Communication
Communication Courses
For course descriptions not found in the 2005-2006 General
Catalog, please contact the department for more information.
Lower-Division
General Communication
COGN 20. Introduction to Communication (4) An
historical introduction to the development of the means of human
communication, from language and early symbols through the introduction
of writing, printing, and electronic media, to todays digital
and multimedia revolution. Examines the effect of communications
media on human activity, and the historical forces that shape
their development and use. Offered fall and spring quarters.
COGN 21. Methods of Media Production (4) This
course explores fundamental technical and social constraints shaping
media production: light, optics, electricity, news media technology,
camera techniques, basic editing languages, and aesthetic standards
affecting production decisions. Satisfactory completion of COGN
21 is required to obtain a media card. Offered winter
and spring quarters.
Upper-Division
Communication as a Social Force
COSF 100. Introduction to Communication as a Social Force
(4) A critical overview of areas of macro
communication and analysis, with special emphasis on the development
of communication institutions, including broadcasting, common
carriers, and information industries. Questions regarding power,
ideology, and the public interest are addressed. Prerequisite:
COGN 20. Offered fall quarter.
COSF 123. Communication, Dissent, and Social Movements
(4) Emergence of dissent in different societies, and
the relationship of dissent to movements of protest and social
change. Movements
studied include media concentration, antiwar, antiglobalization,
death penalty, national liberation, and labor. Survey of dissenting
voices from Tolstoy and Naomi Klein seeking to explain the
relationship of ideas to collective action and its outcomes.
Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 125A-B. Civic Participation (4) What
are the sources of political apathy and political engagement?
What are the variety of ways Americans express civic involvement
and political concern? Primary focus will be on the contemporary
United States, but with substantial attention to comparative
and
historical perspectives. COSF 125B is a continuation of COSF
125A. This will be run as a research seminar. Students will write
library-based
or fieldwork-based empirical research papers of 25-40 pages. Prerequisites:
COSF 100 or consent of instructor for COSF 125A. COSF 125A and
instructor consent for COSF 125B.
COSF 126. The Information Age in Fact and Fiction (4) Analysis
of the forces propelling the Information Age. An examination
of the differential benefits and costs, and a discussion of the
presentation in the general media of the Information Age.
Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 127. The Internet Industry (4) The
political economy of the emergent Internet industry, charted
through analysis of its hardware, software, and services components.
The course specifies leading trends and changing institutional
outcomes by relating the Internet industry to the adjoining
media, telecommunications, and computer industries. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 128. Cultural Industries (4) We
examine how people interact with products of popular culture,
production of cultural goods by looking at conditions in cultural
industries. We examine film, music, publishing, focusing on
how production is organized, what kind of working conditions
arise, how products are distributed. Prerequisites: COSF
100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 132. History of U.S. Political Communication (4) Survey
of the history of political communication in the United States
from the colonial period to the present. Students will
work on term papers in which they will undertake original historical
research. Prerequisites: COSF 100, communication major.
COSF 134. Communication, Politics, and Citizenship in America
(4) (Formerly COCU 134.) Selected topics,
both historical and contemporary, on the public sphere, political
participation, and the meaning of citizenship. Topics may include:
voting practices, the role of political parties, social and cultural
dimensions of citizenship, and shifts in public understanding
of what counts as political. The course may require
five to ten hours of internship work, arranged through the AIP
office. See instructor for further information. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 139A-B. Law, Communication, and Freedom of Expression
(4-4) An examination of the legal framework
of the freedom of expression in the United States. 139A covers
the fundamentals of First Amendment law through the consideration
of key cases in historical context. Prior restraint, incitement,
obscenity, libel, fighting words, public forum, commercial speech,
and hate speech are some of the topics covered. 139B focuses on
the law of mass communication, examining the different legal treatments
accorded print, broadcasting, cable, and common carriers. The
decline of broadcast regulation, the breakup of AT&T, the
rise of new forms of mass communication, and the question of the
public interest are of central concern. Prerequisites: 139A-COSF
100 or PS 40 or consent of instructor. 139B-COSF 100 or PS 40,
COSF 139A preferred.
COSF 140B. Comparative Media Systems: Europe (4) The
development of media systems and policies in Europe. Differences
between European and American journalism. Debates over the commercialization
of television. The role of media in post-communist societies
in
Eastern Europe. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 140C. Comparative Media Systems: Latin America and the
Caribbean (4) The development of media systems
and policies in Latin America and the Caribbean. Debates over
dependency and cultural imperialism. The news media and the process
of democratization. Development of the regional television industry.
Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 14CXL. Foreign Language Discussion (1) Students
will exercise advanced foreign language skills to discuss materials
and the correspondingly numbered communication language foreign
area course. This section is taught by the course instructor,
has no final exam, and does not affect the grade in the core course,
COSF 140C. Prerequisite: concurrent enrollment in COSF 140C.
COSF 141. History of U.S. Telecommunications (4) This
course provides a sustained historical focus on the developing
social form and industry structure of U.S. telecommunications,
beginning with the Post Office. Policy issues are regularly incorporated
into readings and discussions. Emphasis is placed on the emergence,
around the turn of the century, of the regulated, national telephone
network system dominated by AT&T and its extension. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 159. Work and Industry in the New Information Economy
(4) This course, a research seminar, examines
the evolution of the so-called new information economy and analyzes
the transformation of patterns of work and industrial organization.
Students will be expected to write a research paper, typically
on some aspect of the new economy in the San Diego-Tijuana region. Prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of instructor.
