JOUR 6051
Theories of Mass Communication
Fall 2004
Wednesday 9:00 – 11:30
Armory 1B01

 

Prof. Andrew Calabrese
103A Armory
Phone:  492-5374
E-mail: 
andrew.calabrese@colorado.edu
Office hours: M, W 4:00 – 5:00, or by appointment

Home page: http://spot.colorado.edu/~calabres/

 

Tentative Schedule

 

Wed. 8/25

Introduction and overview

 

 

Wed. 9/1

Communication and Classical Social Theory, Pt. 1

 

Robert J. Holton, “Classical social theory,” The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, edited by Bryan S. Turner.

Crane Brinton, “Enlightenment,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Alex Callinicos, “Liberals and Reactionaries,” in his Social Theory: A Historical Introduction.

 

Wed. 9/8

Communication and Classical Social Theory, Pt. 2 (Dov, Brian)

 

John Durham Peters, "John Locke, the Individual, and the Origin of Communication," Quarterly Journal of Speech 75 (November 1989): 387-399

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ("Estranged Labour," "Private Property and Communism," "The Meaning of Human Requirements," and "The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society").

Max Weber, “Bureaucracy.”

 

Wed. 9/15

Mass Communication Research Traditions, Pt. 1 (Brian, Geetika)

 

James D. Halloran, ed., The Effects of Television (Panther, 1970):

"Introduction: Studying the Effects of Television"

"The Social Effects of Television"

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson & Hazel Gaudet, The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign (Columbia UP, 1968)

Willard Rowland, Jr., The Politics of TV Violence (Sage, 1983)

Ch. 2: "The Rise of American Social Science"

Ch. 3: "The Rise of Mass Communication Research"

 

Wed. 9/22

Mass Communication Research Traditions, Pt. 2 (Will)

 

Todd Gitlin, "Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm," Theory and Society 6(2) (September 1978): 205-253

Denis McQuail, "With the Benefit of Hindsight: Reflections on Uses and Gratifications Research," in Michael Gurevitch and Mark R. Levy, eds., Mass Communication Review Yearbook Vol. 5 (Sage, 1984)

Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, "The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media," Public Opinion Quarterly (36) (2) (Summer 1972): 176-187

George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan and Nancy Signorelli, "Charting the Mainstream: Television's Contributions to Political Orientations," Journal of Communication 32(2): 441-464

 

Wed. 9/29

Critical Theory and Communication, Pt. 1 (Dov, Doug)

 

David McLellan, "The Frankfurt School," in his Marxism After Marx (NY: Harper & Row, 1979).

Benjamin, W. (1968) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, pp. 217-251 in H. Arendt (ed), Illuminations. New York: Schocken. (Original work published in 1936)

Theodor Adorno, "On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening," in Arato & Gebhardt, eds. The Essential Frankfurt School Reader (NY: Continuum, 1982).

Herbert Marcuse, “The Closing of the Universe of Discourse,” pp. 84-120 in One-Dimensional Man (Beacon Press, 1964)

 

Wed. 10/6

Critical Theory and Communication, Pt. 2 (Will, Geetika)

 

Jurgen Habermas, "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article," New German Critique, Fall 1974.

Joan Landes, "The Public and the Private Sphere: A Feminist Reconsideration," in Feminists Read Habermas (Routledge, 1995).

Antonio Gramsci, "Journalism," Selections from Cultural Writings (Harvard UP, 1985), pp.386-425.

Antonio Gramsci, “The Intellectuals,” Selections from the Prison Notebooks (International Publishers, 1971).

 

Wed. 10/13

Mass Culture Debates; Mid-term Exam Questions (Alison, Doug)

 

Patrick Brantlinger, “Introduction: The Two Classicisms,” in his Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass Culture as Social Decay (Cornell UP, 1983)

Walter Lippman, “Introduction: the World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads,” in his Public Opinion (Harcourt, 1922).

John Dewey, “The Eclipse of the Public,” in his The Public and Its Problems (Swallow, 1954).

C. Wright Mills, "The Mass Society," from The Power Elite (OUP, 1956).

 

Wed. 10/20

Mid-term – no class meeting m Due at 4:00 p.m.

 

 

 

Wed. 10/27

Cultural Studies (Will, Casey)

 

E.P. Thompson (1967). "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," Past and Present 38:  56-97.

