The Dramatic Arts in the Mass Media

Catalog description

The place of television-radio-film drama in our culture; relationship with other art forms; standards of evaluation. INART 110 Dramatic Arts in the Mass Media (3) (GA)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. INART 110 examines the history and development of the dramatic arts of the mass media with a particular focus on television as the strongest exemplar of media practice. The primary goal of the course is to help students develop a critical and analytical approach to dealing with the dramatic arts of the contemporary mass media. The course presupposes some familiarity with modern popular media and takes as its content both historical and contemporary examples as sources for analysis. While the class offers facts and data, the central focus of the course in the theory, stylistic elements, and structural workings of media content. The pedagogical goal of this approach is to examine not just what the mass media arts are but also where they come from, how they function, and what effects they have on our culture and society. The key to this goal is understanding the effects and influence of dramas in the mass media on our society and its beliefs and values. Class meetings consist of lectures and in-class discussions that illustrate modern critical approaches to popular culture and the terminology used in presenting critical arguments and ideological viewpoints on the dramatic arts of the mass media. Reading assignments will support classroom work by presenting students with a diversity of opinion on mass media and the influence of television dramas and comedies. Further, examples of historically significant radio and television dramatic works will be shown in class and then discussed in relation to the concepts and critical viewpoints covered in lectures. In addition to regular scheduled classes, students will participate in an on-line Television Journal that requires watching and critically responding to assigned television programs. Each week, students will be required to watch and critically respond to assigned television programs. Their critical responses will be posted on the online Television Journal and made available to all members of the class. Grades will be based on three equally weighted objective examinations that will account for 50% of the semester grade. A written paper will account for 25% of the final grade, and the remaining 25% of the grade will be determined by participation in the online Television Journal.