Undergraduate Course Descriptions

Popular culture has been alternately condemned as too trivial to warrant attention and too powerful to resist. Its consumers have been dubbed fashion victims, couch potatoes, and victims of propaganda. This course considers these critiques, as well as those that suggest that popular culture can be emancipatory, allowing for the creation and renegotiation of meaning. Over the course of the semester, we consider the impacts of various forms of popular culture and discuss their effects on how we see ourselves and others. We explore the ever-shifting distinctions between high, middlebrow, and low culture and analyze how power and resistance structure the production and consumption of popular texts.

This course introduces students to social science research on the consumption, sharing, and influence of mediated communication. We will explore the motivations behind media consumption and sharing, including social identity, entertainment, information-seeking, and social connection. We also examine the impact of various types of mediated content (e.g., violence, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, politics and activism, misinformation, health and wellbeing); genres (e.g., news, entertainment, educational, marketing); and mediums (e.g., television, film, social media) on what we think and how we act. The aim of the course is to provide students with (1) a broad understanding of both the positive and negative effects of mediated communication on personal, professional, social, and civic lives, and (2) the basic conceptual tools to evaluate the assumptions, theories, methods, and empirical evidence that underpin these presumed effects and behaviors.

This course introduces students to the work and language of media practitioners and helps prepare them for careers in a diverse range of media industries. Over the course of the semester, we will examine the rapid changes taking place in the news industry, internet industry, advertising industry, television industry, movie industry, magazine industry, and several other areas of the media system. We will explore the economic, political, legal, historical, and cultural considerations that shape what we see when we go online, use social media, watch TV, read books, play video games, and more.