forms of mass media, television has emerged to become the most powerful media. This course examines
popular culture in context of mass society, mass media and the television in particular, and the issues raised by mass society
leisure patterns: In a mass society, who influences the forms of entertainment that are made available to the 'mass' public? What
messages and ideologies are promoted by mainstream television and radio - and how are they helpful or harmful to certain
groups? How are some subcultures seeking their own voices in defiance of the dominant culture? These and other questions are
the subject of this class.
This course is partly designed to introduce the student to a sociological approach to the study of how the production of desire
brought by industrialism, capitalism, and the mass media have influenced our lives. These influences are pervasive, influencing
ideas about 'success', 'beauty', 'romance', 'happiness', and even what it means to be an 'American.' The study of popular culture requires an examination of the larger social and economic forces that influence our lives, particularly the rise of industrial
capitalism and a mass media which is driven by capitalism. At the center of this study is a debate over the extent of this influence and its effects on our social and value systems, and particularly over how to understand our modern leisure activities.

This course fulfills the university general education goals of (V) Values, and ( C ) Individual, Culture, and Society.

SCHEDULE:
The course will be divided three sections. The first section of the course will review important sociological issues and cover a
basic introductory perspective of popular culture. The theme of these introductory lectures relates to the emergence by the
1920's in the U.S. of a mass consumer society in which entertainment and leisure activities are heavily influenced by private
corporations, their advertisements, and the specific values they promote. The first test will cover these introductory lectures and
videos. The 'Media/Society' text is important throughout the term but is especially useful for the first test.
The second section of the course directly addresses the theme of popular culture as driven by the force of mass consumption
and the interests of industrial capitalists. According to 'mass culture' theorists, cultural institutions - be they aesthetic, political, or
whatever - have been transformed by the force of industrial capitalism and its commodification mechanisms. Artists, athletes,
entertainers, and other cultural actors (such as politicians) serve potentially contradictory interests in our modern society: the
desire to remain authentic to themselves and their indigenous culture versus their increased dependency upon profit-interested
corporations for survival in a culture dominated by the powerful interests of industrial capitalists. This raises the concern that our
cultural institutions are being co-opted by the the force of commodification. In the mass culture model, people are viewed largely as 'massified', opiated spectators who consume that which corporations choose to offer us. Corporate elites are 'all-powerful' in determining the shape of popular (mainstream) culture. To these theorists, popular culture is really a 'mass culture' brought to us by the 'mass media' which reinforces the dominant values of consumer capitalism, materialism, patriarchy, racism, etc.

The second section of the course will utilize Himmelstein's book on this theme, along with the Media/Society text.
The last section will examine John Fiske's model of popular culture. Fiske disagrees with the mass cultural view which tends to
be promoted by Himmelstein, preferring to view popular culture as something distinct from 'mass culture.' Fiske argues that,
while the force of commodification is great, many people still choose to make their own entertainment - and to make their own
expressions of cultural identity - rather than merely consume an instant, prefabricated or ready-made culture manufactured on
some 'assembly line' by corporations interested mainly in making money and reinforcing the dominant ideologies that support
their system. Fiske is interested in those who are 'marginalized' by various cultural pecking orders (such as by race, ethnicity,
wealth, sex, age, etc) and how they use their own cultural expressions to assert themselves against the dominant culture that
holds them down in some way. He explores peoples' everyday efforts as creative participants (as opposed to 'opiated
spectators') in what he considers the truly 'popular' culture. The last test will be based on Fiske's two books, along with the
Media/Society text and any material presented in class (of course).

Test Dates
Section 1: Introductory sociology issues and the rise of popular culture in context of mass commercial society. This section will
utilize downloadable website notes/lectures. I will provide the cite locations during class. In addition we will use parts of the
Media/Society text. These may include Chapter 1,2,3, plus part of 5 on ads and globalization and some additional isolated
sections. Chapter three in Himmelstein on advertising may also be utilized for this section. The first test is tentatively scheduled
for Friday, Feb 13.

Section 2: This section utilizes the Himmelstein text mainly for its insights on American myths as found on commercial television
and films. Read the whole book, but rely on your lecture notes for specific issues to study. Specifically, you are expected to be
familiar with the numerous myths discussed in the book and their ideological implications. In the Media/Society text, chapters 5
and 6 are especially relevant. You will find chapter 7 on media and politics interesting in context of the nature of modern political
campaigns. The section on cultural imperialism in Chapter 7 is an important one to grasp, and this issue reappears throughout the
rest of the semester. The test for this section is tentatively scheduled for Friday, April 2.