COSF 160. Political Economy/Global Consumer Culture (4) This
course critically examines social and economic forces that
shape the making of this new global consumer culture by following
the flows of consumption and production between the developed
and developing worlds in the 1990s. We will consider
how consumers, workers, and citizens participate in a new
globalized consumer culture that challenges older distinctions
between the First and the Third World.
In this course, we will focus on the flows between the U.S.,
Asia, Latin America. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent
of instructor.
COSF 161. Global Economy and National Identity (4) Examine
the interplay of globalization as a discourse and set of practices
focusing on free movement of commodities and ideas, nationalist
fragmentation marked by ethnic rivalry and identity conflict,
seeks to examine those places where dualism is most pronounced.
Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 167. Emerging Global High-Tech Regions: Labor and National
Development (4) This course will pose critical
questions about the nature of work, the role of labor unions,
and national development goals in high-tech regions in the 1980s,
1990s. Case studies will consist of a number of common issues
in the following regions from Silicon Valley to Asia, Europe,
and Latin America: How do these regions fit in the overall development
goals of different national economies? What terms of work predominate
in the global information economy? What is, and can
be the role of the organized labor within and across national
borders? What are the implications for labor rights? Prerequisite:
upper-division standing or consent of instructor.
COSF 171A. American News Media (4) (Same
as Soc 165A.) History, politics, social organization, and
ideology of the American news media. SF 171A surveys the development
of the news media as an institution, from earliest new newspapers
to modern mass news media. SF 171B deals with special topics,
including the nature of television news, and with methods
of news media research, and requires a research paper. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 for COSF 171A; COSF 171A is required for COSF 171B.
COSF 172. The Cultural Politics of Sport (4) Examine
sport as play, performance, competition, an arena where there
are politics, culture, power, identity struggles. Establishing
the social meanings of sport, we address: ethics, race, class,
nation, gender, body, science, technology, entertainment industries,
commerce, spectatorship, consumption, amateurism, professionalism.
Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 175. Advanced Topics in Communication: Social Force
(4) Specialized study in communication as
a social force with topics to be determined by the instructor
for any given quarter. Past topics include information as a commodity
and book publishing. May be repeated for credit three times. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 180. Political Economy of Mass Communications (4) The
social, legal, and economic forces affecting the evolution of
mass communications institutions and structure in the industrialized
world. The character and the dynamics of mass communications in
the United States today. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent
of instructor.
COSF 181. Political Economy of International Communications
(4) The character and forms of international
communications. Emerging structures of international communications.
The United States as the foremost international communicator.
Differential impacts of the free flow of information and the unequal
roles and needs of developed and developing economies in international
communications. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF 183. The Politics of World Music (4) What
is “world music?” How, where, and why did it
come into being? Is it a naturally occurring category of music?
What makes it distinct from other music? We critically examine
history of world music, analyzing how it is produced, circulated,
and consumed. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
COSF
184. The Mass Media and Politics in Africa (4) This
course will critically examine the role of the mass media in
Sub-Saharan Africa in the areas of colonial rule, nationalist
struggles, authoritarianism, and popular movements. It will
examine
general trends regionally and internationally, as well as individual
national cases, from the early twentieth century to the Internet
news services of the information age.
COSF 185. Gender, Labor,
and Culture in the Global Economy (4) Course
examines the ways in which women participate in the global
economy
as the producers of consumer products and
of cultural
goods like entertainment and information. It also examines
power as it relates to women’s labor in producing such
material and cultural goods. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or
consent of instructor.
COSF 186. Film Industry (4) A study
of the social organization of the film industry throughout its
history, addressing such questions as who makes films, by what
criteria, and for what audience. The changing relationships between
studios, producers, directors, writers, actors, editors, censors,
distributors, audience, and subject matter of the films will be
explored. Prerequisite: COSF 100 or consent of instructor.
Communication and Culture
COCU 100. Introduction to Communication and Culture (4) Processes
of communication shape and are shaped by the cultures within which
they occur. This course emphasizes the ways in which cultural
understandings are constructed and transmitted via the variety
of communication media available to members. A wide range of cultural
contexts are sampled, and the different ways that available communication
technologies (language, writing, electronic media) influence the
cultural organization of peoples lives are analyzed. Prerequisite:
COGN 20, or HDP 1, or consent of instructor. Offered winter quarter.
COCU 108. Visual Culture (4) How visual images contribute
to our understanding of the world and ourselves. Theoretical
approaches from media studies, art
history, gender studies, and social theory will be used to
analyze cultures of science, art, mass media, and everyday
life. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 110. Cinema in Latin America (4) Analysis
of the changing content and sociopolitical role in Latin America
of contemporary media, including the new cinema movement,
recent developments in film, and popular television programming,
including the telenovela. Examples drawn from Mexico, Brazil,
Cuba, and other countries. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent
of instructor.
COCU 120. The Problem of Voice (4) This
course will explore the problem of self-expression for members
of various ethnic and cultural groups. Of special interest is
how writers find ways of describing themselves in the face of
others sometimes overwhelming predilection to describe
them. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 123. Black Women Filmmakers (4) Students
examine film and video media produced by black women filmmakers
worldwide. This course will use readings from the writings of
the filmmakers themselves as well as from film studies, womens
studies, literature, sociology, and history. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 124. Documentary History and Theory (4) Lecture
and discussion course in the history of nonfiction film and video.