Terry Eagleton, “Resources for a Journey of Hope: The Significance of Raymond Williams,” New Left Review, #168, March/April 1988.

Raymond Williams, "Means of Communication as Means of Production," Problems in Materialism and Culture (London: Verso, 1980).

Raymond Williams, “Culture and Society,” interview in Politics and Letters (New Left Books, 1979).

James Carey, "Mass Communication Research and Cultural Studies: An American View," pp. 409-425, J. Curran, M. Gurevitch, Janet Woolacott, (eds.), Mass Communication and Society (Sage, 1977).

 

Wed. 11/3

Cultural Studies, cont’d.; Semiotics and Structuralism (Alison, Geetika)

 

Jonathan Culler, “Saussure’s Theory of Language,” in Ferdinand de Saussure (Penguin, 1976).

Kaja Silverman, “From Sign to Subject,” in The Subject of Semiotics (Oxford, 1983).

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy (Monthly Review P, 1971)

Roy Boyne, "Structuralism," in B. Turner, Blackwell Companion to Social Theory

 

Wed. 11/10

Post-Structuralism (Doug)

 

Alex Callinicos, “Crack-up?” in Social Theory: A Historical Introduction.

Dick Hebdige, "Staking Out the Posts" in Hiding in the Light (Routledge, 1988)

Barry Smart, “Postmodern Social Theory,” in The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory.

Stuart Hall, “Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 2(2), June 1985.

 

Wed. 11/17

Race/Gender/Media (Casey, Alison)

 

Paula Treichler & Ellen Wartella, "Interventions: Feminist Theory and Communication Studies," Communication 9 (1986): 1-18

Susan Douglas, excerpt from Where the girls are: Growing up female with the mass media (1994).

Elizabeth Long, "Feminism and Cultural Studies," Critical Studies in Mass Communication,” (December 1989): 427-435

Janice Peck, "Talk About Racism: Framing a Popular Discourse of Race on Oprah Winfrey," Cultural Critique 27 (Spring 1994): 89-126

Tricia Rose, "'Fear of a Black Planet': Rap Music and Black Cultural Politics in the 1990s," in G. Dines & J. Humez, eds., Gender, Race and Class in Media (Sage, 1995)

Edward Said, Introduction, Orientalism (Vintage, 1979)

 

Wed. 11/24

Political Economy of Communication, Pt. 1 (Dov, Casey)

 

Andrew Calabrese, “Toward a Political Economy of Culture,” in A. Calabrese and C. Sparks, ed., Toward a Political Economy of Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

Smythe, Dallas. "On the audience commodity and its work," in Dependency Road: Communications, Capitalism, Consciousness, and Canada, pp.22-51. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1981.

Dan Schiller, “How to Think About Information,” in Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko, ed., The Political Economy of Information (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988).

Vincent Mosco, “Commodification,” in his The Political Economy of Communication (Sage, 1996).

 

Wed. 12/1

Political Economy of Communication, Pt. 2 (Brian)

 

Elaine Meehan, Conceptualizing Culture as Commodity: The Problem of Television," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3 (1986): 448-457.

Janet Wasko, “Show me the Money: Challenging Hollywood Economics,” in Toward a Political Economy of Culture.

Vincent Mosco, “Capitalism’s Chernobyl?” in Toward a Political Economy of Culture.

Oscar Gandy, “Audiences on Demand,” in Toward a Political Economy of Culture.

 

Wed. 12/8

Media and the Idea of Globalization; Final Exam Questions (Geetika, Dov, Brian)

 

A. Calabrese (1999). The welfare state, the information society, and the ambivalence of social movements. In A. Calabrese & J.C. Burgelman (Eds.), Communication, citizenship, and social policy: Re-thinking the limits of the welfare state (259-277). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Andrew Calabrese (in press). The promise of civil society: A global movement for communication rights. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.

Dan Schiller, "The Neoliberal Networking Drive Originates in the United States," in Digital Capitalism (Boston: MIT Press, 1999).

Pierre Bourdieu, “The Politics of Globalization.” Le Monde. February 20, 2002. (Originally published January 24, 2002.

 

Thurs. 12/16

Final Exam Due at 12:00 p.m.