Section 3: This section utilizes Chapter 8 in the Media/Society text, and presumes a good grasp of the cultural imperialism issue
found in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 focuses on the role of the audience as active negotiators of culture and this leads to John Fiske's
arguments regarding popular culture. Fiske's two books are short and complementary. One presents his theory/model and the
other applies it to various aspects of popular culture. Students are expected to have a strong grasp of Fiske's model, as this is
the main topic of this section and the last test. As in the Himmelstein text, you're expected to read both books and to rely on
lecture notes for specific material likely to be tested on. Test 3 will cover only the material since the last test. Test 3 is during
Finals Exam period and will be held on Monday, May 5, from 9am (not 8am) to 11am in this classroom. NOTE: I have found
that students who do poorly on this test are often the ones who missed too many classes. Please avoid unnecessary absences.

Note: It is possible that some of the lectures and videos we will watch may be disturbing. For example, I may show a brief
movie scene containing graphic violence. Or we may discuss controversial issues that may be upsetting to some students. If any
student does not wish to watch a controversial scene or participate in a controversial discussion they may leave and will be
excused without penalty, but I would appreciate your getting in touch with me via email or in person to get caught up on what
was missed.

Some possible journals to consult for your project:
Journal of Popular Culture;Journal of American Culture;Journal of Film and Television; American Film;Journal of Advertising
Research; Advertising Age; Marketing News;Journal of Communication;Journal of Leisure Research;Journalism Quarterly;
Quarterly Review of Film & Video;Sex Roles; Women and Language;Childhood Education; Adolescence;Journal of Social
Issues;Social Problems; Social Forces; Demography;American Journal of Sociology;American Sociological Review;American
Demographics;Modern Maturity; Aging;Black Scholar;Journal of Psychology; Ewen, Stuart: Captains of Consciousness.  McGraw Hill, 1976.

Proseminar in Communication Theory
Fall 2003 spot.colorado.edu/~calabres/fallprosem.htm
Prof. Andrew Calabrese, Prof. Janice Peck

The Proseminar is a two-semester survey of the major lines of inquiry about problems of media, communication, journalism, popular culture and telecommunications. It reviews the principal domains of research and theory in the social sciences and humanities that have had the most direct relationship with media studies, demonstrating the interdisciplinary character of communication research and the terms under which it has emerged as a field in the modern academy. The seminar is for graduate students contemplating teaching and research careers in communication, media studies and telecommunications. It is required of doctoral students in the media studies track of the Ph.D. program in communication.

Session 1: Course Introduction - August 27

Course structure & purpose; discussion of assignment.

Sessions 2 & 3: Foundations of Media Studies in Classical Social Theory

Grounding the study of media & communication in classical social theory and the historical context of modernization (e.g., Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Freud, Tonnies, Simmel--primary & secondary sources)

How do classical social theorists envision and explain the transition from "traditional" to "modern" society? What characteristics distinguish "modern" society? What is modernization, modernity, modernism? What stances do they take toward this historical transition? In what ways are these theorists influenced by the Enlightenment? by liberalism? What are the implications of classical social theories for the study of media and communication?

Dan Schiller, "Preface" in Theorizing Communication (Oxford UP, 1996).

Robert Holton, "Classical Social Theory," Chap. 1 in B. Turner, ed., Social Theory (Blackwell, 1996).

Karl Marx:
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ("Estranged Labour," "Private Property and Communism," "The Meaning of Human Requirements," and "The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society").

Excerpts from The Grundrisse (1857-1858).

Capital, Volume 1, Part 1: "Commodities and Money."

Marshall Berman, “All That is Solid Melts Into Air,” in All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (Simon & Schuster, 1982).

Howard Zinn, Marx in Soho (South End Press, 1999).

Leon Bramson, “European Theories of the Mass and Mass Society,” in The Political Context of Sociology (Princeton, 1961).

Emile Durkheim:

"Anomie and the Modern Division of Labor"

"Suicide and Modernity"

Max Weber:

"Politics as a Vocation"

"Bureaucracy"

"The Meaning of Discipline"

Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in The Sociology of Georg Simmel (Collier-MacMillan, 1950).

Ferdinand TØnnies, "Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft," in Community and Society (Harper & Row, 1957).

