English in Media, Spring 2025
Instructor: Dara Fox
Contact:
Cell: 010 5176 1106
email: foxdara715@gmail.com
Office Hours: To be decided
in consultation with you
Contacting me
If you have a question, or need to inform me about something, you can text or email me
If you have a question that only requires a very short answer (yes or no etc.), then you can text me. If it will
require a longer answer, email is better (my texting thumbs are not very fast!)
Make sure you always include your class number (not your student number)
Don't contact me if you are going to miss a class. And don't give me any documentation about it
Attendance
You may be absent from class three times with no penalty whatsoever.
If you are less than 5 minutes late, I will mark you down as ‘half’ late. Two ‘halves’ equal one late. If you
are more than 5 minutes late, you will be marked down as late. Three lates equal one absence.
Participation
Group work is a great opportunity to make contributions, even if you are shy about speaking in front of the
entire class
If you use your group discussions as a way to practice what you want to say, hopefully you will also be able
to make an occasional contribution in front of the class as a whole
Course Objective
The course is designed to introduce you to some strands of thought about media that you may not be very familiar
with, including the issue of AI, the question of what constitutes a medium, the differing ways in which various forms
of media operate, how the powerful propagate ideas through media, and our own role in creating media today.
Course Description
In the first half of the semester I will give five lectures, which you will discuss in groups, as follows:
What are Media?
Media and AI
Media Modalities
Media and Power
Media Consumer-Producers
The second half of the semester will be focused on group discussion on your own presentations, which will take
place at the end of the semester.
Tasks & Assignments
As well as reading or viewing course texts together with your group, there are four main tasks (and three
minor ones) you will be engaged in:
Writing a group summary of a text, and comparing it with an AI summary
Writing an essay
Preparing and making your group presentation
Sitting the end-of-semester quiz
Discussing my presentations in a group seminar with me (minor)
Commenting on my presentations on a Google Form (minor)
Responding to another group’s presentation (minor)
Assignment Details & Evaluation
Shortly before the start of the semester I will upload a ‘semester info’ document to Blackboard, which will
contain detailed guidelines for every assignment. However, here I will briefly summarize the assignments.
The essay will be related to your favorite media experience. While you are preparing to write it, I will
briefly talk about essay structure and the use of sources, which will be part of the evaluation. More
importantly, we will talk a lot about how to develop ideas, which I will also assess in your essay. Don’t
worry if this seems vague, I will provide examples of what I mean.
Your group presentation near the end of the semester will be based on another text, which you will read or
view together as a group.
You will mainly be evaluated on the basis of (a) your capacity not to read your entire presentation (although
you can read some of it), which will show you practiced it, and (b) once again, your development of ideas.
Again, I will talk to you about what this means in class.
Your group will also give a response to another group’s presentation. This is a minor task, as it only entails
making a brief comment or asking a question.
Just after midterm, your group will meet me in a seminar to talk about my presentations, when I will assess
whether you came prepared to discuss a couple of ideas I introduced.
The quiz at the end of the semester will be in-person and closed book, and is also designed to assess your
engagement with the substance of my presentations.
Finally, with your group you will summarise a text and then compare your summary with an AI summary
of the same text.
Course Requirements and Grading
1. Group seminar
10%
2. Group text summary & AI analysis
10%
3. Google Form responses (5x1)
5%
4. Essay
25%
5. Group presentation
25%
6. Group presentation response
5%
7. Quiz
10%
8. Attendance
10%
Course Materials
There are five course texts which are the basis of my presentations. Some are written, some are visual. They are
included in the Course Schedule below, underlined. They are all online and easily accessible, and when the semester
starts I will give you links to them (although you can find them yourselves in the meantime).
In addition, your group presentation will be based on another text. I will provide a list of options from which you
can choose, and these texts range from academic articles to documentaries to movies, and more.
Course Schedule
The following schedule is tentative, and may be modified as necessary:
Week 1: Mar 3 – 7
Syllabus
(Mar 3 – Substitute Holiday for March
1st/Independence Day)
Avoiding plagiarism
(Mar 5 – 7: Course Add/Drop)
Citing sources
Your favorite media experience
Analyzing sample essays
Reading for Week 2: Raymond Williams –
Media (in Keywords)
Week 2: Mar 10 – 14
1-2-minute contributions on your favorite
media experiences begin
Presentation 1: What are Media?
Introduction to AI summarisation
Reading for Week 3: Noah Smith – The Third
Magic
Optional outside-class essay consultations
begin
Week 3: Mar 17 – 21
Presentation 2: Media and AI
(Sept 16-18: Chuseok)
Reading for Week 4: John Berger – Ways of
Seeing Episode 1
Week 4: Mar 24 – 28
Presentation 3: Media Modalities
Group summarisation work begins
Week 5: Mar 31 – Apr 4
(Oct 3: Foundation Day)
Reading for Week 6: Robert W. McChesney –
'Journalism, Democracy, ... and Class
Struggle'
Group work continues
Week 6: Apr 7 – 11
Presentation 4: Media and Power
(Oct 9: Hangeul Day)
Group work continues
Reading for Week 7: Plastic Pills –
'Hyperreality: The Philosophy of "The
Bachelor"'
Week 7: Apr 14 – 18
Presentation 5: Media Consumer-Producers
Summary & AI analysis due
Student Presentation text options
Week 8: Apr 21 – 25
Mid-term
Week 9: Apr 28 – May 2
Essay due
(May 1 – International Workers’ Day)
Presentations recap
Bad and Good Presentations
Group presentation work begins
Group Seminars begin
Week 10: May 5 – 9
Group work continues
(May 5 – Buddha’s Birthday)
Presentation guidelines
(May 6 – International Children’s Day)
Week 11: May 12 – 16
Group work continues
Week 12: May 19 – 23
Presentations
Week 13: May 26 – 30
Presentations
Week 14: Jun 2 – 6
Presentations
(June 6 – Memorial Day)
Week 15: Jun 9 – 13
Presentations
Week 16: Jun 16 – 20
Quiz
0
