CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 1
CUST 2035Y - A
Media and Society
Fall/Winter 2012-2013
Cultural Studies Department
Trent University
Lecture: Monday, 13:00-13:50, CC 307
Course Director: Dr. Matthew Flisfeder
Email: TBD
Office: TBD
Office Hours: TBD
Section
Tutorial 01
Tutorial 02
Tutorial 03
Tutorial 04
Tutorial 05
Day
Monday
Wednesday
Wednesday
Monday
Monday
Time
1900-1950
1400-1450
1300-1350
1700-1750
1800-1850
Location
Crawford 102
SC W3
SC W3
Crawford 102
Crawford 102
Tutorial Leader
Course Description and Learning Outcomes:
This course serves as an introduction to the history, theory, and critical
interpretation of contemporary mass-communicated culture, both as an overall
formation and with reference to such specific elements as the newspaper press,
advertising, network TV and recorded popular music.
Students in this course will have the opportunity to build upon their knowledge of
the social and cultural approaches to Media Studies as they have developed and
emerged historically. Students will expand their knowledge and understanding of
idealist theories of the media, technological determinism, historical and cultural
materialism, critical theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, cultural studies,
political economy, and postmodernism.
The course is structured in a way that will help students to understand, not only the
central ideas in the history and theory of the media; also, students will learn about
the central debates between different theoretical approaches in media studies.
Required Textbooks:
Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, Media and Cultural Studies:
Keyworks Revised Edition (Blackwell, 2012). (MCS)
Course Reading Package (RP)
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 2
Assignments and Evaluation:
*All written assignments are due at the beginning of lecture, not in tutorial.
Journal Assignment
Midterm Take-Home Exam
Research Essay
Final Exam
Participation
20%
25%
20%
25%
10%
November 19th, 2012
January 7th, 2013
March 18th, 2013
TBA
Cumulative
Guidelines for Written Assignments
All writing assignments must be double-spaced, in 12pnt Times New Roman font,
with page numbers. Margins must be set at 1.25”. Please ensure that your name
is on the first page of each written assignment. Bibliographies or works cited should
appear on a new page at the end of your work. Use an MLA style guide for all
written assignments. All written assignments must have a title (be creative). Do
not use a title page. Your name, student number, and title at the top of your work
will suffice. All pages must be stapled; assignments bound by a paper clip or
folder will not be accepted.
Journal Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is to help familiarize students with the process of
doing academic research in Media Studies. This project has two parts.
For this assignment, students will find five different academic/scholarly journals
that are relevant to Media Studies. Students will then provide a short description of
the focus and scope of each journal, linking it to particular theoretical approaches to
Media Studies. For example, students should discuss whether the journal is geared
more towards Political Economy or Cultural Studies, and be able to explain why they
feel that this is so.
The second part of this assignment requires students to find one article from each of
the five journals that takes up a topic of their choice in Media Studies. Each of the
five journal articles must be related to the same topic. Therefore, you should decide
which topic you would like to focus on before you begin searching for journal
articles. Students must then write an annotated bibliography, describing the main
argument/thesis of each article and explain how it relates to their topic.
Length: Aprox. 4-5 pages
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 3
Research Essay
A list of topics and further instructions will be distributed during Week 13.
Midterm Take-Home Exam
Students will be given a list of questions at the end of class on Week 12 to complete
over the Winter Break. You will be given a set of 5 questions. You must select and
respond to 3 of the assigned questions. Answers must be written in proper essay
format. The midterm exam is due at the beginning of class on Week 13, after the
Winter Break.
Final Exam
The Final exam is cumulative and covers material from the entire course. Format:
TBD
Participation
You are expected to attend classes (both lecture and tutorial) regularly, and be
prepared to make informed contributions to class discussions, having completed
assigned readings prior to the classes for which they are assigned. Participation is
also based upon timely and appropriate submission of assignments and appreciable
endeavours to improve academic and learning skills. This mark does not include
attendance, however, poor attendance will result in a lower participation mark.
Your participation mark is divided by term, i.e., 5% for the Fall and 5% for the
Winter.
Policy on Late Assignments
Late assignments will be deducted one mark per day (off of your final grade).
Digital copies of your assignments may be submitted for a time/date stamp only.
Hard copies must still be submitted in addition to the submission of a digital copy.
A hard copy of your assignment is required for grading and must be submitted
no later than one week following the submission of a digital copy.
Late assignments will not be accepted one week after the scheduled due date
(unless there is a legitimate reason, which will require official documentation).
Extensions: If you feel that you might need an extension on an assignment, please
speak with me, or your TA, at least one week prior to the assignment deadline.
Granting of extensions is solely at the discretion of Dr. Flisfeder, and only if, after
speaking with me, I feel that your reason for needing an extension is justified.
Otherwise, extensions will be granted only under extenuating circumstances, in
which case official documentation will be required in order to justify the submission
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 4
of a late paper. Extensions will not be granted on the due date, or after the deadline
has already passed.
EMAIL
Dr. Flisfeder will only respond to email on regular weekdays, before 5pm. Please
review the course outline before asking questions by email. I will not respond to
email questions if the answers can easily be found in course materials. Please
keep emails short. A long email indicates that it might be a better idea to make an
appointment to see me during my office hours. I will not respond to mark/grade
inquiries by email.
