Mass Communication 220

Course Outline

Length of Course: One semester (14 weeks)
 
Classroom Hours Per Week: 4 hours lecture
 
Number of Credits: 3 credits
 
Prerequisite: Mass Communication 110 or 130
 
Description of Course:
The phenomenon of television is considered by many to be one of the defining social, political and cultural features of the 20 th century. It has had a profound effect on domestic and public life and on our personal and collective senses of time. It has contributed in fundamental ways to our experience of our selves and our society. Many consider television to be the ultimate machine of post-war mass consumer culture. This course explores the origins and development of television as a mass medium and cultural form, the variety of critical responses it has generated and the basic debates and critical frameworks that structure television studies.
 
Course Outline:
 
Week 1: Introduction
 
Weeks 2, 3, 4: Origin and History of Broadcast Television in America and Europe.
Topics include:
Origin of TV in other media
Similarities and differences
Institutional structures and interests
Forms of ownership
Role of advertising
Audience attention as product
Regulation
Public sphere, private sphere
Public Interest and Private Interest (profit)
 
Week 5: Technology
Topics include:
How TV images and sounds are produced
How TV images and sounds are transmitted
How TV images and sounds are received
 
Weeks 6, 7, 8: The Effects of Television
Topics include:
Physiological effects
Psychological effects
Social and cultural effects
Political and economic effects
Effects theories & issues
 
Weeks 9, 10 & 11: Television Structures & Forms; Critical Viewing Strategies
Topics include:
TV formats & genres
Flow
Live versus playback TV
Program categories
Scheduling
Presentational versus representational styles
Broadcasting/Narrowcasting
Genre & gender/age
Television rhetoric: communication & persuasion
TV production techniques as communication
Fiction/fact (“fictionality” versus “facticity”)
Audience measurement/surveillance
Construction of “believability”
Public sphere/private sphere
 
Weeks 12 & 13: The End of Television
Topics include:
New technologies; new gadgets
Corporate and technological convergence
Globalization & communication
Virtual geography
Globalism/localism
Virtual TV
 
Evaluation:
Two Midterm Exams (Weeks 5 & 9) 20% each
Final Exam (Scheduled) 30%
In Class Presentation 20%
Participation 10%
 
Text:
There is no text for this course. You will receive weekly readings.
 
Transferability:
SFU: Cmns 220 (3)
UBC: Arts 2nd (3)
UVic: Soci 200 level (1.5)

Instructors:
Norbert Ruebsaat, B.A. British Columbia), M.A. (Simon Fraser)
Ian Chunn, B.A., M.A. (Toronto), B.Ed. (British Columbia)