Session 4 & 5: American Liberalism and Media Studies

Locating communication studies in context of liberal pragmatism & Chicago School of sociology (Dewey, Lippmann, Park, Mead, Cooley, Blumer)

To what extent is the thought of Dewey, Lippman, Mead, et al. shaped by Enlightenment thought? by liberalism? by classical social theories? What is liberalism? What is its concept of society, of individuals, of socal structure and agency? How do these thinkers conceptualize communication and media? How do they account for processes of social change and continuity? What ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions underlie liberal pragmatism and symbolic interactionism? How do these thinkers conceive of the role of the media in modern society, particularly its relation to democracy?

Schiller, Theorizing Communication, Chapter 1

Isaac Kramnick, “Liberalism, the Middle Class and Republican Revisionism,” in Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism (Cornell, 1990)

Leon Bramson, “Europeans and Americans on the Crowd: The Concept of Collective Behavior,” in The Political Context of Sociology (Princeton, 1961)

John Durham Peters, "John Locke, the Individual, and the Origin of Communication," Quarterly Journal of Speech 75 (November 1989): 387-399

Walter Lippman, Public Opinion (Harcourt, 1922)

Ch. 1: "Introduction: the World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads"

John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Swallow, 1954)

Ch. 4: "The Eclipse of the Public"

Ch. 5: "Search for the Great Community"

Robert E. Park, "The Natural History of the Newspaper," Journal of Sociology 27 (November 1923): 273-289

Leon Bramson, “The Rise of American Sociology,” in The Political Context of Sociology (Princeton, 1961)

Ken Plummer, "Symbolic Interactionism in the Twentieth Century," Chap. 8 in B. Turner, ed., Blackwell Companion to Social Theory

George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society U Chicago P, 1934)

"The Social Foundations and Functions of Thought and Communication"

Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (Prentice-Hall, 1969)

Ch. 3: "Society as Symbolic Interaction"

Ch. 11: "Suggestions for the Study of Mass Media Effects"

Fukuyama, Francis. "Are We at the End of History?" Fortune, 15 January 1990, 75-76, 78.

Held, David, Alex Callinicos, and Anthony Giddens, Symposium on "Liberalism, Marxism, and Democracy," Theory and Society 22 (1993): 249-304.

"Liberalism Defined: The Perils of Complacency," The Economist (21 December 1996), 17-19.

Sessions 6 & 7: Mass Communication Research

Emergence of social scientific studies of media/communication; structural functionalism; empiricist paradigm; effects, uses & gratifications, agenda-setting, cultivation analysis (Lazarsfeld, Lasswell, Berelson, Katz, Klapper, Schramm, Gerbner, McCombs & Shaw, Blumler, McQuail, etc.)

What are the social and intellectual roots of behavioral and social effects studies in mass communication research? Who were the key figures and landmark studies? What is positivism? To what extent does it shape the ontological, epistemological and methdological assumptions of mass communication research? What continuities and/or differences exist between pragmatism & symbolic interactionism and the mass communication research approach? How does the latter conceive of the role of communication and media in society? How does it account for historical change and continuity? for the relationship between individual and society? between agency and structure? How has the study and understanding of media effects developed over time? What are some critiques of this approach to communication/media studies?

Schiller, Chapter 2, "The Anomaly of Domination," in Theorizing Communication

Leon Bramson, “The American Critique of the Theory of Mass Society: Research in Mass Communication,” in The Political Context of Sociology (Princeton, 1961)

Hardt, Critical Communication Studies

Ch. 3: "On Ignoring History"

Todd Gitlin, "Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm," Theory and Society 6(2) (September 1978): 205-253

Carl Hovland, Irving Janis & Harold Kelley, Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change (Yale UP, 1953)

Ch.1: "Introduction"

Harold Lasswell, "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society," in Lyman Bryson, ed., The Communication of Ideas (Harper & Bros., 1948)

Werrett Wallace Charters, Motion Pictures and Youth: A Summary (Macmillan, 1933), pp. v-vii, 1-66

Garth Jowett, "Social Science as Weapon: Origins of Payne Studies," Communication 13 (3) (1992): 211-25

Willard Rowland, Jr., The Politics of TV Violence (Sage, 1983)

Ch. 2: "The Rise of American Social Science"

Ch. 3: "The Rise of Mass Communication Research"

J. Michael Sproule, "Progressive Propaganda Critics and the Magic Bullet Myth," Critical Studies in Mass Communication (6) (3) (September 1989): 225-246

