MMC9001—COMMUNICATION THEORY I, FALL 2010
Thursdays: 5:00-7:30pm, AH301
Dr. Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Annenberg Hall, Room 341, 215-204-2077
OFFICE HOURS: Tuesdays 9:30-11:00 and Thursdays 3:30-5:00 (or e-mail for an appointment)
E-mail: fabienne.darling-wolf@temple.edu
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This class provides an overview of various theoretical frameworks that have served as foundations for and shaped
the development of communication research.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the semester, students should understand the role of theory in scholarship, be able to identify and describe
the principal theoretical approaches used in mass communication research, and be able to formulate and present ideas
using accepted scholarly conventions.
TEXTS
The readings for this class will be posted on blackboard. Most of the assigned readings are considered classic texts that
have influenced social science research. Some are included as examples of application of the theories discussed. A list of
suggested supplementary texts that provide context and interpretation is also included below.
GRADING
1. Class presentation: 10% of final grade
A presentation and discussion of an article, book chapter, or other materials relating to course topics but
NOT on the reading list.
2. Article analysis: 15% of final grade
A 4- to 5-page critique of an article selected from a scholarly communication journal assessing the work’s
use of theory.
3. Literature review: 40% of final grade
A 15- to 20-page review of literature on a communication topic of your choice. This review should include
at least 25 references and serve as a context for further inquiry.
4. Final take home essay: 25% of final grade
5. Course participation (including online discussions of readings): 10% of final grade
Instructor will keep all works not returned to students during the course of the class for a period of one year after the
end of the semester
GRADING SCALE AND STANDARDS
A
AB+
= 93-100%
= 90-92
= 87-89
B
BC+
= 83-86
= 80-82
= 77-79
C
CF
= 73-76
= 70-72
= 59% and below
What these grades mean: An A means your work is outstanding. A work goes above and beyond expectations and
shows an astute intellect. B work is better than average and demonstrates excellent effort and satisfactory
understanding of coursework. B- work meets expectations and demonstrates a general understanding of material
and an average effort. Graduate school standards indicate that a C represents seriously flawed work. This might
mean a misunderstanding of fundamental concepts, presenting them unacceptably in writing, and/or a lack of
constructive participation in class discussion. A D cannot be assigned in graduate course. An F illustrates a failure
to adhere to policies of academic honesty.
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CLASS POLICIES
Attendance and participation
Students are expected to do the assigned reading before the corresponding class session, to attend all class sessions
and to participate actively in discussions.
Punctuality
Class will begin and end on time. You are expected to be in class on time.
Disabilities
We want all students to participate fully in class activities, but we need your assistance. If you have a condition that
compromises your ability to complete the requirements of this course, please notify the instructor. All reasonable efforts
will be made to accommodate your needs. Temple University's Office of Disability Resources and Services coordinates
accommodations for students with documented disabilities. Contact information: http://www.temple.edu/disability/ or 215204-1280.
Academic rights and responsibility
Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The university has recently adopted a
policy on students and faculty academic rights and responsibilities (policy #03.70.02) which can be accessed through the
following link: hhtp://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp?policy no=03.70.02
ACADEMIC HONESTY AND PLAGIARISM
Any violations of the norms of academic integrity will be penalized. Some guidelines on plagiarism are included below;
please consult the Graduate Bulletin or the MMC website for further details.
Academic cheating is, generally, the thwarting or breaking of the general rules of academic work or the specific rules of
the individual courses. It includes falsifying data; submitting, without the instructor's approval, work in one course which
was done for another; helping others to plagiarize or cheat from one's own or another's work; or actually doing the work of
another person.
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another person's labor: another person's ideas, words, or assistance.
There are many forms of plagiarism: repeating another person's sentence as your own, adopting a particularly apt phrase
as your own, paraphrasing someone else's argument as your own, or even presenting someone else's line of thinking in
the development of a thesis as though it were your own. . . . It is perfectly acceptable to [use the ideas and words of other
people], but we must never submit someone else's work as if it were our own, without giving appropriate credit to the
originator.
