Take a collaborative tour of the global media environment. This course unveils the hidden ways in which our media lives intersect with people an economies in distant places. Understand the ways in which politics, cultures, business models, and conflicts shape the media we encounter—and those we don't.
In addition to its readings, lectures, guests, and discussions, this course invites us to probe and reflect on our own media existence and experience, presenting what we learn to each other and proposing critical interventions for change.
This syllabus, for students who decide to proceed with the course, should be considered a contract among us—with the instructor, the university, and one another. Please ensure that you understand it fully, and don't hesitate to ask clarifying questions or recommend changes that the class might consider adopting.
Each student is expected to:
Evaluation for the course consists of five parts, each worth 20 possible points out of a total of 100.
Participation in class discussions means active involvement as both a contributor and a listener. Students who are most adept as speakers will be expected to demonstrate attentive listening in what they say. Those to whom listening comes more naturally should make extra effort to depart their comfort zone and contribute. For all students, participation includes:
Each student is allotted two unexcused absences. After that, each absence without a documented excuse will result in 3 points detracted from the class participation grade.
20 points
The assigned readings and films are a required and valuable part of the experience of this course. They are not optional; studying and digesting sophisticated texts is an essential skill for media literacy.
In randomly selected class periods, we will begin with a short quiz on the readings intended to ensure that we are all doing each other the courtesy of keeping up.
20 points
A significant portion of what students will contribute to this class, and what we will all learn from, comes in the form of presentations. Each student will take part in two presentations during class time—one individually, and one as part of a group. In both cases, presentations should be about 10 minutes long, plus a few minutes for Q&A. That isn't much time, so the duration should be well planned to be used in a way that is both appealing and informative. Each presentation should include:
Slideshows can be in any format, but turn them in (on D2L) using PDF or another platform-independent format. The specific objectives for each presentation assignment are detailed below.
20 points each
The third project for this course is a written assignment in the form of a memo, a fairly informal medium used for communicating within corporations and other organizations. This is a role-playing challenge: Imagine that you are part of a media organization that is based outside the United States, and make an argument to a colleague or colleagues about something the organization should do differently. The memo should:
Turn in the draft you use for peer review and your final revision in D2L. Further details on the content of the memo can be found below.
20 points
Based on the stated point structure, grades will be awarded as follows: A (94-100), A- (90-93), B+ (87-89), B (83-86), B- (80-82), C+ (77-79), C (73-76), C- (70-72), D+ (67-69), D (63-66), D- (60-62), F (0-59).
This course consists of three overall themes, each corresponding with a project. The workload is distributed fairly evenly throughout the semester, with two class presentations and a modest written task at the end. In the schedule below, assignments are listed according to the class period in which they are due.
Text: Jack Lule, Globalization and Media: Global Village of Babel, 2nd ed. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)
We begin with a wide-ranging exploration of the global media landscape. The project accompanying Phase 1 is an exploration of how global forces take shape in our everyday media lives. Each student will identify a unique, specific media entity they regularly interact with—for instance, a piece of hardware, an app, a television show, a book—and present to the class an in-depth journey into its global footprint. Questions that a presentation might seek to answer include:
This is an individual project; each student is responsible for their own presentation.
Text: Benjamin Birkinbine, Rodrigo Gomez, and Janet Wasko (eds.), Global Media Giants (Routledge, 2017)
We continue by looking more in depth at the media organizations that dominate how information spreads around the world. The accompanying project will involve reporting on an experience of ongoing engagement with a non-US outlet with content that changes at least daily. Form a group that wants to focus on a particular outlet—a newspaper, a television network, a website, an app—and saturate yourselves with it daily for at least two weeks at a time. We will ensure that, together, we are specializing in outlets all over the non-US world. Questions a presentation might seek to answer include:
This is a group project; each student will be evaluated both collectively and individually. In addition to turning in the group's slides, each student should post to D2L 10 daily diaries of what they're monitoring and reflections on it. These diaries will affect the portion of the grade for research and sources.
We conclude with a tour among the online corporations that have been “disrupting” the media landscape in recent years. For the accompanying project, you will create a disruption of your own. Imagining yourself as a participant in a major media organization (whether an employee, executive, consultant, or user) and develop a memo that articulates a proposal for how the organization could be more globally literate. Enter a fictional role in a non-fictional organization and perform it convincingly. Some suggestions:
Each memo will undergo peer review of a complete draft; both the draft and the final revision will be turned in for evaluation.
Fall Break
Features of this course have been adapted from courses by the same name developed by Polly McLean and Rick Stevens at the University of Colorado; its flaws are all mine.
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