COMM 10: Introduction to Communication
Winter 2015, MWF 2-2:50. Center 119
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Prof. A.B. Boateng
Office: MCC 104
Office Hours: Thursdays, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. or by appointment.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 858 534-8990
TAs & Discussion Sections:
Jason Perez ([email protected]):
A01 Mandeville B-104 Monday, 1:00 to 1:50 p.m.
A02 Center 203 Monday 3:00 to 3:50 p.m.
Thomas Conner ([email protected])
A03 Center 217A Wednesday 9:00 to 9:50 a.m.
A04 Center 217A Wednesday 10:00 to 10:50 a.m.
Rebecca Hardesty ([email protected])
A05 HSS 2321 Friday 12:00 to 12:50 p.m.
A06 HSS 2321Friday 1:00 to 1:50 p.m.
Description
This course seeks to answer five key questions: What is communication? Where does it occur? How does
it occur? Why does it matter? How do we study it? In answering these questions the course provides an
introduction to major issues in the field of communication, and also to the main areas of focus in this
department.
Course texts
Required:
• Boateng, Boatema, Zeinabu Davis, & Brian Goldfarb eds. An Introduction to Communication
(Revised First Edition) San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2013.
Please order at https://students.universityreaders.com/store/
Once you place your order, the publisher will send you a pdf of the first 30% of the book that you can use
until you receive your copy.
NOTE: The professor and other editors of this text do not receive any royalties or other compensation
from the sale of the book. We waived this in order to make the price as low as possible for students. The
price reflects the publisher’s production costs and copyright fees.
A few copies will also be placed on reserve at the library.
•
Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch (January 23) and Modernity at Large (March 6) are also available
as e-books in the library’s online catalog.
Additional readings will be made available through the course’s TED website, or electronic reserves at
the main library (the password for materials on e-reserve is ab10). A few readings can also be found
online, and those sources are indicated in bold print on the syllabus.
Assignments
• Communication Analysis Project Part I
• Communication Analysis Project Part II (this will take the place of a mid-term exam)
• Final exam
Course Policies
1. Courtesy and consideration for others (also required of the professor and TAs). The position taken in
this class is that are no stupid opinions, only uninformed ones. Therefore in disagreeing with others’
opinions, it is necessary to provide them with information that might persuade them to think
differently instead of simply dismissing their views out of hand. All participants in the class are also
required to observe the UCSD Principles of Community which can be found at:
http://www.ucsd.edu/explore/about/principles.html
2. In managing this class the professor and TAs will function as a team and will consult regularly with
each other on all matters concerning the class. In particular, they will use identical criteria in grading
student assignments and will make every effort to ensure that grades assigned are scrupulously fair
and reflect the quality of the work concerned. Due to this process of consultation and the use of
uniform grading criteria, TAs have complete authority in all actions that they undertake regarding the
course, and the professor is unlikely to rescind any of their decisions.
3. You are expected to read course materials before all lectures, sections and screenings. You are also
expected to participate in all section discussions.
4. Attendance at all lectures, sections, and screenings is required. Attendance will be taken at random
during lectures and you will lose a point on your final grade for every unexcused absence from a
lecture. You will lose the same number of points for every unexcused absence from section meetings.
This means that if your final grade is an A-plus and you have five unexcused absences, your final
grade will drop to a B-minus. An excused absence is one where you inform the professor or teaching
assistant beforehand that you will not be able to make it to a class, section, or screening for a valid
and documented medical or legal reason.
If you have an unforeseen emergency that prevents you from attending class, inform the professor or
TA as soon as possible and provide written evidence of the reason of the emergency (e.g. doctor’s
note).
Do not ask the professor or your TA about material that you missed before obtaining notes
from a classmate.
5. You are encouraged to attend office hours with the professor and your TA, especially if you are
struggling with course material and low grades. It is during office hours that your instructors can
work with you individually to help you with difficulties in understanding course material, and also
help you understand how you can improve your performance on assignments and exams.
6. Make-up exams will only be given for valid and documented medical or legal reasons (e.g. court
appearance), and will be held after the exam concerned and not before. There will be no exceptions to
this policy.
7. All assignments must be turned in on the due date indicated on the syllabus. You will lose a grade
point for each day that an assignment is late. This means, for example, that if you get an A on an
assignment that is two days late, your grade will drop to a B+
8. You are required to observe university regulations regarding academic integrity. This means no
student shall engage in any activity that involves attempting to receive a grade by means other than
honest effort; for example:
• No student shall knowingly procure, provide, or accept any unauthorized material that
contains questions or answers to any examination or assignment to be given at a subsequent
time.
