Communication 3653
Popular Forms of Public Communication
Fall 2000

Prof. Gil Rodman
Office Hours: Tu, Th 5-6p and by appointment
CIS 3040 // gbrodman@mindspring.com // 813-974-3025
course website:
http://scholar.acomp.usf.edu:90/courses/SPC3653.901F00
course description and objectives

This is a course on communication and popular culture (broadly defined), but it is not designed to simply be a four-month long celebration of television, pop music, the Internet, and the like. Instead, we'll be taking a detailed look at popular culture from several different critical perspectives, with an eye on the relationship between popular culture and broader questions of aesthetics, economics, technology, and social and cultural politics. Our primary focus, then, will be on the politics of popular culture and public (i.e., mediated) communication: What is culture? How is it related to popular culture? Of what value is popular culture -- and to whom is it valuable? And why should we study this popular culture stuff anyway? Bear in mind, however, that few (if any) of the questions we'll address this semester have easy answers. How well you do in this class will depend, not on your ability to provide the "right" answers, but on your ability to think critically about the role of popular culture in contemporary society and your ability to argue whatever position(s) you take well.
WARNING!!!

Do not think that because our primary object of study this semester is popular culture (i.e., something commonly regarded as fun) this will be a "party" course that you can simply coast through effortlessly. While I hope the course will be interesting (and even fun), the fact that so many people can (and do) take pleasure in popular culture is precisely what makes it important enough for us to take seriously. This course will demand a great deal of reading, writing, and (most importantly) thinking on your part, none of which will go smoothly for you if you assume that you can simply bull your way through because it's "only entertainment."

Also, our class sessions will include discussions that may get heated at times, so it's possible that you'll walk away from one or more of our meetings feeling angry, frustrated, and/or offended. Nevertheless, I expect all of our conversations to be characterized by mutual respect. Impassioned arguments and strongly expressed opinions are perfectly acceptable in this class; verbal bullying and personal attacks, on the other hand, will not be tolerated under any circumstances.
required course materials
grading schedule

Your final grade will be determined by the grading contract that you will complete and return to me by 12 September. The overall range of options is as follows:

***Attendance 10%
***In-class participation 10%
***CourseInfo Discussion Board participation 10%
***Thought paper 10%
Cultural analysis project 30%
Response papers (3 @ 10% each) 30%
Media journals (6 @ 5% each) 30%
Take-home final 30%

Starred items are required portions of your grade. Further details on the various written assignments can be found below and on the Assignments page of the course website.

Once approved, your contract is binding: e.g., you don't get to give up the response papers you contracted for and make up for it by writing media journals. So choose carefully. Also note that contracts that are turned in late or that don't add up to exactly 100% will be "fixed" by me -- which may set you up for work you would rather not do. So double-check your math and turn your contract in on time.

Final semester grades will not use the university's new plus/minus grading system..
attendance/in-class participation/quizzes

Because issues will be raised in class that will not necessarily be obvious from the readings alone, it's important that you show up every time we meet and that you do so on time. Attendance will be taken at the start of every class period, and absences, late arrivals, and early departures will all count against you. If you accumulate more than 1.5 weeks in unexcused absences, I reserve the right to lower your semester grade by more than 10%.

Our class sessions will be structured almost exclusively around group discussions. It will thus be more enjoyable for all of us (and you'll do better) if you (1) attend class regularly, (2) do the required reading and (3) be prepared to discuss what we've read.

To help insure that our in-class discussions are productive ones, there will be quizzes on the assigned reading that will work as follows: In keeping with the University Policy on Religious Observances, students who anticipate being absent from class due to a major religious observance must provide notice to me in writing by 5 September explaining which class period(s) you expect to miss and why.
CourseInfo Discussion Board participation

The primary purpose of the Discussion Board is to provide an informal space that's always available for discussion of the issues raised by the assigned readings and in our class meetings. Because discussions of this sort tend to be freeform in nature, there is no easy-to-summarize formula for assessing your Discussion Board grade. The minimum contribution to receive a passing grade, however, will be ten substantial (i.e., more than a paragraph long) posts spread out over the course of the semester. A more detailed explanation of how this portion of your grade will be calculated is available on a separate handout.
  1. You must make your first on-topic post to the Discussion Board by 6 pm on 12 September. The penalty for missing this deadline will be a grade point for every week or fraction thereof that your first on-topic post is late (e.g., not posting for the first time until 24 September will mean that the best you can do for this portion of your grade is an 8 out of 10).
  2. Over the course of the session, I will place at least ten "virtual lectures" on the course website under the "Course Documents" heading. You are required to respond to each of at least three of those virtual lectures with a separate post to the appropriate Discussion Board forum. The applicable penalty here will be one grade point for every post short of three that you fall.
  3. You are also required to post thoughtful responses to at least three written assignments (i.e., thought papers, response papers, media journals, and cultural analysis project pieces) posted to the course website by other members of the class. Each of these posts must be in response to essays written by a different person on a different topic: e.g., responding to three different media journals written by the same person or to three different response papers on the same assigned reading will not satisfy this requirement. Again, the applicable penalty here will be one grade point for every post short of three that you fall.
Should any of the penalties described above come into play, they will be applied to the top end of the scale: i.e., they lower the maximum credit you can receive for this portion of the course, rather than subtracting points from the score you earn otherwise.