Through film and written texts we survey the nonfiction
film genre, considering technological innovations, ethical
issues, and formal movements related to these representations
of the “real.” Students write a research paper
in lieu of a final. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 125. How to Read a Film (4) The
purpose of this course is to increase our awareness of the
ways we commonly interpret or make understandings from movies
and to enrich and increase the means by which one can enjoy
and comprehend movies. We will talk about movies and we will
explore a range of methods and approaches to film interpretation.
Readings will emphasize major and diverse theorists, including:
Bazin, Eisenstein, Cavell, and Mulvey. Prerequisite: COCU
100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 126. African Cinema (4) Initiate
a higher level of film literacy, sharpening, generating thoughtful
criticism as it relates to world cinema, to foster a collaborative
sense of a film/media community at UCSD where barriers between
the filmmaker and audience are broken down and dialogue occurs.
Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 127. Folklore and Communication (4) Folklore
is an important variety of noncommercial communication in societies
dominated by commercial media. A source of alternative understandings,
folklore is characterized by particular styles, forms, and settings.
This course introduces a wide range of folklore genres from different
cultures and historical periods, including oral narrative, material
folk arts, dramas, and rituals. We will pay special attention
to the relation between expressive form and social context. Sources
include folklore texts, ethnographies, performances on film and
videotape, novels, autobiographies, and student observations and
experiences. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 128. Folklore and Mass Media (4) Local
personal, vernacular, and oral traditions coexist with and influence
the mass-produced, mass-mediated culture of the late twentieth
century. This course examines the history of this influence, using
materials such as oral histories, life stories, urban legends,
and soap operas to explore the conjunctions of folklore and commercially
produced entertainments in everyday social life. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 130. Tourism: Global Industry and Cultural Form (4) The
largest industry in the world has far-reaching cultural ramifications.
We will explore tourisms history and its contemporary cultural
effects, taking the perspective of the toured as well
as that of the tourist. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of
the instructor.
COCU 132. Gender and Media (4) This
course examines the work of women artists and the history of the
representation of women in the media, from the beginnings of cinema
to the present, and offers a basic introduction to feminist media
theory. It focuses on the representation of gender, and narrative
and experimental strategies used by women media makers, and the
role of the female spectator. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent
of the instructor.
COCU 135. Public Relations in Society (4) Using
modules, this course introduces students to public relations and
allows them to analyze its place in our increasingly complex society.
The three modules are designed and structured to go from an understanding
of what public relations is to allowing you the opportunity to
identify and analyze its role in society. Prerequisite: COCU
100 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 136. Concepts of Freedom (4) This
course examines some of the changing cultural, social, technological,
and political meanings, practices, and aspirations that together
constitute what is, and has been, called Freedom. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 137. The Politics of Bodies (4) This
course will explore the construction of gendered bodies and gendered
sexuality in the late twentieth century, postindustrial culture(s).
Through the use of fiction, film and theory as well as political,
historical and media analysis, we will examine the contested terrain,
including the race and class coding, of such issues as abortion,
infertility, eating disorders, gender identity, and AIDS. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 or Womens Studies 2A, B, or C.
COCU 138. Feminist Theory (4) This class
is designed to initiate students into the pleasures, pains, and
perplexities of critical thinking about gender. We will survey
a wide variety of thinkers and issues, consider some of the historical
as well as contemporary debates within western feminist thought,
and develop tools of analysis for future work. Prerequisite:
upper-division standing. Recommended: Womens Studies/Cultural
Traditions 2A, B, or C.
COCU 139. Reproductive Discourse and Gender (4) In
this course we will examine as a problem of discourse and culture
the controversies surrounding the development and use of the new
technologies of human genetics and reproduction. Of particular
interest will be the way in which these new technological practices
and processes test, erode, or undermine traditional understanding
of human nature and relationship while enforcing traditional
understanding of gender. Prerequisite: COCU 137 or Womens
Studies 2A, B, or C.
COCU 140. Television, Culture, and the Public (4) How
and what does television communicate? Emphasis will be on contemporary
U.S. television programming, placed in comparative and historical
context. Special topics may include: TV genres; TV and politics;
TV and other media. Frequent in-class screenings. Prerequisite:
COGN 20 or consent of the instructor.
COCU 141A. Media and Technology: Global Nature, Global
Culture (4) Considers globalization’s
impact on concepts of nature in and through media texts, information
systems, circulation
of consumer goods and services, the emergence of global brands,
science, health initiatives, environmental media activism, technology
transfer in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 or COCU 100 or COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU
141B. Media and Technology: Gender and Biomedicine (4) From
historical and cultural aspects of media, information, imaging
technology use in biomedical research, clinical care, health
communication to constructions of gender, and identity. We
approach the subject through audiovisual texts and writings
from fields
including science and technology studies and cultural studies.
Prerequisite: COSF 100 or COCU 100 or COHI 100 or consent
of instructor.
COCU 141C. Media and Technology: Disability
(4) Cultural and historical ways
of defining and understanding disability relative to communication
and assistive
technologies, including
the impact of digital technologies and the Americans with
Disabilities Act. Use of audiovisual texts and writings from
fields including
science and technology studies, and cultural studies. Prerequisite:
COSF 100 or COCU 100 or COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU
142. Holocaust Discourse (4) Legal, visual, historical,
cultural discourses and debates that contribute to represent
the Holocaust as a coherent and cohesive
event, and as a touchstone of moral and political discourse
in the U.S., entailing powerful stories about pluralism,
tolerance,
democracy, human rights, and justice. Prerequisite: COCU
100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 148. Communication and the Environment (4) Survey
of the communication practices found in environment controversies.
