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COMM 100 Mass Media in America

Section Number 70156

Catalog Description:

A multi-media approach to a comparative survey of communication in 20th century America, studying the history, structure, and social impact of television, cinema, radio, journalism, and new forms of communication. CSU; UC - COMM 100 and 105 combined: maximum credit, one course; CAN JOUR 4 Closed Captioned

Instructor:

Wendy Nelson

Class Meetings:

6:00-8:50pm
On the following Mondays: Aug. 20; Sept. 10, 24; Oct. 22; Nov. 5, 19; Dec. 3
Room B-3

Broadcast Days and Times:

Times & days for Cox Cable North – Channel 16 and Time Warner Cable North – Channel 16: Monday Wednesday 11:30pm-Midnight OR Thursday 12:00-1:00am OR Friday 10:00-11:00pm

Viewing Options

If this course does not air in your area or you don’t have cable you have two options. The first option is you can check out video tapes from the Learning Resource Center on the San Marcos Main Campus Library or the Escondido, Ramona or Mt Carmel Education centers. The second option is watching the lessons online. All of our classes are video streamed and available for viewing on the course’s Blackboard website (see below about Blackboard log in instructions).

Class Outline

Course materials are available the Friday prior to when classes begin. Access your course outline, assignments, handouts and announcements, as well as view video lessons in Blackboard. Log in Blackboard instructions:

USERNAME: STUDENT ID Number
PASSWORD: Palomar eServices Password

To log in go to: http://www.palomar.edu/pconline/

Textbook and Other Required Materials:

The Dynamics of Mass Communication (with DVD), 2006, Joseph R. Dominick

Video Series Entitled:

Media Waves

Video Lesson Descriptions:

1) Media History
"The History of Media" outlines the historical patterns of mass communication as a foundation for understanding the rapidly changing media environment and the evolution of symbolic representation, human language, and written language

2) Mass Media in Society
This program delves into the functions media perform in culture and in the lives of individuals. This broad range of functions is explored in light of contrasting media systems and cultural situations on the global stage.

3) Print History
"Print History" begins with the birth of print technology and traces its influence on mass literacy, and revolutions in political, scientific, and religious thinking. As the first "one-to-many" media technology, the printing press was an integral part of the major social and cultural upheavals that came to define the modern world.

4) Images in Media
Representational images were part of human communication even before language. This program traces the power of images in mass communication through milestones and examines the new and continuing issues raised by 20th century image technologies-advances in photography, film ,video, interactive media, and digital imaging software.

5) Newspaper Industry
This program explores the behind-the-scenes strategies and major trends that made newspapers the centerpiece of mass culture in the 19th century, and helped them secure a foothold in the increasingly complex mass media environment of the 20th century. A strong emphasis is placed on the structure of the industry.

6) Magazine Industry
The magazine industry was an instrumental part of the growth of shared national culture. This program looks at the history of magazines and how the magazine industry is structured: how individual departments function, the economic issues the industry faces is a rapidly changing market, ownership trends as cross-media integration increases, and the industry's use of the Internet and other recent technological innovations.

7) Book Industry
As inexpensive reading material became widely available, new waves of literary, philosophical, religious, and scientific works joined entertaining and sometimes scandalous "dime novels" in satisfying a mass audience that had, what appeared to be, an endless appetite for books. This program examines the structure of the book industry: the process of publishing and bringing a book to market, the functions of individual departments in a publishing company, book stores' innovations in marketing strategy, the impact of cross-media integration on ownership and product lines, and the impact of new technologies on the industry.

8) Recording History
This program explores the ongoing relationship between recording technologies and the cultures and subcultures of music. As the phonograph and kindred "talking machines" became more than novelties, the demand for more entertaining content led to a global talent search that recorded for prosperity and profit. Expanded record sales became crucial to the rock n' roll revolution that mixed the races and split the generations. Waves of new technology continuously improved audio quality and flexibility.

9) Radio History
This program follows radio history from its invention to the birth, expansion, and regulation of the major networks, and through the ongoing adjustments in programming and audience culture that have attended the advent of FM radio and television. Radio marked the beginning of a new kind of cultural experience that helped to reconfigure the social world.

10) Radio Industry
This program maps the range of formats and ownership that make up the radio industry landscape. It explores the major networks, syndicated programming, satellite radio networks, public broadcasting, and the legislation that guides the business strategies of each. The picture of the industry is completed with a look at the behind-the-scenes operations of a radio station.

11) Recording Industry
This program explores the industries and underlying processes that bring recording talent to the marketplace. The recording industry is shaped by a complex and often erratic interplay of art and business. Production techniques constantly grow in power and flexibility. The structure of the industry continues to shift in the wake of changes, as well as the interaction of media forms.

