Journalism 319 – Mass Media and Society

Fall 2004 FG(TTh)

Updated Oct. 20, 2004

As I suspect you’ve noticed, we’re in the process of electing a president. Who wins, and how the U.S. voters decide that, will of course have a major impact on our society and, in many ways, on the rest of the world.. Equally obvious, the mass media are major players in this event, in ways we both expect and might be surprised about. Therefore, I thought we should include a substantial dose of the news media’s role in presidential campaigns and elections in our considerations this term.

Assignments can be divided into two parts. The first is reading assigned material and discussing it in class; in a few cases, you will have material assigned to you individually, and you will make a brief verbal presentation in class based on that material. Second, you will research and write a substantial paper. You have great freedom in choosing your topic, so long as it relates to the focus of the course and is narrow enough for you to deal with it comprehensively and in depth. The minimum length is 25 pages, not including the annotated bibliography and outline. That is not as awful as it sounds, since most of the paper is synopsizing what others have written on your topic. We will work together on these papers, so the process is a painless as possible. Regardless of what you do when you leave W&L, you will spend a substantial part of your professional and personal lives gathering and assessing information and then, most likely, communicating your findings to others. Therefore, writing a research paper is among the most valuable and important skills you want to develop as an undergraduate. We’ll take it step by step in order to make as certain as possible that you’ll do an excellent job.

If it is clear from our class discussions that you are reading and thinking about the reading assignments, your verbal work throughout the term will qualify as your final exam. If the readings are not being handled well, I reserve the right to impose a final exam. Regardless, reading and commenting intelligently on the assignments will be half your grade in the course; the other half of your grade will be the grade on your research paper.

The Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications has a list of competencies that journalism majors are expected to (pardon me) become competent in. This course seems to directly address all the but last one, which deals with the applications used by professionals. A copy of the competencies is attached; please keep them in mind as you work through the course.

Required texts:

Ray Hiebert & Sheila Jean Gibbons, Exploring Mass Media for a Changing World.

            Doris A. Graber, Processing Politics: Learning from Television in the Internet Age.

Sept. 9 – Introduction

Sept.14 – H&G 1: “Development of Mass Media and Social Change”

                H&G 2: “Process and Functions”

Sept. 16 – Graber Chapters 1, “Political Television: Puzzles and Problems,” and 2, “Political Learning: How Our Brains Process Complex Information

Sept. 21 – Graber Chapter 3: “To Know or Not to Know: Questions about Civic Wisdom”

Sept. 23 – Graber Chapter 4: “Freeing Audiovisual Technologies from the Gutenberg Legacy”

Sept. 28 – Graber Chapter 5: “The Battles over Audiovisual Content”

Sept. 30 – Graber Chapter 6: “Making News Selection, Framing, and Formatting More User-Friendly”

    Watch presidential debate tonight

Oct. 5 – Discuss presidential debate

            Participate in We Media Webcast on The Impact of Participatory Media in Election 2004

            Watch vice presidential debate this evening

Oct. 7 – Graber Chapter 7: “Peering into the Crystal Ball: What Does the Future Hold?”

Oct. 8 – Watch presidential debate

Oct. 12 – Preliminary annotated bibliography

Oct. 13 – Presidential debate tonight – it will be taped

Oct. 14 – reading days: no class

Oct. 19 – – H&G 3: “Political Systems: Nations and Cultures”

            Washington Post: “Russia Admits it Lied on Crisis”

            Wall Street Journal: “Izvestia's Editor Steps Down, Links Exit to Coverage of Crisis”

            Commentaries on a debate due now or soon

Oct. 21 –

Oct. 26 – Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute speaks in the Elrod Theater.

Oct. 28 – H&G 4: “Economic Realities: Ownership and Control”

                Hand in two-page paper on Ornstein's talk

                Reports on paper progress

Nov. 2 -- H&G 5: “Legal Concerns: Rights and Responsibilities,” including media ethics

                H&G 6: “Audiences: Use of Mass Media”

Nov. 4 – The election

Nov. 9 – H&G 7: “Impact: Effects of Mass Media”

Nov. 11 – no class. Attend session with Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School for Government, Harvard University.

Nov. 12 – If you're interested, travel to Staunton for the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library annual luncheon speech by Alex Jones.

Nov. 16 – H&G 8, “Newspapers” and H&G 9, “Books, Magazines, and Newsletters”

Nov. 18 – H&G 10, “Motion Pictures” and H&G 11: “Radio and Sound Recordings”

Thanksgiving break

Nov. 30 – H&G 12, “Television” and H&G 13, “Advertising”

Dec. 2 – Attend talk by E.J. Dionne in the Elrod Theater

Dec. 7 – H&G 14, “Public Relations, Public Opinion and Mass Media” and H&G 15, “The

            Internet and the Future of Mass Media”

Dec. 9 – Paper presentations