Taking a comparative and grounded approach, this class explores the diverse and transformative consequences of social media as they become ubiquitous and taken for granted in our everyday lives. It takes as a starting point people?s everyday engagement with social media and analyzing the cultural patterns and social outcomes of practices such as memes, selfies, Facebook friending, social media fundraising, and digital mourning.

This course is designed to offer a framework for understanding the processes involved in news production and its impact on public opinion. We will examine various social forces that shape news content, including individual, political, economic, and institutional factors. We will also examine research and theory on the implications of today's new media environment, with a focus on its relationship with citizens' engagement in public life.

Even skeptics among us believe that in the U.S. and around the world, media make a difference in our democracy and our everyday lives. This course takes that belief to heart, asking about the social and cultural role of mass media in advanced, post-industrial Western societies (primarily in the U.S.). We consider how media and their surrounding economic and institutional framework affect cultural, political and ideological processes. We consider a range of media forms in historical context to understand how today's media systems came to be.

The concerns, controversies, theoretical perspectives, and body of knowledge on the issue of violence on television and in video games are examined. All students will work in groups to conceptualize and carry out an original research project on the topic. Social science research studies on the topic of media violence comprise the weekly reading assignments, and students submit brief reflection papers on the main points from the readings each week.

This is a graded introduction to the Communication major, designed to welcome advanced transfer students (Junior status) into the program and address some of their specific needs.

This course combines reading and discussion with application of theoretically informed methods in the study of everyday social interaction. We will: 1) Read and discuss representative studies of social interaction and communicative behavior in cultural context. 2) Do graduated classroom and field exercises to assemble methodological tools and accumulate data for your final paper. The final paper will be based on accumulated data?observations, transcripts, and interviews?and analyses from your field site/activity. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Comm majors.

Scholarly literature on interpersonal communication, including historical development and conceptualization, survey of current research and theoretical development and critique of methodologies. Emphasis on reciprocal causal relationships between communication patterns and the social order, and implications of this relationship for individual action and cultural change. Required of students specializing in this area.

This course aims to further understanding about 1) historical trends in media portrayals and public opinion about LGBT issues; 2) the effects of mass media on attitudes toward sexual and gender minorities; 3) the interplay of LGBT issues and electoral politics; and 4) the evolving role of sexuality and gender identity/expression in U.S. politics and society. (Gen. Ed. SB, DU)

We will view, analyze, and discuss films by modern documentary masters such as Michael Moore ("Sicko"), Chris Paine, ("Revenge of the Electric Car"), Seth Gordon ("The King of Kong - A fistful of Quarters"), Pamela Yates ("Granito") and many others to further the understanding of the documentary craft and art from a filmmaker's perspective. Students will also do preproduction (research and treatment) for their own short documentary, along with shorter hands-on exercises in writing narration, interview techniques, etc.

This course examines humor as a significant form of creative expression in social and political life. In recent decades, scholars of all persuasions from the humanities, social sciences, and even hard sciences have examined this subject through a critical lens, leading to the development of an interdisciplinary field known as humor studies. This course provides an introduction to that burgeoning field.