N.B.: Your written assignments do not count towards your Discussion Board participation grade.
written assignments

General rules
  1. Your written work must be submitted online in the appropriate forums on the CourseInfo Discussion Board. The lengths listed below are estimates of how much you'll need to write to complete the assignments well. I will not automatically penalize shorter essays, but papers that are significantly shorter than the suggested length are also probably not fulfilling the basic requirements of the assignment very well -- which will be reflected in the grade you receive.
  2. All your work must be posted to the course website by the start of class (i.e., 6 pm) on the appropriate due dates. Late work will generally not be accepted except in cases of genuine emergency. In the event that I do accept late work, I reserve the right to reduce its grade in direct proportion to its lateness. The minimum penalty in all such cases will be one full letter grade.
  3. As a safety precaution, you should always keep at least a hard copy -- and preferably a hard copy and a disk copy -- of any written work you hand in.
Thought paper (10%).
This assignment (~1000-1250 words, due 12 September) will be ungraded. Assuming you turn the paper in, you should receive full credit for doing so. I reserve the right, however, to give partial (or even no) credit to papers that fail to meet the assignment's requirements.

Response papers (3 @ 10% each).
You will write three papers (~1000-1250 words each) over the course of the semester, each of which should be a critical (i.e., thoughtful and analytical) response to one or more of the assigned readings. Each of these is due no later than one week after the reading in question is assigned. The first of these must be turned in no later than 10 October, the second no later than 7 November, and the last by 12 December.

Media journals (6 @ 5% each).
You will complete six of the twelve "media journal assignments" (~750 words each) found in Media Journal (pp. 15-38). Which six you complete -- and the order in which you do so -- is up to you. Due dates are listed below.

Cultural analysis project (30%).
This assignment will consist of a semester-long project in which you apply the course material found in our readings and weekly discussions to a popular culture phenomenon of your choosing. Topics for this project are due by 12 September. Due dates for individual pieces of your project (~750-1000 words each) are spread throughout the semester, and the final draft of your overall project (~3500-4000 words total) is due by 12 December.

Take-home final (30%).
This exam will be cumulative (i.e., it will cover material from the entire semester) and will consist of three essay questions (~750-1000 words each). It will be distributed no earlier than 21 November, no later than 5 December, and will be due on 12 December.

N.B.: Further details about each of the assignments listed above will be made available on the Assignments page of the course website..
miscellaneous
introduction

29 Aug no reading
5 Sep Reinventing Comics, pp. 1-55
Media Journal, pp. 115-119 (Felton), 257-277 (Marc), 320-339 (Nehamas)
aesthetics/semiotics/culture

12 Sep Deadline for first Discussion Board post
Grading contract due
Thought paper due
Understanding Comics, pp. 1-117
Media Journal, pp. 40-44 (Bangs)
Greg Seigworth, "Sound Affects" [available online]
19 Sep Media journal #1 due
Cultural analysis project -- topic due
Understanding Comics, pp. 118-215
Media Journal, pp. 133-152 (Foner & Sayles), 203-222 (Hirshey)
economics/industry/regulation

26 Sep Reinventing Comics, pp. 56-79
Media Journal, pp. 234-243 (Kowinski), 244-256 (Light)
We the Media, pp. 1-25
3 Oct Media journal #2 due
Cultural analysis project -- piece #1 due
Media Journal, pp. 409-426 (Seagal), 436-455 (Steinem)
We the Media, pp. 26-71
10 Oct Last due date for response paper #1
Reinventing Comics, pp. 80-95
We the Media, pp. 72-108, 131-140, 158-176
Courtney Love, "Courtney Love Does the Math" [available online]
technology/media/democracy

17 Oct Media journal #3 due
Reinventing Comics, pp. 128-153
We the Media, pp. 177-210
In the Beginning . . ., pp. 1-40
24 Oct Cultural analysis project -- piece #2 due
Reinventing Comics, pp. 154-199
Media Journal, pp. 72-79 (Charbeneau), 223-233 (Kadi)
In the Beginning . . ., pp. 41-80
31 Oct Media journal #4 due
Reinventing Comics, pp. 200-242
In the Beginning . . ., pp. 81-151
7 Nov NO CLASS
Last due date for response paper #2
Media Journal, pp. 349-362 (Postman), 427-435 (Shapiro), 475-481 (Van Der Leun), 506-512 (Williamson)
audiences/identity/community

14 Nov Media journal #5 due
Reinventing Comics, pp. 96-125
Media Journal, pp. 90-99 (DeMott), 159-174 (Gates), 487-505 (Wideman)
21 Nov Cultural analysis project -- piece #3 due
Media Journal, pp. 105-114 (Ehrenreich), 363-371 (Radway)
NASA/TREK, pp. 1-58
28 Nov Media journal #6 due
NASA/TREK, pp. 59-96
We the Media, pp. 109-130, 141-157
5 Dec Media Journal, pp. 45-71 (Caughey)
NASA/TREK, pp. 97-148
12 Dec deadline for Discussion Board posts
6 pm Cultural analysis project -- final version (including piece #4) due
Take-home final due
Last due date for response paper #3