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson & Hazel Gaudet, The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign (Columbia UP, 1968)

Ch. 16: "The Nature of Personal Influence"

Elihu Katz & Paul Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence (Free Press, 1955)

Ch. 1: "Between Media and Mass"

Joseph Klapper, The Effects of Mass Communication (Free Press, 1960)

Part Two: "The Effects of Specific Types of Media Material," pp. 159-165, 199-205, 228-233, 246-257

James D. Halloran, ed., The Effects of Television (Panther, 1970)

"Introduction: Studying the Effects of Television"

"The Social Effects of Television"

Robert M. Liebert and Joyce Spratkin, The Early Window: Effects of Television on Children and Youth 3rd ed. (Pergamon)

Ch. 5: "The Surgeon General's Report"

Ch. 7: "Twenty Years of TV Violence Research"

George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan and Nancy Signorelli, "Charting the Mainstream: Television's Contributions to Political Orientations," Journal of Communication 32(2): 441-464

Denis McQuail, "With the Benefit of Hindsight: Reflections on Uses and Gratifications Research," in Michael Gurevitch and Mark R. Levy, eds., Mass Communication Review Yearbook Vol. 5 (Sage, 1984)

Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media," Public Opinion Quarterly (36) (2) (Summer 1972): 176-187

Sessions 9, 10 & 11: Critical Traditions in Media Studies

Formulation of society, media, communication & culture from a critical perspective; European & U.S. variants (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, Brecht, Habermas, Mills, Gouldner, Burke, Williams)

What are the ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions associated with "critical" traditions in explaining the relationships between media and society, and media and culture? How do these authors conceive of communication, media, culture, and the role of the press? To what extent have they been influenced by Enlightenment thought? by classical social theorists? How do they conceptualize processes of socio-historical change and continuity and the relationship of individual agency and social structure? How do these authors conceive of the effects of media, and how does their perspective compare to that of "effects research"?

Goran Therborn, "Critical Theory and the Legacy of Twentieth.Century Marxism," Ch. 2 in Bryan Turner, ed., Social Theory

Martin Jay, "The Genesis of Critical Theory," The Dialectical Imagination (Little, Brown & Co., 1973).

Max Horkheimer, "Traditional and Critical Theory," from his Critical Theory: Selected Essays (1992/1968).

Max Horkheimer, "Means and Ends," from his Eclipse of Reason (NY: Continuum, 1974/1947).

Thomas McCarthy, "The Idea of a Critical Theory and Its Relation to Philosophy," in On Max Horkheimer: New Perspectives, edited by Seyla Benhabib, Wolfgang Bon¢ and John McCole (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993).

Benjamin, W. (1968) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, pp. 217-251 in H. Arendt (ed), Illuminations. New York: Schocken. (Original work published in 1936)

Theodor Adorno, "On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening," in Arato & Gebhardt, eds. The Essential Frankfurt School Reader (NY: Continuum, 1982).

Herbert Marcuse, “The Closing of the Universe of Discourse,” pp. 84-120 in One-Dimensional Man (Beacon Press, 1964)

David McLellan, "The Frankfurt School," in his Marxism After Marx (NY: Harper & Row, 1979).

Paul Lazarsfeld, "Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communications Research," Studies in Philosophy and Social Science (9)(1941): 2-16

Morrison, David E. (1978). Kultur and Culture: The Case of Theodor W. Adorno and Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Social Research 45(2), 331-355.

Peter U. Hohendahl, "The displaced intellectual? Adorno's American years revisited," New German Critique, Spring-Summer 1992.

Jurgen Habermas, "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article," New German Critique, Fall 1974.

Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, "The proletarian public sphere," in Communication and Class Struggle, vol. 2, eds. Armand Mattelart & Seth Sieglaub (NY: International General, 1983).

Joan Landes, "The Public and the Private Sphere: A Feminist Reconsideration," in Feminists Read Habermas (Routledge, 1995).

John B. Thompson, "The theory of the public sphere," Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 10, 1993.

Jurgen Habermas, "Further Reflections on the Public Sphere," in Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (MIT Press, 1992).

Antonio Gramsci, "Journalism," Selections from Cultural Writings (Harvard UP, 1985), pp.386-425.

Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (International Publishers, 1971):

"The Intellectuals," pp. 3-23.

"On Education," pp. 24-43.