The sociological aspects of environmental issues will provide
background for the investigation of environmental disputes in
particular contested areas, such as scientific institutions, communities,
work-places, governments, popular culture, and the media. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 149. Youth, Culture and Media (4) The
interrelationship of youth and modern media in the American
century, youth culture and how it is closely tied to various
media, the 60s growth of rock culture and mass medias ambivalence
toward the young as social threats, and as a lucrative market
for pop products. Other topics include: violence, sex and gender
relations, ethnic subcultures, activism, advertising, video games,
and the Internet. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 162. Popular Culture (4) An overview
of the historical development of popular culture from the early
modern period to the present. Also a review of major theories
explaining how popular culture reflects and/or affects patterns
of social behavior. Prerequisite: COGN 20 and COCU 100 or consent
of instructor.
COCU 163. Popular Culture in Contemporary Life (4) Treats
the products of the modern culture industries and theories of
their social and political importance. We will look at a wide
range of cultural forms, including music, television, fashion,
food, and landscapes. Special attention will be paid to questions
of how popular culture is consumed, what it means to its audiences,
and to gender, racial and ethnic differences among producers and
consumers. Prerequisite: upper-division standing.
COCU 164. Problems in Media Representation (4) Using
films, television, documents, and photographs, the course considers
these questions: How does media representation
of race, ethnicity, nation, gender, and class work? How is
social power and ideology embedded in these texts? How can
media function as a zone of public debate? The course draws
upon a range of critical cultural theory. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 165. History, Memory and
Popular Culture (4) What
role does popular culture play in shaping and creating our shared
memory of the past? The course examines diverse sources such
as
school text books, monuments, holidays and commemorations, museums,
films, music, and tourist attractions. Prerequisite: COCU 100
or consent of the instructor.
COCU 166. Cartoons (4) This class
relates cartoon programming for children to the history of western
childhood
and the contemporary American culture of the child. While other
classes may deal with the effects of television on children,
this
one is designed to encourage students to review the long-standing
western traditions of hope and fear associated with children
that
shape these concerns. Prerequisites: COGN 20 and COCU 100
or consent of the instructor.
COCU 170. Advertising and Society (4) Advertising
in historical and cross-cultural perspectives. Topics will include
the ideology and organization of the advertising industry; the
meaning of material goods and gifts in capitalist, socialist,
and nonindustrial societies; the natures of needs and desires
and whether advertising creates needs and desires; and approaches
to decoding the messages of advertising. Prerequisite: COCU
100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 175. Advanced Topics in Communication: Culture (4) Specialized
study in communication and culture with topics to be determined
by the instructor for any given quarter. Past topics include critical
theory, rituals and spectacles. May be repeated for credit three
times. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COCU 179. Colonialism and Culture (4) This
course examines colonial narratives, slave accounts, essays, and
stories by both colonizers and colonized. It also explores the
issue of nationalism in determining the limits of colonialism
among minority groups in the United States and in the Third World.
Prerequisite: upper-division standing.
COCU 182. Black Popular Music (4) Examine
black popular music as social practice, cultural product, historically.
African
American musical expressions, discussions
of race and intercultural exchange, power, social change, sound
and identity, music industry, black performance. Music making,
hearing, performance are examined. Prerequisite: COCU 100
or consent of instructor.
COCU 183. Popular Music, Social
Practices, and Cultural Politics (4) Focuses on popular
music as a social, aesthetic, historical, political formation.
Relationship between musical and extramusical
forces (institutions, communities, industries, identities)
will be examined. Music making, hearing, performance will
be engaged
as sites of expressive practice, cultural politics, social
identity. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
Communication and Human Information Processing
COHI 100. Introduction to Communication and the Individual
(4) An introduction to theories of human
mental processes which emphasizes the central role of mediation.
The course covers methods of research that permit the study of
mind in relation to different media and contexts of use. The traditional
notion of media effects is critically examined in a number of
important domains, including television, film, writing, and oral
language. Prerequisite: COGN 20 or HDP 1, or consent of instructor.
Offered spring quarter.
COHI 114. Bilingual Communication (4) This
course is designed to introduce students to the multiple settings
in which bilingualism is the mode of communication. Students
will
examine how such settings are socially constructed and culturally-based.
Readings on language policy, bilingual education, and linguistic
minorities, as well as field activities will constitute the bulk
of the course. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 115. Education and Global Citizenship (4) The
course introduces students to concepts, possibilities, and dilemmas
inherent in the notion of global citizenship. Students will formulate
goals and instructional strategies for global education and the
expected competence of an individual within a global societyable
to focus simultaneously upon many diverse elements, issues, and
contexts. It will examine the role that communication and curriculum
can play in the formation of identity, language use, and civic
responsibility of a global citizen. Prerequisite: COHI 100
or consent of instructor.
COHI 117. Language, Thought, and the Media (4) This
course examines the ways in which various communicative channels
mediate human action and thought. A basic premise of the course
is that human thought is shaped in important ways by the communicative
devices used to communicate. There is a particular emphasis on
how thought develops, both historically and in the individual.
Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 119. Learning to Read (4) This
course explores learning to read as a process involving individual,
cultural, and social resources. Reading difficulty is understood
as induced by lack of resources, such as access to books or access
to strategies for decoding, comprehension, and analysis of written
text. Activities of reading are taken as a basic context for understanding
patterns of chronic and pervasive reading difficulty in their
populations. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 120. Reading the Web (4) This
course explores how networked computing has helped change many
aspects of modern life, from how we manage illness to how we see
ourselves culturally. The focus of the class is the online venuehow
has the Web become part of daily life? What is different about
goods, services, and events that transpire online? What theories
of communication and social interaction are useful in understanding
online behavior? Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 121. Literacy, Social Organization, and the Individual
(4) This course will examine the historical
growth of literacy from its earliest precursors in the Near East.
The interrelation between literate technology and social organization
and the impact of literacy on the individual will be twin foci
of the course. Arriving at the modern era, the course will examine
such questions as the impediments to teaching reading and writing
skills to all normal children in technological societies and the
relation between literacy and national development in the Third
World. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or COCU 100 or HDP 1 or consent
of instructor.
COHI 123. Children and Media (4) A
course which analyzes the influence of media on childrens
lives. The course adopts an historical as well as social perspective
on childhood within which media plays a role. Among media studied
are books, films for children, video games, computer games, and
television. Prerequisite: COGN 20 or HDP 1 or consent of instructor.
COHI 124. Voice: Deaf People in America (4) The
relationship between small groups and dominant culture is studied
by exploring the world of deaf people who have for the past twenty
years begun to speak as a cultural group. Issues of language,
communication, slef-representation, and social structure are examined.
Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 125. Communication in Organizations (4) Organizations
are analyzed as historically-evolving discursive systems of activity
mediated by talk, text, and artifacts. The class covers sense
making, coordinating, symbolizing, talking, negotiating, reading
and writing, story-telling, joking, and visualizing in organizations.
Exemplary case studies, employing several complementary theoretical
frameworks, are used to analyze these communicative processes.
Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 126. Toys and the Material Life of Children (4) This
course reviews a history of toys and those used by children. Toys
will be studied from the view of their imagery and market popularity,
including dolls, action figures, blocks, trains, cars, computer
games, and educational toys. Students will analyze
the toy industry and its impact on childhood, leisure, and family
life. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 127. Biography and Life Stories (4) Course
examines several different ways of telling stories as a form
of communication: our own life and about the lives of
others. There are also the occasions that the life stories
of ordinary people are told at and celebrated: for example,
funerals, festschrifts, retirement dinners, fiftieth-anniversary
parties, and retrospective art shows. Prerequisite: COHI 100
or consent of instructor.
COHI 129. Borderlands (4) Communicative and
identity aspects of “marginality”—belonging
to more than one race, community, or nationality, and on the
literature about insiders and outsiders. Considers contemporary
race-critical and faminist theory, including cyborg anthropology,
the historical concept of race in America, and the problematics
of multiple memberships of various sorts. Prerequisite: COHI
100 or content of instructor. COHI 134. Language and Human Communication (4) This
course looks at the interaction of technology, culture, and language,
with a focus on narrative styles. Theories on the role of technology
in shaping and transforming talk are examined. Cultural properties
such as physical space and work traditions are studied as they
bear on styles of talking and talking about the world. Storytelling,
humor, and talk of children are used as examples of styles of
talking. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 135. Language and Globalization (4) The
interaction of language and culture in human communication. New
and old languages, standard and dialect, dominant and endangered,
are the special focus. Selected languages as examples of how
languages exist in contemporary contexts. Prerequisite:
COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 143. The Psychology of the Filmic Text (4) The
course will examine a variety of films using different perspectives
and methods of psychology to analyze the types of problems raised
by the nature of cinematic communication. Topics will include
an introduction to basic elements of cinematography, theoretical
and technical bases of films grammar, perception
of moving pictures, the function and status of sound, the influence
of film on behavior and culture (and vice versa), the representation
of psychological and social interaction, the communication of
narrative and spatial information formation, the generation and
translation of films conventions, and the parameters which
the medium and the culture impose upon the attempt to express
various forms of abstraction in the concrete visual language of
film. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of instructor.
COHI 175. Advanced Topics in Communication: Human Information
Processing (4) Specialized study in communication:
human information processing with topics to be determined by the
instructor for any given quarter. May be repeated for credit three
times. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent of the instructor.
Communication Media Methods
COMT 100. Nonlinear/Digital Editing (4) Prepare
students to edit on nonlinear editing facilities and introduce
aesthetic theories of editing: time code editing, time line
editing on the Media 100, digital storage and digitization
of audio and video, compression, resolution, and draft mode
editing. Prerequisites: communication majors, COGN 21.
COMT 101. Television Analysis and Production (6) An
introduction to the techniques and conventions common to the production
of news, discussion, and variety-format television programs. Particular
emphasis will be placed on the choice of camera point of
view and its influence on program content. Laboratory sessions
provide students the opportunity to experiment with production
elements influencing the interpretation of program content. Concentration
on lighting, camera movement, composition, and audio support.
Prerequisite: COGN 21 or consent of instructor.
COMT 102. Introduction to Media Use in Communication (4) Students
will engage in projects, using media, to address theories of communication.
Students can use film, video, computers, pen and paper, photography,
posters, or performances for their projects. Prerequisite:
COGN 20 and COGN 21.
COMT 103. Television Documentary (6) An
advanced television course which examines the history, form, and
function of the television documentary in American society. Experimentation
with documentary techniques and styles requires prior knowledge
of television or film production. Laboratory sessions apply theory
and methods in the documentary genre via technological process.
Integrates research, studio and field experience of various media
components. Prerequisite: COMT 101 or COGN 21 or consent of
instructor.
