This course introduces non-majors to a variety of competing theories of interpersonal behavior and everyday social interaction and provides them with new ways of thinking about the social situations in which they participate and interact (and observe others doing so). Theoretical frameworks may include Cultural Discourse theory, models of Relational Communication, Coordinated Management of Meaning, Identity Management, and the Ethnography of Speaking. (Gen.Ed. SB)

An introduction to the social role of mass media in advanced industrial Western societies, focusing on how relationships between mass communications and the surrounding economic framework affect cultural, political, and ideological processes in society. An examination of social and historical contexts within which newspapers, radio, and television developed and how they are structured with attention to both the domestic and international implications of treating mass media as just another industry.

Focus on acquiring a principled understanding of everyday, face-to-face interaction as the process by which we create, maintain, and manage social experience. Vocabulary and concepts to enable the student to account for, analyze, and evaluate current interpersonal communication practice. Limited enrollment.

Not available at this time

Not available at this time

Not available at this time

This course will introduce students to a wide range of narrative, experimental and documentary strategies. Students will gain experience in basic production techniques and will learn to think about and lookCourse requirements include the completion of three video production assignments and one longer final project. The course will include workshops in lighting, final cut pro, and sound recording and mixing.

This course aims to inspire the development of a critical vocabulary for analysis of the formal
conventions of film, especially as they bear on literary discourse. In addition, this course will focus on cinematic and literary works that articulate or express specific notions of American identity in terms of race, class, and gender. This class will look specifically at how the film industry negotiates specific literary narratives about identity within American society as a means of adapting the texts to the big screen. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Comm majors.

This course combines critical analysis with a hands-on introduction to producing a documentary. Students will view, analyze, and critique a range of documentary films, to further their understanding of the documentarian's craft and art. Students will also do pre-production (research and scripting) on their own short documentary, along with shorter hands-on exercises in writing narration, interview techniques, use of archival sources, etc. Prerequisite: COMM 240 or COMM 297D or COMM 340 or COMM 342 or COMM 493E or consent of instructor.

This course examines the situation comedy from sociological and artistic perspectives. We will seek, first of all, to understand how situation-comedy is a rich and dynamic meaning-producing genre within the medium of television. Secondly we will work to dissect narrative structures, and the genre's uses of mise-en-scene, cinematography/ videography, editing, and sound to create specific images of the family through social constructions of race, class, and gender.