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No student shall complete, in part or in total, any examination or assignment for another
person.
• No student shall knowingly allow any examination or assignment to be completed, in part or
in total, for himself or herself by another person.
• No student shall plagiarize or copy the work of another person and submit it as his or her own
work.
• No student shall employ aids excluded by the instructor in undertaking course work or in
completing any exam or assignment.
• No student shall alter graded class assignments or examinations and then resubmit them for
re-grading.
• No student shall submit substantially the same material in more than one course without prior
authorization.
• No student shall sign attendance sheets for another student, or ask someone else to sign in for
her/him.
Any plagiarism will result in a grade of F for the assignment or exam, will be reported to the
Academic Integrity Office, and may result in an overall course grade of F. To find out about the
UCSD Academic Integrity Policy, visit:
http://students.ucsd.edu/academics/academic-integrity/defining.html
•
9. All beepers, cell phones, PDAs, and similar devices must be turned off during class. Laptops may
only be used for note-taking and web queries relevant to the lecture. Laptop use is NOT allowed for
email, social networking or other coursework.
Disability Accommodations
The professor is committed to making this course as accessible to all students as possible. If you require
accommodations for disabilities, please communicate with the professor immediately and register with
the Office of Students with Disabilities (OSD) in order to obtain a current Authorization for
Accommodation (AFA) letter. This letter is required for eligibility for requests. The professor must
receive AFAs in advance in order to plan appropriately for the provision of reasonable accommodations.
For additional accommodation, contact the Office for Students with Disabilities:
• 858.534.4382
• 858.534.9709 (TTY) - Reserved for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
• [email protected]
• http://disabilities.ucsd.edu/
Assessment
The final grade will be determined as follows:
• Section attendance & participation
• Communication Analysis Project Part I
• Communication Analysis Project Part II
• Final exam
25%
15%
30%
30%
Detailed Syllabus
Please note that the professor may make a few changes to the readings listed below. Any such changes
will be announced at least a week in advance.
Week One
January 5
• Introduction and overview
• Raymond Williams 1976 “Communication” and “Media” Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and
Society New York: Oxford University Press.
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January 7
• Erving Goffman “The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life” in The Presentation of the Self in
Everyday Life TED
• George Herbert Mead 1993 “The Self the I, and the Me” (1929) Social Theory: The Multicultural and
Classical Readings Charles Lemert, ed. Boulder, CO: Westview.
January 9
• Marcel Danesi 1999 “What Does It Mean? How Humans Represent the World” in Of Cigarettes,
High Heels, and Other Interesting Things: an Introduction to Semiotics. St. Martin’s Press.
Week Two
January 12
• Stuart Hall 1997 “Introduction” and part of “The Work of Representation” Representation: Cultural
Representations and Signifying Practices Sage Publications.
Recommended
• Marcel Danesi 1999 “What Does It Mean? How Humans Represent the World” in Of Cigarettes,
High Heels, and Other Interesting Things: an Introduction to Semiotics. St. Martin’s Press.
January 14
• Scott Kiesling 2003 “Dude” in American Speech Vol. 79, No. 3.
January 16
• Robin Lakoff 1990 “Language, Politics, and Power” Talking Power: The Politics of Language in Our
Lives. New York: Basic Books.
• Pages 555-564 of Aki Uchida “When ‘Difference’ Is ‘Dominance’: A Critique of the ‘Anti-PowerBased’ Cultural Approach to Sex Differences.” TED
• Screening of He Said She Said by Deborah Tannen
Week Three
January 19
Martin Luther King Jnr. Holiday – No Class
January 21
Communication Analysis Project Part I Due
• Gloria Anzaldua 1987 “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
• Geneva Smitherman, 1980 “White English in Blackface or Who Do I Be?” The State of the
Language, eds. Leonard Michaels & Christopher Ricks UC Press.
• Amy Tan, “The Red Candle” and “Rules of the Game” in The Joy Luck Club New York: Vintage
Books, 1989. Available through e-reserves at library website.
January 23
• Dwight McBride 2005 “Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch” Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch New
York: New York University Press. Available as e-book through library’s online catalog.
Recommended
• Dick Hebdige 1979 Subculture: The Meaning of Style
Week Four
January 26
• Raymond Williams “The Technology and the Society” in Television: Technology and Cultural Form.