Anne Showstack Sassoon, "Gramsci's concept of the party and politics in the prison notebooks," in Gramsci's Politics (St. Martin's Press, 1980), pp. 109-146.

Jorge Larrain, "Marx's Theory of Ideology," in his The Concept of Ideology, pp. 35-67.

Raymond Williams, Problems in Materialism and Culture (London: Verso, 1980):

"Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory," pp. 31-49.

"Means of Communication as Means of Production," pp. 50-63.

Raymond Williams, "'You're a Marxist, Aren't You?'" in his Resources of Hope (Verso, 1989).

Sessions 12 & 13: The Mass Culture Debate

What are the key positions and arguments of the mass culture debate? What characteristics are associated with "high culture," with "mass culture"? How are these various authors situated in relation to the debate, and in relation to the various traditions we have covered so far? To what extent is the mass culture debate relevant to contemporary study of the media and culture?

Alexis de Tocqueville, "The unlimited power of the majority in the United States, and its consequences," from his Democracy in America, vol. 1.

Patrick Brantlinger, Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass Culture as Social Decay (Cornell UP, 1983)

Ch. 1: "Introduction: The Two Classicisms"

F.R. Leavis, Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture (St. John's College, 1930)

C. Wright Mills, People, Power, Politics (Oxford UP, 1956)

Ch. 1: "The Cultural Apparatus"

Ch. 2: "Mass Media and Public Opinion"

C. Wright Mills, "The Mass Society," from The Power Elite (OUP, 1956).

David Riesman, "Storytellers as Tutors in Technique: Changes in the Agents of Character Formation," in his The Lonely Crowd (Yale UP, 1950).

Leo Lowenthal, Literature and Mass Culture (Transaction Books, 1984)

Ch. 1: "Historical Perspectives of Popular Culture"

Paul Lazarsfeld & Robert Merton, "Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action," in Rosenberg & White, eds., Mass Culture (1957)

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," in Dialectic of Enlightenment (Continuum, 1987)

Dwight MacDonald, "A Theory of Mass Culture," in B. Rosenberg & D.M. White, eds., Mass Culture (Free Press, 1957)

Edward Shils, "Mass Society and Its Culture," Daedalus (89) (1960): 288-314

Jean Baudrillard, "Requiem for the Media," in his For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (Telos Press, 1981).

Fredric Jameson, "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture," in Signatures of the Visible (Routledge, 1992)

Session 14 & 15: Semiotics and structuralism

What is semiotics and how does its conception of communication compare to other approaches covered thus far? What is a "sign" and how does it come to have meaning? What is "myth"?

What is structuralism and how does it conceive of communication and the process of signification? What does it mean to say that structuralism is associated with "the death of the subject"? What are the ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions of semiotics and structuralism? How do they conceptualize the processes of socio-historical continuity and change, and the relationship of structure and agency? How is this approach related to Enlightenment thought? to the liberal tradition? to the mass communication research tradition? to the critical tradition? To what extent is this approach relevant to the contemporary study of media, communication and culture?

November 24, 1:00 – 3:30 (Liz)

Ferdinand de Saussure, “The nature of the linguistic sign” and “The immutability and mutability of the sign,” in his Course in General Linguistics (McGraw-Hill, 1959).

Jonathan Culler, “Saussure’s Theory of Language,” in Ferdinand de Saussure (Penguin, 1976).

Terry Eagleton, “Structuralism,” in Literary Theory (University of Minnesota, 1996)

Kaja Silverman, “From Sign to Subject,” in The Subject of Semiotics (Oxford, 1983).

Perry Anderson, “Structure and Subject,” in In the Tracks of Historical Materialism (University of Chicago, 1984)

Roland Barthes, “Myth Today,” in Mythologies (Hill & Wang, 1957)

Roland Barthes, “Signifier and signified,” in his Elements of semiology (Hill and Wang, 1967).

Fredric Jameson, ""The Linguistic Model," in The Prison-House of Language (Princeton UP, 1972)

Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (U Chicago P, 1966)

Ch. 1: "The Science of the Concrete"

Ch. 2: The Logic of Totemic Classification"

Umberto Eco, “Towards a Semioligical Guerilla Warfare (1967),” in his Travels in Hyperreality (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1986).

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy (Monthly Review P, 1971)

John Fiske & John Hartley, Reading Television (Metheun, 1978)

Ch. 3: "The Signs of Television"

Ch. 4: "The Codes of Television"