Weekly Schedule
Week of September 10th, 2012
Course Introductions
Week of September 17th, 2012
Approaches to Media and Cultural Studies
Readings:
Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, “Adventures in Media and
Cultural Studies: Introducing the Keyworks” (MCS)
Week of September 24th, 2012
The ‘Toronto School’ and The Biases of Media Form
Readings:
Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message” (MCS)
Harold Innis, “The Bias of Communication” (RP)
Week of October 1st, 2012
Technological Determinism
Readings:
Neil Postman, “The Medium is the Metaphor” and “Typographic America”
(RP)
Screening: The Digital Nation (Rachel Dretzin, 2010)
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 5
NO CLASS/TUTORIALS WEEK OF OCTOBER 8th, 2012 (THANKSGIVING)
Week of October 15th, 2012
Cultural Materialism
Readings:
Raymond Williams, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory”
(MCS)
Raymond Williams, “The Technology and the Society” (RP)
Fall Reading Break (October 22nd-26th, 2012)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week of October 29th, 2012
The Critical Political Economy of the Media
Readings:
Dallas Smythe, “On the Audience Commodity” (MCS)
Nicholas Garnham, “Contribution to a Political Economy of Mass
Communication” (MCS)
Week of November 5th, 2012
Democracy and the Public Sphere
Readings:
Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article” (MCS)
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, “A Propaganda Model” (MCS)
Screening: Rich Media/Poor Democracy (Dir. Sut Jhally, 2003)
Week of November 12th, 2012
Ideology and Hegemony
Readings:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas”
(MCS)
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 6
Antonio Gramsci, “History of the Subaltern Classes; The Concept of Ideology;
and, Cultural Themes: Ideological Material” (MCS)
Dick Hebdige, “From Culture to Hegemony” (MCS)
Week of November 19th, 2012
Disciplinary Society and the State Ideological Apparatus
*Journal Assignment Due at the Beginning of Class
Readings:
Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (MCS)
Week of November 26th, 2012
Mass Culture and the Culture Industry
Readings:
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry:
Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (MCS)
Dick Hebdige, “Subculture: The Unnatural Break” (MCS)
Week of December 3rd, 2012
Technological Reproducibility of the Image… In the Digital Age?
*Distribution of Take-Home Exam Questions
Readings:
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
(MCS)
WINTER BREAK (December 6th, 2012-January 6th, 2013)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 7
Week of January 7th, 2013
Structuralism and Semiotics
*Midterm Take-Home Exam Due at the Beginning of Class
*Distribution of Essay Topics
Readings:
Roland Barthes, “Myth Today” and “Operation Margarine” (MCS)
Week of January 14th, 2013
Spectatorship and Subjectivity
Readings:
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (MCS)
Screening: The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (Dir. Sophie Fiennes, 2006)
Week of January 21st, 2013
Audience Research
Readings:
Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” (MCS)
Ien Ang, “On the Politics of Empirical Audience Research” (MCS)
Week of January 28th, 2013
Cultural Studies and Representation
Readings:
Paul Gilroy, “British Cultural Studies and the Pitfalls of Identity” (MCS)
Richard Dyer, “Stereotyping” (MCS)
Screening: Stuart Hall: Representation and the Media (Dir. Sut Jhally, 1997)
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 8
Week of February 4th, 2013
Representing Race and Gender
Readings:
Eileen R. Meehan, “Gendering the Commodity Audience: Critical Media
Research, Feminism, and Political Economy” (MCS)
Patricia Hill-Collins, “Booty Call: Sex, Violence, and Images of Black
Masculinity” (MCS)
Screening: bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation (Dir. Sut Jhally, 1997)
Week of February 11th, 2013
Advertising and The Spectacle
Readings:
Michael Schudson, “Advertising as Capitalist Realism” (RP)
Guy Debord, “The Commodity as Spectacle” (MCS)
Screening: No Logo (Dir. Sut Jhally, 2003)
Winter Reading Break (February 18th-22nd, 2013)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week of February 25th, 2013
Visual Culture in Urban Space
Readings:
Anne Friedberg, “The Mobile and Virtual Gaze of Modernity” (RP)
Walter Benjamin, “Paris: Capital of the 19th Century” (RP)
Week of March 4th, 2013
Society of Control
Readings:
Herbert Marcuse, “The New Forms of Control” (RP)
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Biopolitical Production” (RP)
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 9
Week of March 11th, 2013
Postmodernism and the Information Society
Readings:
Mark Poster, “Postmodern Virtualities” (MCS)
Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra” (MCS)
Week of March 18th, 2013
Globalization and the Internet
Readings:
Joseph Straubhaar, “(Re)Asserting National Television and National Identity
Against the Global, Regional, and Local Levels of World Television” (MCS)
Richard Kahn and Douglas M. Kellner, “Oppositional Politics and the Internet:
A Critical/Reconstructive Approach” (MCS)
Week of March 25th, 2013
Web 2.0: Alternative and Social Media
*Research Essays Due at the Beginning of Class
Readings:
Leah A. Lievrouw, “Alternative and Activist New Media: A Genre Framework”
(MCS)
D.M. Boyd and N. B. Nelson, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and
Scholarship” (MCS)
Class 23 (April 1st, 2013): Final Exam Review
Academic Integrity Policy
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely
serious academic offence and carries penalties varying from a 0 grade on an
assignment to expulsion from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures
for dealing with plagiarism and cheating are set out in Trent University’s Academic
Integrity Policy. You have a responsibility to educate yourself – unfamiliarity with
the policy is not an excuse. You are strongly encouraged to visit Trent’s Academic
Integrity website to learn more: www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity.
CUST 2035Y Flisfeder 10
Access to Instruction Policy
It is Trent University's intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a
student has a disability and/or health consideration and feels that he/she may need
accommodations to succeed in this course, the student should contact the Disability
Services Office (BH Suite 132, 748-1281, disabilityservices@trentu.ca), for Trent
University in Oshawa, contact 905-435-5100 as soon as possible. Complete text can
be found under Access to Instruction in the Academic Calendar page 14.