In general, all sources must be identified as clearly, accurately, and thoroughly as possible. When in doubt about
whether to identify a source, either cite the source or consult your instructor. Here are some specific guidelines to
follow:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Quotations. Whenever you use a phrase, sentence, or longer passage written (or spoken) by someone else,
you must enclose the words in quotation marks and indicate the exact source of the material, including the
page number of written sources.
Paraphrasing. Avoid closely paraphrasing another's words. Substituting an occasional synonym, leaving out
or adding an occasional modifier, rearranging the grammar slightly, or changing the tenses of verbs simply
looks like sloppy copying. Good paraphrasing indicates that you have absorbed the material and are restating
it in a way that contributes to your overall argument. It is best to either quote the material directly, using
quotation marks, or put the ideas completely in your own words. In either case, acknowledgment is necessary.
Remember: expressing someone else's ideas in your own way does not make them yours.
Facts. In a paper, you will often use facts that you have gotten from a lecture, a written work, or some other
source. If the facts are well known, it is usually not necessary to provide a source. (In a paper on American
history, for example, it would not ordinarily be necessary to give a source for the statement that the Civil War
began in 1861 after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.) But if the facts are not widely known or if the facts
were developed or presented by a specific source, then you should identify that source.
Ideas. If you use an idea or ideas that you learned from a lecture, written work, or some other source, then you
should identify the source. You should identify the source for an idea whether or not you agree with the idea. It
does not become your original idea just because you agree with it.
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CALENDAR (subject to change)
9/2
Introduction and overview
9/9
Communication theory: Reviewing the literature
Read
o Littlejohn, S. W. (2002). “Communication theory and scholarship” and “Theory in the process of
inquiry.” In Theories of Human Communication (6th ed.) (pp. 2-33). Belmont, CA Wadsworth.
o Chaffee, S. H., & Berger, C. R. (1987). What communication scientists do. In Handbook of
Communication Science (pp. 99-122). Newbury Park, CA Sage.
o Mills, C. W. (1999). The sociological imagination. In Charles Lemert (Ed.). Social Theory: The
Multicultural and Classic Readings (pp. 348-52). Boulder: Westview. (Original work published
1959)
o Hardt, H. (1992). Preface and acknowledgments. In Critical Communication Studies:
Communication, History and Theory in America (pp. ix-xvii). London: Routledge.
9/16
Models of communication, information theory
Read
o Schramm, W. (1955). Information theory and mass communication. Journalism Quarterly,
32(2), 131-46.
o Weaver, W. (1968). The mathematics of communication. In Mathematics in the Modern World:
Readings from Scientific American (pp. 313-317). San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and
Company. (Original work published 1949)
o Weiner, N. (1950). Cybernetics and society. In The Human Use of Human Beings (pp. 15-27).
New York: Houghton-Mifflin.
9/23
Sociological approaches, symbolic interactionism, social constructivism, Chicago School
Read
o Blumer, H. (1972). Symbolic interaction: An approach to human communication. In R. W.
Budd and B. D. Ruben (Eds.), Approaches to Human Communication (pp. 401-419). New York:
Spartan.
o Dewey, J. (1927). Search of the public. In The public and its problems, Chapter 1.
o Mead, G. H. (1934). Thought, communication and the significant symbol. In Mind, self, and
society (pp. 68-75). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
o Habermas, J. (1962/1996). Introduction: Preliminary demarcation of a type of Bourgeois
public sphere (pp. 1-26). In The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
o Lippman, W. (1925). The disenchanted Man. In The Phantom Public, pp. 37-42.
9/30
Structuralism, functionalism, semiotics
Read
o Lasswell, H. D. (1971). The structure and function of communication in society. In Wilbur
Schramm and Donald F. Roberts (Eds.), The Process and Effects of Mass Communication (pp. 8499). Urbana: University of Illinois. (Original work published 1948)
o Lazarsfeld, P. F., & Merton, R. K. (1971). Mass communication, popular taste, and organized
social action. In Wilbur Schramm and Donald F. Roberts (Eds.), The Process and Effects of
Mass Communication (pp. 554-578). Urbana: University of Illinois. (Original work published
1948)
o Levi-Strauss, C. (1963). Structural analysis in linguistics and in anthropology. In Structural
Anthropology (pp. 31-54). New York: Basic Books. [skim]
o Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. (1967). On the concept of function in social science. In Gloria B.
