Contemporary Mass Communication
CM 704 Boston University College of Communication
Course Description
This course engages students in a critical overview and analysis of present-day newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television, film, and the internet in their role as media of mass communication. It is designed for graduate students in the Department of Mass Communication, as an introduction to how these media work and how they interact with society and culture.
The course is organized on a weekly basis. Each week, we investigate a topic in contemporary mass communication, through readings, online interactive lessons, online lectures and guest speakers, online content analyses, and written papers. On Wednesday evenings we meet together in an online discussion group to explore the topic further. The online materials present new ideas and raise general questions about the week's topic, while the discussion group focuses on the analytical work done by students.
The course syllabus, the schedule of classes, the weekly assignments, and the content analysis forms for this course are published on the internet at http://web.bu.edu/jlengel/cmc/onlineindex.html. As the semester progresses, lectures, additional readings, online references, and discussion group findings are posted here as well. These materials will not be provided on paper. Students are expected to connect to the course web site several times each week to get their assignments and materials. The web site is also the best way to contact the course faculty.
The teacher for this course is Assistant Professor Jim Lengel, whose office is in room 203 at the College of Communication at 640 Commonwealth Avenue. You can contact him by email at jlengel@bu.edu, or by telephone at 617 353 3487.
Assignments and Grades
Each week students complete an assignment which engages them in a personal investigation of the medium under study. Most topics are studied over a two-week period. The first week's assignment is in most cases some kind of quantitative content analysis of the medium under study, while the second week's assignment is the preparation of a paper summarizing key communication concepts for the medium. During the first week's discussion group, the content analyses are combined and compared, while the second week includes presentations of students' conceptual papers.
Conceptual papers will be turned in through email, graded on a scale from A-F, and returned to students the next week. Online content analyses go directly to the course database, and are graded from there on a three-point scale of Ã-, Ã, and Ã+. Interactive lesson responses also go directly to the database, where they are reviewed by the faculty using the same three-point scale. The course grade will consist of the combined grades on the weekly assignments, plus three additional grades for class participation, attendance, and the final exam .
Course Requirements
Five things are required in this course: readings; weekly assignments; interactive lesson responses; discussion participation; and the final exam. Students are required to attend all discussion grooup meetings without exception unless excused in advance by the faculty. Students are required to complete weekly assignments and turn them in by Friday of each week. Students are expected to ask and respond to questions in both lessons and discussion sessions. And students are expected to do the background reading each week as set forth in the syllabus.
Readings
Students should purchase the following textbook, which will provide general background information on contemporary mass communication industries. Weekly reading assignments in this text are specified in the syllabus below.
Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media,by Shirley Biagi. Fifth Edition, copyright 2000. Published by Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-575102.Students should have at hand for ready reference these two classics of communication and culture, which provide countervailing points of view on the topics in the course, and in which readings will be assigned as the semester proceeds.
Understanding Media: Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan. Any edition will do, but page numbers in the syllabus refer to the edition published in 1994 by MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-63159-8.Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman, copyright 1985. Published by Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-009438-5.
Other reading assignments, in the library, the popular press, academic journals, and on the internet will be assigned as the semester proceeds. Students should also read COM News on line each week, with special attention to items relating to the week's topic.
Course Schedule
Introduction
Week of January 15
Lecture: -Mass communication today (video)
Lessons: Mass Commnication Today
- -Forms of human communication: voice, image, music, text, video-Analytical categories: Message, Audience, Economics, Technology, Future
Discussion:
- -Course schedule and requirements
- -Introductions and questions
- -Assessment of student background in mass communication
- -Compute group results from this week's assignment. Discuss impact of mass media.
Chapter 1, "You in the Digital Age"McLuhan:
Introduction by Lewis Lapham;
Introduction;
Chapter 1, "The Medium is the Message"Postman:
Foreword
Chapter 1, "The Medium is the Metaphor"
Chapter 2, "Media as Epistemology"From the internet:
Read COM News Today.Assignment:
Day in the life content analysis: mass communication that you receive. Connect to the form posted on internet. List and categorize the mass communication that you receive on the table. Submit your findings. Print your completed form and computed results page, and bring it to the discussion group.
Newspapers
Week of January 22
Guest speaker: newspaper executive (video). Message, Audience, Economics, Technology, Future. Questions. Text summary of guest speaker.
Biagi:
Chapter 2, "Newspapers"
Chapter 13, "Media Ownership and Press Performance"From the internet:
1998's guest speaker, Ranald Macdonald.
1999's guest speaker, William Ketter.Assignment: Newspaper content analysis. Form posted on internet. Complete the form, submit your results, and bring printed copies to the discussion.
Discussion: Compute group content analyses. Apply those findings to these questions: What is the role of newspapers in public life today? How does this compare with their role in 1789, and with Jefferson's view?
Week of January 29
Lecture: The Paper It's Printed On.(video)
Lessons: The Paper it's Printed On
How newspapers work, how they change, and their role in society, today and in the future.
McLuhan:
Chapter 8, "The Spoken Word: Flower of Evil?"
Chapter 9, "The Written Word: An Eye for an Ear"
Chapter 10, "Roads and Paper Routes"
Chapter 21, "The Press: Government by News Leak"Postman:
Chapter 3, "Typographic America"From the internet:
COM News Today, read current items on the newspaper industry.
"Publishers blame price hikes for falling circulation figures,"Capital District Business Review, November 11, 1996, at: http://www.amcity.com/albany/stories/111196/story6.html
Newspapers Seek Partners to Fight Challenges in Online Ad Market, from the New York Times, August 30, 1999.