COMT 105. Media Stereotypes (4) An
examination of how the media present societys members and
activities in stereotypical formats. Reasons for and consequences
of this presentation are examined. Student responsibilities will
be: (a) participation in measurement and analysis of stereotype
presentations; (b) investigating techniques for assessing both
cognitive and behavioral effects of such scripted presentations
on the users of media. Course can be taken to meet COCU major
requirement. Prerequisite: COCU 100 or consent of instructor.
COMT 107. Internet Journalism (4) This
course focuses on writing for Internet publications and using
the Internet for research and hypertext bibliography. Students
will be required to learn and use a web-programming language.
News writing for the Internet will be compared to news writing
in other media, including print journalism. Prerequisite: communication
major, COGN 20 or consent of instructor.
>COMT 109. Digital Media Pedagogy (4) This
course teaches techniques for teaching digital media: such as
Word, Photoshop, PageMaker, digital cameras, digital video, non-linear
editing. What are the special challenges digital media present
to teachers and students? How do digital media compare to older
technologies such as typewriters, film cameras, and analog video?
How do gender, class, and age affect the way students and teachers
respond to digital media? At least six hours of fieldwork at a
computer lab of their choice or at Seiters project at Adams
Elementary will be required. Experience with computers and/or
digital imaging recommended. Prerequisite: communication majors
only.
COMT 110. News Media Workshop (4) Designed
for students working in student news organizations or off-campus
internships or jobs in news, public relations, or public information.
A workshop in news writing and news analysis. Prerequisite:
COCU 100 and COSF 171 (may be taken concurrently) or consent of
instructor.
COMT 111A-B. Communicating and Computers (4-4) This
course introduces students to computers as media of communication.
Each quarter students participate in a variety of networking activities
designed to show the interactive potential of the medium. Field
work designed to teach basic methods is combined with readings
designed to build a deeper theoretical understanding of computer-based
communication. Courses can be taken to meet COHI major requirement.
Prerequisite: COHI 100 and communication major or consent of
instructor.
COMT 112. Ethnographic Studies of the Media (4) This
is a practical course on ethnographic fieldworkobtaining
informed consent interviewing, negotiating, formulating a research
topic, finding relevant literature, writing a research paper,
and assisting others with their research. Course can be taken
to meet COHI major requirement. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent
of instructor.
COMT 115. Media and Design of Social Learning Contexts (6) (Same
as HDP 115). A combined lecture/lab course cross listed in Communication
and Human Development. Students attend lecture, write fieldnotes,
and spend 3 hours per week in specially designed afterschool settings
working with children and designing new educational media and
producing special projects. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or HDP 1.
COMT 116. Practicum in Child Development (6) (Same
as Psych 128, HDP 135.) A combined lecture and laboratory course
for juniors and seniors in psychology and communication. Students
should have a solid foundation in general psychology and communication
as human information processing. Students will be expected to
spend four hours a week in a supervised practical after-school
setting at one of the community field sites involving children.
Additional time will be devoted to readings and class prep, as
well as, six hours a week transcribing field notes and writing
a paper on some aspect of the field work experience as it relates
to class lectures and readings. Please note that the enrollment
size for each site/section is limited. See department course listing
for site/section descriptions. Prerequisite: COHI 100 or consent
of instructor.
COMT 120. Documentary Sketchbook (4) Digital
video is the medium used in this class both as a production
technology and as a device to explore the theory and practice
of documentary production. Technical demonstrations, lectures,
production exercises, and readings will emphasize the interrelation
between production values and ethics, problems of representation,
and documentary history. Prerequisite: COGN 21 or consent
of instructor.
COMT 121. Sound Production and Manipulation (4) Advanced
seminar in sound production, design, editing. Students create
projects by recording original sounds, editing on a Pro-Tools
system. We consider the potential of sound in film, radio,
TV, and the Web by reviewing work and reading sound theory.
Prerequisites: communication majors only and COGN 21.
COMT 122. Social Issues of Media Production (4) Analyze
forms of social issue media production, photography, audio/radio,
arts, crafts, Web, print zines, political
documentary. Students work with several forms of media
making: video, audio, Web design, and a project in their
chosen format. Prerequisite: COGN 21 or consent of instructor.
COMT 175. Advanced Topics in Communication, Media Methods
(4) Specialized practice in communication:
media methods with topics to be determined by the instructor in
any given quarter. May be repeated for credit three times. Prerequisite:
communication majors only.
General Communication
COGN 150. Senior Seminar in Communication (4) This
course examines in detail some topic in the field of communication,
bringing to bear several of the approaches and perspectives introduced
in the basic communication curriculum. Seminars will be limited
to 25 students and class participation is stressed. A research
paper is required. Prerequisite: senior standing or consent
of instructor.
COGN 175. Advanced Topics in Communication: General (2) Specialized
study in general communication with topics to be determined by
the instructor, for any given quarter. May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisite: must be taken with AIP 197.
COGN 191A-B. Honors Seminar in Communication (4) Preparation
of an honors thesis, which can be either a research paper or a
media production project. Open to students who have been admitted
to the honors program. Grades will be awarded upon completion
of the two-quarter sequence. Prerequisite: admission to the
honors program.
COGN 194. Research Seminar in Washington, D.C. (4) (Same
as PS 194, USP 194, Hist 193, SocE 194, Erth 194.) Course attached
to six-unit internship taken by students participating in the
UCDC program. Involves weekly seminar meetings with faculty and
teaching assistants and a substantial research paper. Prerequisite:
participation in UCDC program.