12) Film History
This program showcases the technologies, creative imaginations, audience cultures, and controversies of film history. The invention of motion picture technology marked the advent of not only a new mass medium, art form, and industry, but a new vocabulary and grammar of human communication as well.

13) The Film Industry
This program looks at how the complex business of motion pictures is structured. It explores the behind-the-scenes production processes, the new technologies that add to what is possible, the changing strategies that drive the promotion, distribution, and exhibition functions, and the ownership trends shaped by increasing cross-media integration.

14) Television History
This program looks at the growth of television as a culture industry and the evolution of its relationship with the American public. Television played an instrumental role in the social rifts and ruptures of the late 60s and early 70s. Network television was, and for a more select category of events such as sports, still is at the center of how Americans collectively experience their own culture.

15) The Broadcast Television Industry
This program focuses on the structure of the broadcast television industry that prefigured and now competes with cable television. It covers the centralized major networks, public broadcasting, independent stations, affiliates, and syndication. Students will gain an understanding of the dynamics of producing programming through a look at the departmental functions and decision-making processes of a television station. The program also explores how broadcast television has contended with outside variables over the years.

16) Cable TV and Beyond
This program focuses on the ownership trends, market segmentation, technological innovations, cross-media ties, and legislation that drive the cable and satellite industries. Both satellites and cable greatly expanded the reach and flexibility of television. Both technologies brought with them a new set of programming possibilities, marketing strategies, and regulatory issues.

17) Television News
This program is designed to help students better understand how journalistic, financial, and technological considerations combine to create the fast-paced dynamics of newsroom decision-making. Ongoing technological advances also strongly influence what can be reported within a newsroom budget. While it is no secret that the business aspects of news gathering and reporting in large measure determine what we see on the news, financial concerns are usually kept very much "backstage."

18) Print News
This program takes students inside newsrooms to give them a sense of how an idea or event becomes a print story. The program also provides a look at the evolution of investigative journalism, wire services, and the impact of new technologies on newsgathering.

19) Public Relations
This program illustrates how modern public relations grew out of the long legacy of efforts to shape how people perceive the political and commercial worlds around them. This program takes the viewer through the major areas of public relations practice and the organization of the industry. It also explores the major elements and processes that go into conducting a public relations campaign, and key issues that the practitioners face.

20) Advertising
This program focuses on approaches to advertising, beginning with the major historical milestones that have led up to how the industry operates today. Advertising strategies depend on the nature of the product or service, the medium, the budget, the target audience, and other variables. These variables are examined, both individually and in terms of how they interact to drive the behind-the-scenes practices ad agencies follow. The program also examines social and cultural issues that make advertising controversial.

21) Media Rights and Responsibilities
The process of interpreting constitutional rights to freedom of expression and privacy becomes increasingly complex with the advent of each new media technology. This program examines these rights and their interpretation from their origins in the First and Fourth Amendments through the ongoing constitutional debates sparked by the Internet. The establishment of the FCC, reporters' rights and responsibilities, censorship, intellectual property, and the media's involvement in trials and courtroom proceedings are all explored in light of constitutional assumptions and principals.

22) Media Ethics
This program provides a look at individual factors that differentiate one media ethics situation from another. It also provides an overview of the guiding principles that inform ethical decision-making in the media so students can apply their understanding of ethics to new situations as they arise.

23) Media Impact
This program is designed to give students a broad understanding of the range of variables that make up the vast gray area between the camps. It looks at the relationships between media consumption and political perspectives; violent behavior; sexual conduct; socialization; and the development of cognitive skills, attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs. These relationships are examined in light of past and current research, as well as public concerns that pressure legislators and media industries.

24) Media Audience and Feedback
This program examines general patterns in the way audiences evolve, as well as the particular characteristics of audiences in each medium. It also illustrates the ways media researchers collect, interpret, and use audience feedback.

25) Media Convergence
This program begins with brief histories of the telephone and the computer and a look at the media convergence that became the Internet. It then proceeds to examine how the Internet works and its implications for social relationships, education, and the world of work.

26) Global Media
This program is designed to give students a foundation in the dynamics of global media culture so they can be more knowledgeable participants.. it covers the cultural domination issue and the challenges developing countries and indigenous cultures face as they strive for information-age empowerment while trying to preserve their cultural identities. It also covers international mass media systems, the role of media in major political changes on the global stage, and the implications of the Internet to the structure of global communication. As the telecourse concludes, a look at the future possibilities of global media culture is designed to encourage students to apply what they've learned to how they will approach the rapidly changing media environment.