Media Criticism

Catalog description

This course analyzes the myriad ways in which emerging media tools influence communication. It takes a critical approach to the study of contemporary media through a series of discussions, collaborations, analyses, and film screenings. This course treats the concept of "media" from three related perspectives. The first perspective asserts that media is an organized communicative entity that maintains its traditional role as a public watchdog. The second perspective acknowledges that media also refers to the content that is generated by communications practitioners. And the third perspective refers to media as a specific content-delivery system. This course seeks to reconcile the variety of messages that form our understanding of modern life by applying these perspectives to the analysis of contemporary subjects and examples.