COGN 198. Directed Group Study in Communication (4) Directed
group study on a topic or in a field not included in the regular
curriculum by special arrangement with a faculty member. (P/NP
grades only.) May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisite:
consent of instructor.
COGN 199. Independent Study (4) Independent
study and research under the direction of a member of the staff.
(P/NP grades only.) Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Graduate
COGR 200A. Introduction to the Study of Communication as
Social Force (4) This course focuses on the
political economy of communication and the social organization
of key media institutions. There will be both descriptive and
analytical concerns. The descriptive concern will emphasize the
complex structure of communication industries and organizations,
both historically and cross-nationally. The analytic focus will
examine causal relationships between the economic and political
structure of societies, the character of their media institutions,
public opinion, and public attitudes and behaviors expressed in
patterns of voting, consuming, and public participation. The nature
of evidence and theoretical basis for such relationships will
be critically explored.
COGR 200B. Introduction to Study of Communication: Communication
and Culture (4) This course focuses on questions
of interpretation and meaning. This course will examine how people
use texts to interpret the world and coordinate their activities
in social groups. Students will study both theories of interpretation
in the conventional sense and theories about the act of interpreting.
COGR 200C. Introduction to the Study of Communication: Communication
and the Individual (4) This course will draw
on theorists who examine human nature as constituted by social,
material, and historical circumstances. This course considers
the media in relation to the ontogenetic and historical development
of the human being and an examination of the individual as socially
constituted in a language-using medium. The role of new communication
technologies as part of research methodologies is explored in
lecture-seminar.
COGR 201B. Ethnographic Methods for Communication Research
(4) A supervised and coordinated group project
will allow students to develop competence in a variety of ethnographic
approaches to communication. Subjects covered include choosing
a field-work site, setting or process for participation; entry
and development of relationships; techniques of observation,
interviewing,
notetaking, and transcription. Course may also include photography
and video as research tools. All participant observation and
interviewing
strategies fall under the review of the Committee on Human Subjects.
COGR 201C. Discourse Analysis (4) Review
and critique of studies employing discourse analysis, focusing
on the ways that discourse is identified, recorded,
and reported. A working notion of discourse will develop
from works representing diverse disciplinary approaches. Students
will record, transcribe, and report on segments of talk in an
everyday setting. All participant observation and interviewing
strategies fall under the review of the Committee on Human Subjects.
COGR 201D. Historical Methods for Communication Research
(4) Different approaches to conducting historical
research in communication. Such approaches may include the social
history of communication technology; structuralist and poststructuralist
accounts of language, media, and collective memory; and new historicist
treatments of cultural history. Sources, documentation, and the
nature of argument from historical evidence are emphasized.
COGR 201E. Political Economic Methods for Communication
Research (4) Combines methodological critique
of classic political-economic studies of communication agencies
and institutions with an in-depth research project. The project
serves to familiarize students with approaches to documentation
and to methodological issues associated with an overarching process
or trend, such as social effects of communications technologies,
economic concentration in the communications industry, the information
economy, transnationalization of networks, deregulation of telecommunications,
or causes and impacts of increasing television programming costs.
COGR 201H. Qualitative Methods in Audience Research (4) This
course explores the social and economic definitions of media audiences
and the various qualitative methodologies for studying media use.
Includes audiences for television, video, and motion pictures,
as well as users of telephones, computers, and electronic mail.
COGR 201I. Ethnography of Information Systems (4) This
course will survey the rapidly growing body of ethnographic analyses
of information systems, to extend the basic principles of ethnographic
research and to lead students in the development of projects modifying
these principles for the emerging electronic environment. Students
may approach the course in one (or both) of two wayseither
preparing for and carrying out a pilot ethnographic study or studying
the theoretical literature in depth.
COGR 201J. Comparative Analysis (4) The
logic of comparative analysis and its role in communication research.
Scientific inference in qualitative research. Selection of cases.
Problems of translation across cultures.
COGR 201K. Sociological Analysis (4) This course
will introduce students to selected sociological perspectives,
concepts, and methods for the study of mass communication.
It will explore the implications of taking social relations
and social institutions, rather than individuals or cultural
texts of discourses, as the chief units of analysis.
COGR 201L. Qualitative Analysis of Information Systems
(4) Historical and ethnographic studies
of information systems—the
design and use of information and communication technologies
in their social, ethical, political, and organizational dimensions.
Objects of study range from the invention of file folders to
email use and distributed databases as communication systems.
Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
COGR
201M. Content Analysis (4) History uses methodology
of quantitative analysis of media content. Includes conceptual
issues concerning the quantification of meaning
and practical procedures for coding and data analysis. Students
read examples of studies using content analysis and carry out
their own pilot analyses. Prerequisite: graduate standing or
consent of instructor.
COGR 210. Information and Society (4) The
social, legal, and economic forces affecting the evolution of
mass communication institutions and structure in the industrialized
world. Differential impacts of the free flow of information and
unequal roles and needs of developed and developing economies.
COGR 215. Regulation of Telecommunications (4) The
course will look at the history of, and rationales for, the regulation
of mass communications in the United States. The course will cover
both broadcasting and common carrier regulation. We will analyze
telecommunications regulatory structures as they were constituted
historically with the 1934 Communications Act and examine their
breakdown in the late 1970s. In a larger vein, the course will
examine the rise and functions of regulatory agencies in modern
American history.
