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COMM 205.003 Understanding Mass Media
In this class, we learn about the institution of communications,
a central social system for our society. We will study how communications
systems are organized and paid for, how we understand their social
effects, and how people shape the future of communications. We will
learn through lecture, discussion, reading, observation and experiment.
For all of you, this should be the first course you take in the
Communications program—welcome! We hope it will give you a
solid understanding of the issues involved in this area of study.
If you're a FROSH, this may also be one of your first courses at
American University, and your first opportunity to practice college-level
organizational and study skills. As you work on these skills, don't
forget about the excellent programs in the Learning Center on the
second floor of Mary Graydon Center. At no extra charge, you can
take workshops in everything from stress control to study habits,
and you can also get help in composition and writing in the Writing
Lab there.
For some of you, most likely SOPHOMORES, this also is fulfilling
a requirement in General Education.For those of you who have taken
a foundation-level course in General Education:
This is a second-level course in Curricular Area 4: Social Institutions
and Behavior. It follows any one of the following courses: GOVT-110G
Politics in the U.S.; PSYC-105G Psychology: Understanding Human
Behavior; SOCY-100G American Society.
How does it tie into the General Education program? Here’s
how:
In Curricular Area 4, we focus on complex social systems, how they
shape our lives, and how we can and do shape social systems. In
this course, we focus on communications.
Each course in Curricular Area 4, as you know, has some common goals:
• to understand and critically analyze concepts, patterns,
and issues that affect the organization of societies and the relationship
between the individual and society. Here, we will look at how the
media shape our image of reality and how communications networks
shape and influence our society and economy. We also study how social
scientists and humanists assess the individual, social and political
effects of communications.
• to critically analyze classic theories of human organization.
Here, we will discuss theories of ways that communications media
contribute to shape our reality and our understanding of it, and
how those theories are proven.
• to study institutions, systems, and patterns of governance
and of economic and social organization. Here we will study how
communications systems are organized economically, and what regulatory,
social and professional mechanisms constrain them.
• to discuss the values and ethical issues that underlie social,
political and economic organizations. Here, we will analyze how
all media carry values and ideological messages, and how communications
networks both reflect and influence social and political structure,
and discuss ethical responsibility for the consequences of communications
systems' power to shape public issues and tastes.
• to examine the formulation of policies and the consequences
of different policy options. We will look at ways in which First
Amendment and other social goals have been argued, particularly
in the case of children's television; the role of mass communications
in a democracy; and the implications of advertising and regulation
on it.
• to analyze distinctive methods of inquiry appropriate to
the study of societal institutions and patterns, using quantitative
as well as qualitative techniques. Here we will pay attention to
how scientists and policymakers develop their opinions on communications'
social effects, not only through such tools as polls, surveys, and
scientific experiments, but also through close analysis of texts.
We will experiment with some of those techniques.
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