Levitas (Ed.), Culture and Consciousness: Perspectives in the Social Sciences (pp. 124-134).
New York: George Braziller. (Original work published 1953)
4
o
o
o
o
deSaussure, Ferdinand. (1959). Nature of the linguistic sign. (Wade Baskin, Trans.) In C.
Bally and A. Sechehaye in collaboration with A. Riedlinger (Eds.), Course in General
Linguistics (pp. 65-70). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Original work published 1915) [skim]
deSaussure, Ferdinand. (1959). Immutability and mutability of the sign. (Wade Baskin, Trans.) In
C. Bally and A. Sechehaye in collaboration with A. Riedlinger (Eds.), Course in General Linguistics
(pp. 71-78). New York: McGraw-Hill. (Original work published 1915) [skim]
Barthes, R. (1968). Elements of semiology (pp. 9-12, 35-57). (A. Lavers and C. Smith, Trans.)
New York: Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1964)
Barthes, R. (1972). Myth today. In Mythologies (pp. 109-159). New York: Hill and Wang.
10/7
Persuasion, propaganda, cognitive models, Columbia school
o Lasswell, H. D. (1938). The matter in hand. In Propaganda Technique in the World War (pp. 118). New York: Peter Smith.
o Katz, E., & and Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Between media and mass. In Personal Influence: The
Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (pp. 15-30). Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
o Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Introduction. In Communication and
Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change (pp. 1-18). New Haven: Yale.
Bandura, A. (1977). Theoretical perspective. In Social Learning Theory (pp. 2-13). Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
10/14
Technological determinism/Toronto School
o Innis, H. A. (1951). The bias of communication. In The Bias of Communication (pp. 33-60).
Toronto: University of Toronto.
o McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man (pp. 23-35). New York: McGrawHill.
o Marcuse, Herbert. (1998). Some social implications of modern technology. In D. Kellner (Ed.),
Technology, War and Fascism: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Vol 1 (pp. 41-65).
London: Routledge. (Original work published 1941).
10/21
Roots of critical theory/Frankfurt School/political economy
o Marx, K. (1970). Class and class struggle. In David Caute (Ed.), Essential Writings of Karl Marx
(pp. 63-91). New York: Collier. (Original works published 1844-1867)
o Williams, R. (1980). Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory. In Problems in
Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (pp. 31-49). London: Verso.
o Horkheimer, M., & and Adorno, T. W. (1972). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass
deception. In Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 120-167). New York: Herder and Herder. (Original
work published 1944)
o Benjamin, W. (1968). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Illuminations (pp.
364-88). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. (Original work published 1955)
o Grossberg, L. (1984). Strategies of Marxist cultural interpretation. Critical Studies in Mass
Communication, 1(1), 392-421.
o Horne, J. (2005). Sport and the mass media in Japan. Sociology of Sport Journal, 1 : 415432.
10/28
Cultural studies, phenomenology
o Schutz, A. (1967). Some basic problems of interpretive sociology. In The Phenomenology of the
Social World (pp. 215-20). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (Original work
published 1932).
o Hardt, H. (1992). On understanding hegemony: Cultural studies and the recovery of the critical.
In Critical Communication Studies: Communication, History and Theory in America (pp. 173-216).
London: Routledge.
o Carey, J. W. (1983). The origins of the radical discourse on cultural studies in the United
States. Journal of Communication 33(3), 311-13.
o Hall, S. (1993). Cultural studies: Two paradigms. In Richard Collins et al. (Eds.), Media,
Culture and Society: A Reader (pp. 33-48). London: Sage.
5
o
o
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall et al. (Eds.), Working papers in cultural
studies, 1972-1979 (pp. 128-138).
Kellner, D. (2006). Cultural studies, media spectacle, and election 2004. InterAction: UCLA
Journal of Education and Information Studies, 2(1): 1-16.