COGR 220. The News Media (4) History,
politics, social organization, and ideology of the American news
media. Special attention will be paid to historical origins of
journalism as a profession and objective reporting
as ideology; empirical studies of print and TV journalism as social
institutions; news coverage of Vietnam and its implications for
theories of the news media.
COGR 222. Childhood and Culture (4) This
course explores the social construction of childhood as organized
by the institutions of school and family. Of particular interest
are media consumption and leisure as they interact with the emergence
of taste, preference, and identity in children. Modern adolescence
is also explored as it bears on the social nature of childhood.
COGR 225A. Introduction to Science Studies (4) Study
and discussion of classics work in history of science, sociology
of science, philosophy of science, and communication of science,
and of work that attempts to develop a unified science studies
approach. Required for all students in the Science Studies Program.
Prerequisite: enrollment in the Science Studies Program or
approval of instructor.
COGR 225B. Seminar in Science Studies (4) Study
and discussion of selected topics in the science studies field.
Required for all students in the Science Studies Program. Prerequisite:
enrollment in the Science Studies Program or approval of instructor.
COGR 225C. Colloquium in Science Studies (4) A
forum for the presentation and discussion of research in progress
in science studies, by graduate students, faculty, and visitors.
Required for all students in the Science Studies Program. Prerequisite:
enrollment in the Science Studies Program or approval of instructor.
COGR 225D. Advanced Approaches to Science Studies (4) Contemporary
themes and problems in science studies. Focus on recent literature
in the history, philosophy, and sociology of
science, technology, and medicine. Required of all students in
the Science Studies Program. Prerequisites: Completion of
COGR 225A, HIGR 238, PHIL 209A, or SOCG 255A; enrollment in Science
Studies Program or consent of instructor.
COGR 236. Popular Culture (4) This
class will be an opportunity for students to review major contributions
to the field from the disciplines of anthropology, history, literature,
sociology and American studies, and to experiment with some of
the recently developed methods for studying popular forms. They
will then be able to consider more precisely the potential and
actual contribution of studies of popular culture to the discipline
of communication.
COGR 238. The Frankfurt School on Mass Culture Social Theory
(4) This reading seminar will consider works by Frankfurt School
theorists (Horkheimer, Adorno, Pollock, Lowenthal, Marcuse, Benjamin,
Habermas) on mass media, mass culture, idology, art, authority
and the individual, and their relevance in the analysis of contemporary
capitalism. Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
COGR 240. The Culture of Consumption (4) (Cross-listed
with HIGR 273.) This course will explore the development and cultural
manifestations of consumerism in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Topics will include the rise of museums, the development
of mass market journalism and literature, advertising, and the
growth of commercial amusements. Readings will focus primarily,
but not exclusively, on the United States. Students will be encouraged
to think comparatively.
COGR 250. Third World Cinema (4) Course examines the history,
theory, and aesthetics of “Third
Cinema”—schools of cinema developed by selected filmmakers
from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Through film screenings
and a wide range of readings students will discuss such topics
as cinema and national identity, cinema and social change, and
Hollywood dominance. Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent
of instructor.
COGR 261. Mediational Approaches to Culture/Mind (4) This
course will examine theories of mind in which cultural mediation
is given a leading role. The work of anthropologists, psychologists,
and communication scholars will be studied in depth. Emphasis
will be placed on the methodological implication of cultural theories
of mind for empirical research.
COGR 266. Ethnography of Information Systems (4) In
this course students will survey the rapidly growing body of
ethnographic
analyses of information systems, extend basic principles of ethnographic
research, and lead students in the development of projects modifying
these principles for the emerging electronic environment. Students
will carry out a series of fieldwork exercises and discuss notes
and results in class.
COGR 271A. The News Media (4) Theories
and methods in the study of news, both print and broadcast. Topics
include the political economy of news, the social organization
of news institutions, and news as a cultural form. The course
will normally concentrate on U.S. news media but comparative studies
will also be examined.
COGR 275. Topics in Communication (4) Specialized
study in communication, with topics to be determined by the instructor
for any given quarter.
COGR 280. Advanced Workshop in Communication Media (4) This
course is a project course in which students prepare a production
or experiment using one of the forms of media. The course is designed
to allow students to experiment in a communication form other
than the usual oral presentation in class or a term paper. Students
can do a video production, a coordinated photographic essay or
exhibit, a computer insructional game, a published newspaper or
magazine article directed at a special audience, a theatrical
presentation, or some form other than those listed. Prerequisite:
graduate standing or consent of instructor.
COGR 294. The History of Communication Research (4) Intellectual
history of the field of communication studies from Robert Park
to the present. Explication and assessment of major research approaches
and classic studies representing both empirical and critical traditions.
COGR 296. Communication Research as an Interdisciplinary
Activity (4) A course that introduces students
to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of communication
research as represented by the work of faculty in the Department
of Communication. Through faculty research, students are presented
with concrete examples of communication reseaarch theory and practice
that can provide them with insights for conducting their own research
projects. Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
COGR 298. Directed Group Study (1-12) The
study and analysis of specific topics to be developed by a small
group of graduate students under the guidance of an interested
faculty member. COGR 500. Practice Teaching in Communication (4)
COGR 299. Graduate Research (1-12) Advanced
independent study in communication under the guidance of Department
of Communication faculty.
COGR 500. Practice Teaching in Communication (4) A
doctoral student in communication is required to assist in teaching
undergraduate Department of Communication courses for a total
of six quarters. One meeting per week with the instructor, one
meeting per week with the assigned sections, and attendance at
the lecture of the undergraduate course in which he or she is
participating are part of this requirement.
|