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•
David Thorburn & Henry Jenkins “Towards an Aesthetics of Transition” in Rethinking Media
Change. TED
January 28
• Elizabeth Eisenstein 1980 “The Emergence of Print Culture in the West” Journal of Communication
Winter. E-reserves.
January 30
• Jonathan Gray, 2008 “Art With Strings Attached” in Television and Entertainment. TED
Week Five
February 2
• Walter Lippman 1922 “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads” Public Opinion New
York: Free Press. E-reserves
February 4
• Michael Schudson “Political observatories, databases & news in the emerging ecology of public
information.” Daedalus Spring, 2010. E-Reserves
• Jonathan Sterne “What if interactivity is the new passivity?” Flow April 2000. E-Reserves
February 6
• Nicolas Carr, 2008 “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Atlantic Monthly (July/August).
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/.
Week Six
February 9
Recommended
• Walter Lippman 1922 “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads” Public Opinion New
York: Free Press. E-reserves.
• Michael Schudson 2003 “Where News Came From: The History of Journalism” The Sociology of
News New York: W.W. Norton & Company. E-Reserves
February 11
• Michael Schudson 2003 “Media Bias (Media Effects Part 2)” The Sociology of News New York:
W.W. Norton & Company. E-Reserves
• Todd Gitlin 2003 “Introduction” in The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and
Unmaking of the New Left University of California Press.
February 13
• Jane Rhodes 1993 “The Visibility of Race and Media History” Critical Studies in Mass
Communication 20:2.
• Screening of selections from The Black Press by Stanley Nelson
Week Seven
February 16
President’s Day Holiday, No Class
February 18
Communication Analysis Project Part II Due
• Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer 1993 “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass
Deception” The Cultural Studies Reader Simon During (ed.) New York: Routledge.
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February 20
• Vickie Rutledge Shields 2005 “The Less Space We Take the More Powerful We’ll Be.” A
Companion to Media Studies, Angharad Valdivia (ed) John Wiley & Sons.
• Jennifer Siebel Newsom, (2011) Miss Representation
Recommended
• Julie D’Acci “Television, Representation and Gender” in Robert C. Allen & Annette Hill (eds.) The
Television Studies Reader.
Week Eight
February 23
• Laura Mulvey 2003 “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Amelia Jones, ed. The Feminism and
Visual Culture Reader. London; New York: Routledge.
February 25
• bell hooks 1992 “The “Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” Black Looks: Race and
Representation South End Press.
• Lorna Roth, “Looking at Shirley, the Ultimate Norm: Colour Balance, Image Technologies, and
Cognitive Equity.” Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 34 (1) E-reserves.
• Screening of selections from Color Adjustment by Marlon Riggs
Recommended
• Jane Rhodes 1993 “The Visibility of Race and Media History” Critical Studies in Mass
Communication 20:2.
February 27
• Horace Miner 1956 “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” American Anthropologist 58:3, June. Ereserves.
• Bill Nichols, 1991. “The Ethnographer’s Tale” Visual Anthropology Review 7 (2) Fall. E-reserves.
Recommended
• Ella Shohat & Robert Stam, 1994. “Stereotype, Realism, and the Struggle over Representation”
Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media London: Routledge.
Week Nine
March 2
• Stuart Hall 2002 “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power” Susanne Schech & Jane Haggis
(eds.) Development and Power: A Cultural Studies Reader Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
• Binyavanga Wainaina “How to Write About Africa” Granta 92: The View from Africa January 2006.
http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1
March 4
• John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka and Stuart Cunningham 1996 “Peripheral Vision” New Patterns in
Global Television: Peripheral Vision Oxford University Press.
Recommended
• Sean McBride & Colleen Roach 1989 “The New International Information Order” International
Encyclopedia of Communications Erik Barnouw (ed) Oxford University Press.
March 6
• Arjun Appadurai 1996 “Disjuncture & Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” Modernity at
Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Pages. Available as e-book through library’s online catalog.
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Week 10
March 9
• Tim Cresswell 2006 “The Production of Mobilities at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam” On the Move:
Mobility in the Modern Western World New York: Routledge.
• Akosua Darkwah 2002 “Trading Goes Global: Market Women in an Era of Globalization” in Asian
Women Vol. 15.
March 11
• Merlyna Lim 2012 “Clicks, Cabs, and Coffee Houses: Social Media and Oppositional Movements in
Egypt, 2004 – 2011” Journal of Communication 62. E-reserves
• Vicente Rafael 2003 “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary
Philippines” Public Culture 15:3. E-reserves.
March 13
• Review and wrap-up
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