Media and Culture

Catalog description

An overview and history of critical theories that aim to explain the relationship between media and culture. COMM 555 Media and Culture (3) This course will provide an overview of the major theorists of mass media whose work offers critical appraisals of the impact of mass media on cultures and the people within those cultures. It will give students an understanding of the major theorists and their conceptions of the relationship between media, communication and culture. Each section is designed to interrogate a particular epistemological or methodological challenge to the social and cultural understanding of mass media, from the seminal thinking of the Frankfurt School - the first thinkers to engage this important field of research - through the theorists of the so-called post-modern turn. Special attention will be paid to examining the ways in which mass media constructs ideological foundations for society's understanding of democracy, identity and everyday life.