Weeks 1, 2 HUMAN COMMUNICATION AND THE MASS MEDIA

Introduction to the course and review of course outline

Understanding human behavior and the transmission of cultural rules; the media of communication; the mass audience; the mass media as a concept; basic characteristic of the mass media; perspectives on the mass media and the production of culture.

VIDEO: TVTV: The Television Revolution - I (60 m.)

***Nielsen Ratings of Most Popular TV Shows

***CCMS - DATABASE FOR COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES

***Is the Medium Really the Message?

***Why Do People Watch Television?

MEDIA LIBRARY (Please visit these links to familiarize yourself with the resources available to you)

Media OUTSTANDING EXTENSIVE MEDIA STUDIES SITE

CBC Archives

CNN

BBC

FILM STUDIES SITE (MAIN GUIDE FOR MOVIES AND CULTURE COURSE - USE FREQUENTLY)

Greatest Films Database (1 and on-going)

Advertising

Communication Studies: Cultural Studies

Gender & Race and Ethnicity in Media

Film (1 and on-going)

Popular Culture (7)

Visual Communications

Digital Media

Political Communication

General Resources

Quotes On Communications

Media Watch - 20 years of activism.

The World Press

n o l o g o . o r g

Society for Cinema and Media Studies

American Film Institute

The British Film Institute

Cinema Sites Database

CineMedia Site

Weeks 3, 4 THEORIZING MEDIA AND MEDIA RECEPTION

VIDEO: TVTV: The Television Revolution - II (60 m.)

VIDEO: Representations and the Media (Stuart Hall) (50 m.)

WEEK 3

***Benet Davetian: Theories of Technology

***Technological Determinism

***Marxist Media Theory

***McLuhan Reconsidered

WEEK 4

***Baudrillard: Reality and Simulations

***Neil Postman's Criticisms of the Television

USEFUL SITES

Identity and Media (2)

Media and Reality

Marshall McLuhan: The Global Village

Barthes, "The Photographic Message"

Walter Benjamin

Cultivation Theory

Schema Theory and the Interpretation of TV

Meaning: Constraint and Opportunity

Hypertext

Visual Perception and Categorization

Texts and the Construction of Meaning

Crossing Cultures: Mass Media in Russia

**What are moral panics?

VISUAL REPRESENTATION

Film Genres (3)

Visual Perception 1

Visual Perception 5

Visual Perception 3

Photography as Interpretation

Film and Meaning

The Female Gaze and The Piano

Sex Roles and Reactions to Films (2)

The Altering Viewpoint in International Film

Hollywood and the Ghetto Movie (4)

Narrative Disclosure in Film (5)

Identification with Characters on Screen (2)

Psychoanalysis, TV and Film

Weeks 5, 6, 7, 8 MEDIA INTERPRETATION AND EFFECTS

The critique of mass culture; searching for the effects of media; evidence for and against media effects; methodological explanations.

VIDEO: Growing Up in a Video World: Media and The Developing Child (24 m.)

WEEK 5

***The Grammar of TV and Film (4)

Notes on the Gaze

***Media Stereotyping Site (All aspects)

In Defense of Popular TV

***Media Contribution to Racism and Sexism

WEEK 6

***Media Use in Identity Construction

***Role Models in Media

***Who's Violent: the Media or the Viewer?

***Technology and Our Imagination and Fears

Women on Television

Oublier Madonna, Click Here for Britney?

WEEK 7, 8

ANALYZING MEDIA

***Arguments Against the Effects Theory

***Active TV Viewer

***Interpreting Children’s Talk About Television

***Content Analysis of Children's Commercials

Adolescent Parasocial Interaction

Children’s Understanding of What’s Real on TV

Youth and the Media in Russia

Agora, Composition, Rhetoric and Literacy

The Psychology of Situation Comedies

Why are soap operas so popular?

The Reconstruction of the American Family in 1950's films (4)

MAGAZINES

COSMOPOLITAN

SEVENTEEN

HOT-WIRED

VOGUE

Week 9 ADVERTISING AND THE MEDIA

VIDEO: Positioning: How Advertisers Shape Perception (21 m.)

ASSIGNMENT: Visit 'The Art of Persuasion' CBC radio programme website and listen to at least 4 broadcasts from this great series on how advertising works.

***An Overview of Advertising

Veblen: Conspicious Consumption

Advertising as a Behavioral Science

***Greed and Consumer Behavior (READ AS MUCH AS TIME ALLOWS)

***Towards a Critical Theory of Advertising (Skim in preparation for lecture)

***Subliminal Persuasion

***Analysis of Advertisements

Communicating Visually

***You and Me, Babe: Sex and Advertising

***Children and TV Advertising

***Sex Role Cues in Children's Ads

Magazine Ads for Men's Fragrances