Article critique due today
11/4
Feminist theory
o De Beauvoir, S. (1952/1989). The point of view of historical materialism & Childhood. In The
Second Sex (pp. 53-69/267-327).
o Friedan, B. (1963). The happy housewife heroine. In The Feminine Mystique (pp. 33-68). New
York: W.W. Norton and Co.
o Tuchman, G. (1978). Introduction: The symbolic annihilation of women by the mass media. In
G. Tuchman, A. Kaplan Daniels and J. Benet (Eds.), Hearth and Home: Images of Women in
the Mass Media (pp. 3-38). New York Oxford.
o Radway, J. (1984). Introduction. In Reading the Romance (pp. 3-18). Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina.
11/11
Cultural imperialism/globalization
o Dorfman, A., & Mattelart, A. (1975). How to read Donald Duck: Imperialist ideology in the Disney
comic (pp. 27-32, 48-60). New York: International General. (Original work published 1971)
o Wallerstein, I. (1974). Theoretical reprise. The Modern World-System I (pp. 347-57). San
Diego: Academic Press.
o Schiller, H. I. (1976). Cultural domination: Sources, context and current styles. In Communication
and Cultural Domination (pp. 5-23). White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
o Water, M. (1995). Globalization (pp. 1-10). London: Routledge.
o Robertson, R. (1992). Mapping the global condition (pp. 49-60). In Globalization: Social theory
and global culture, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
o Galtung, J. (1971). A structural theory of imperialism. Journal of Peace Research, 8(2), 81-117.
11/18
From globalization to hybridity
o Appadurai, A. (1996). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In Modernity
at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization (pp. 27-47). Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
o Tomlinson, J. (1991). Media imperialism. In Cultural imperialism (pp. 34-67). Baltimore: John
Hopkins University Press.
o Garcia Canclini, N. (1995). Entrance & Hybrid cultures, oblique powers. In Hybrid Cultures:
Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity (pp. 1-11/206-263). (C. L. Chippari and S. L. Lopez,
Trans.) Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
o Kraidy, M. (2002). Hybridity in cultural globalization. Communication Theory, 12(3), 316-339.
11/25
Thanksgiving: No class (enjoy)
12/2
Postmodernism
o Harvey, D. (1990). Postmodernism. In The Condition of Postmodernity (pp. 39-65). Oxford:
Blackwell.
o Baudrillard, J. (1994). The precession of simulacra. In J. Storey (Ed.), Cultural Theory and
Popular Culture: A Reader (pp. 361-68). New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. (Original work
published 1983)
Literature review is due today
Final essay is distributed
Final essay is due in my mailbox by 5:00pm, Thursday, December 9, 2010
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Supplementary readings
Berger, C. R., & Chaffee, S. H., Eds. (1987). Handbook of communication science. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Craig, R. T. (1999). Communication theory as a field. Communication Theory, 9, 119-161.
Dance, F. E. X., Ed. (1967). Human Communication Theory: Comparative Essays. New York: Harper & Row.
Delia, J. G. (1987). Communication research: A history. In Berger, C. R., & Chaffee, S. H. (Eds.), Handbook of
communication science (pp. 20-98). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Gurevitch, M. (1993). The future of the field I. Journal of Communication, 43(3).
Hardt, H. (1992). Critical Communication Studies: Communication, History and Theory in America. London:
Routledge.
Katz, E., Peters, J. D., Liebes, T., & Orloff, A. (2003). Canonic texts in media research: Are there any? Should
there be? How about these? Cambridge: Polity.
Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
(Original work published 1962)
Littlejohn, S. W., & Foss, K. (2005). Theories of Human Communication (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Littlejohn, S. W. (1982). An overview of contributions to human communication theory from other disciplines.
In F. E. X. Dance (Ed.), Human Communication Theory: Comparative Essays (pp. 243-285). New York:
Harper & Row.
Livingstone, S. M. (1993). The future of the field II. Journal of Communication, 43(4).
McQuail, D. (2000). McQuail's Mass Communication Theory (4th ed.). London: Sage.
Reynolds, P. D. A primer in theory construction. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1971.
Rogers, E. M. (1994). A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach. New York: The Free Press.
Rogers, E. M. (1985). The empirical and critical schools of communication research. In E. M. Rogers and F. Balle
(Eds.), The media revolution in America and Western Europe (pp. 219-235). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., & Piele, L. J. (2005). Communication research: Strategies and sources (6th ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Various editors. Communication theory. Quarterly journal published by Sage since 1990.