Below each date you will find the readings due on that date. Note that some days have more than one reading due. Changes to the schedule will be noted here and announced on the main page. Each reading links to a .pdf document with a series of reading questions.
Standard Disclaimers: Questions here are meant to help guide your studying, though you are responsible for knowing the whole reading and not just the material covered in the questions. Probably unnecessary reminder: when you see a question like “what’s wrong with the ‘sender-message-receiver’ model?” I am asking you to recapitulate the author’s position on the question, not your own.
Introduction
The Multiplicity of Communication
9 Sep
Peters, John Durham. “Introduction: The Problem of Communication.” In Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, 1-31. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Part 1: Theories and Experiences of Communication
1A: Sender–>Message–>Receiver
A Transmission Model
14 Sep
Hall, Stuart. “Encoding/Decoding.” In Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies 1972-9, edited by Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe, and Paul Willis, 128-38. London: Hutchinson, 1980.
Limits of Transmission
21 Sep
Davison, W. Phillips. “The Third Person Effect in Communication.” Public Opinion Quarterly 47, no. 1 (1983): 1-15.
St. John, Jeffrey. “Communication as Failure.” In Communication As…: Perspectives on Theory, edited by Gregory Shepherd, Jeffrey St. John and Ted Striphas, 249-56. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006.
1B: Process Theories of Communication
Transmission vs. Ritual
23 September
Carey, James. “A Cultural Approach to Communication.” In Communication as Culture, 13-36. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
Media Culture as Play
28 September
Frasca, Gonzalo. “Simulation Versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology.” In The Video Game Theory Reader, edited by Mark J.P Wolf and Bernard Perron, 221-35. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Wark, McKenzie, “Allegory (on The Sims).” In Gamer Theory, (paragraphs) 26-50. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.
30 September
Sensation and the Saturation Argument
Marvin, Carolyn. “Communication as Embodiment.” In Communication As…: Perspectives on Theory, edited by Gregory Shepherd, Jeffrey St. John and Ted Striphas, 67-74. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006.
Gitlin, Todd. “Historical Origins of the Torrent,” “Distractions, Drugs and Fetishes,” and “Calculation and Feeling.” In Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives;, 24-44 (notes 213-16). New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001.
1C: Affiliation and Display
7 October
Social Critiques of Taste
Bourdieu, Pierre. “Preface to the English-Language Edition,” “Introduction,” and “The Aristocracy of Culture.” In Distinction : A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, xi-18. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Straw, Will. “Exhausted Commodities: The Material Culture of Music.” Canadian Journal of Communication 25, no. 1 (2000): 175-85. Available online at http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1148/1067
Affiliation and Display
19 October
Goffman, Erving. “Introduction,.” In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 1-17. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959.
boyd, danah. “Friends, Friendster and the Top Eight: Writing Community into Being on Social Network Sites.” First Monday 11, no. 12 (2006): available online at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html
21 October: Discussion of Paper Assignment; visit from Adam Lauder, Communication Studies librarian. NOTE: Couldry reading will be skipped.
Part 2: Formations of Communication
2A: Technology and Causality
26 Oct
The Question of Impact
Williams, Raymond. “The Technology and the Society.” In Television: Technology and Cultural Form, 3-25. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1974/1992.
Faulkner, Tony. “FM: Frequency Modulation or Fallen Man?” in Radiotext(e), edited by Neil Strauss, 61-65. New York: Semiotext(e), 1993.
28 Oct
Technologies Are a Whole Mess of Stuff
Slack, Jennifer Daryl, and J. Macgregor Wise. “Agency” and “Articulation and Assemblage.” In Culture + Technology: A Primer, 115-33 (notes 202). New York: Peter Lang, 2006.
2 Nov
Articulation at Work
Goggin, Gerard and Christopher Newell. “Disabling Cell Phones.” In <em>The Cell Phone Reader, edited by Anandam Kavoori and Noah Arceneaux, 155-172. New York: Peter Lang, 2006.
2B: Who Owns Whom?
4 Nov
The Media Concentration Argument
McChesney, Robert. “The Market Über Alles” In The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Centur, 175-209 (notes 329-37). New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004.
9 Nov
You’re a Commodity
Meehan, Eileen. “Why We Don’t Count: The Commodity Audience.” In Logics of Television, edited by Patricia Mellencamp, 117-37. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.
11 Nov
You’re an Agent (sort of)
Jenkins, Henry. “Buying Into American Idol: How We Are Being Sold on Reality TV.” In Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 59-92 (notes 263-266). New York: New York University Press, 2006.
16 Nov
The Economics of Participation
Terranova, Tiziana. “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy.” Electronic Book Review(2003): available online at http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/technocapitalism/voluntary
2C: The Materiality of Ideas
23 Nov
Redefining “Ownership”: the Intellectual Property Problem
Gillespie, Tarleton. “The Copyright Balance and the Weight of DRM.” In Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture, 21-64 (notes 288-300). Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007.
Vaidhyanathan, Siva. “Introduction.” In Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity, 1-17 (notes 191-194). New York: New York University Press, 2001.
30 Nov
Advertising 1 – The Rise of the Brand and the Decline of the Spot
Klein, Naomi. “New Branded World” and “Alt.Everything: The Youth Market and the Marketing of Cool.” In No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, 3-26 and 63-85 (notes 447-48 and 449-51). New York: Picador, 1999.
2 Dec
Advertising 2 – The Fantasy of Happiness
Schudson, Michael. “Advertising as Capitalist Realism.” In Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion, 209-33 (notes 272-75). New York: Basic Books, 1984.
3 Dec EXAM REVIEW
If you’re new to reading work by writers in the humanities (or even the social sciences), it is worth having a look at Paul N. Edwards’ essay “How to Read a Book.” Although his main example is a book, his advice is equally applicable for the articles you will be reading for this course.
