Communication and Technology

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the critical study of informational media and persuasion-oriented communication technologies such as newspapers, magazines, books, advertising, broadcast media, and social media. Students will learn to think critically about the relationship between technology, information, and communication in their daily lives and future careers, using lenses such as affordances and constraints, the political economy of media; framing, bias, and objectivity; materiality and infrastructure; privacy and surveillance; technology and inequality; and the public sphere. Tracing the historical and contemporary development of communication and information technologies in and outside the United States, students will explore how media operate as forms of power, meaning-making, and influence through their production, interpretation, and use. PA-2A.