Assignment: Summarize the message, audience, and economics, of newspapers, American or otherwise. Predict how they will be different in 2005 and 2025. In prose, 2 pages. Submit by email or bring to discussion group.
Discussion: Compare newspapers with radio, television, and the internet, with regard to the way they are read; the nature of the messages, and the differential impact on various groups in society.
Magazines
Week of February 5
Lecture: Pluribus or Unum? Trends in Magazine Communication (video)
Biagi:
Chapter 3, "Magazines"McLuhan:
Chapter 20, "The Photograph: The Brothel Without Walls"From the Internet:
Salon Magazine, browse the current issue, and compare it with a print magazine in terms of content, audience, and advertising.
COM News on line, read current items on the magazine industry.
Primedia Set to Name NBC Executive as its Chief, an article in the New York Times of September 27, 1999, about magazine companies hiring web-savvy employees.
The Journal of Computer-mediated Communication, an academic journal now published on the web as well as in print. Look at the new article by our own Sally McMillan, Who pays for content?
Assignment: Choose two magazines, one reaching a broad audience, the other narrowly focused. For each one, illustrate the triangle balance as follows:
- Select an advertisement.
- Select an article.
- Describe or illustrate a typical reader.
- Paste these on a piece of paper. (Or describe them in an email.)
- Prepare one page of text that explains how these three illustrations represent that balance between advertisers, content, and readers that keep the magazine going.
Discussion: Compare content of broad-audience magazines with narrow. Compare the role of magazines with that of newspapers.
Books
Week of February 12
Guest Speaker: Karen Silverio (video)
Karen is Vice President and Director of Marketing, Pearson Central Media. Pearson is a world-wide media company that owns book publishers such as Addson Wesley, Penguin, Prentice Hall, and MacMillan, as well as newspaper and television outlets. Karen will speak with us about the economics, audience, message, and future of book publishing. A summary of her remarks is available online.Biagi:
Chapter 4, "Books"McLuhan:
Chapter 18, "The Printed Word: Architect of Nationalism"Postman:
Chapter 4, "The Typographic Mind"From the Internet:
Read a summary of the remarks of guest speaker Karen Silverio..Read the transcript of last year's guest speaker, Kris Clerkin, Houghton Mifflin Company.
Read the transcript of 1998's guest speaker, John Ridley.
Assignment: Read one title from the New York Times best-seller list. Write a two-page paper that explains:
- how this book balances the functions of informing, persuading, and entertaining.
- how the meaning of this book might change if it were
- read on a computer screen
- listened to as a talking book
- viewed as a film.
Discussion: Compute and compare results of content analyses. Compare best-seller results with book industry totals. Explain the niche that books hold on the mass communication waterfront.
Marshall McLuhan and Good Writing
Week of February 19
Lessons: How to Write Good
Discussion: McLuhan's Ideas and good writing.
Holiday week: no written assignment.
Film
Week of February 26
Lecture: Film as Mass Communication (video)
Lessons: Film as Mass Communication
Biagi:
Chapter 8: "Movies"McLuhan:
Chapter 29, "Movies: The Reel World"Postman:
Chapter 5, "The Peek-a-Boo World"From the Internet:
DreamWorks Scales Back Its Once-Grand Vision, from the New York Times of September 25, 2000.And now for our digital presentation, from The Standard, Los Angeles. About the effects of bankruptcy on new media in cinema.
Assignment: Watch a current movie at a theater. Perform a content analysis of its message, and the ways that message appeals to its audience. Form posted on internet.
Discussion: Resolved: Films today have little or no public purpose beyond escapist entertainment, unlike radio and television and newspapers, which have maintained a function to inform on public issues. Group splits randomly, prepares, and conducts debate.
Radio
Week of March 12
Guest speaker: David Pearlman, Co-COO, Viacom Infinity Broadcasting (video)
Economics, audience, message, future of radio. Text summary of David's remarks.
Biagi:
Chapter 5, "Radio"McLuhan:
Chapter 30, "Radio: The Tribal Drum"From the Internet:
National Public Radio online: find it and listen.
Radio stations broadcasting on the Internet: choose one and listen.
New Format for Radio: All Digital, from the New York Times of January 25, 2001
Read the transcript of last year's guest speaker, Dave Pearlman, CEO, Infinity Broadcasting.
Assignment: Content analysis of one half hour of a radio station. Form posted on internet.
Discussion: Compute group analyses. Use summary of analyses to explain the balance and interaction of audience, advertising, and content that a radio station must maintain.
Week of March 19
Lecture: Not a Moment to Lose (video)
How Radio Works: Technologies, Demographics, and Economics.Biagi:
Chapter 6, "Recordings"McLuhan:
Chapter 28: "The Phonograph"From the Internet:
Radio & Records online , a vast mine of information about the radio and music businesses, including Arbitron rating reports for major markets, news, and other sources.Assignment: Explain how radio complements and contrasts with other forms of mass communication today. Predict what radio will be like in the year 2010. future. Draw evidence from the readings, the guest speaker, and content analyses. Prose, 2 pages.
Discussion: Paint a picture of the role of radio in society in 2020. Include demographics, message, economics.
Television
Week of March 26
Lecture: As Seen on TV. (video)
How television works, why it's ubiquitous, and how it is changing our species.
Biagi:
Chapter 7, "Television"McLuhan:
Chapter 31, "Television: The Timid Giant"Postman:
Chapter 6, "The Age of Show Business"From the Internet:
Neilsen Media Research web site. Read the section that explains what TV ratings really mean.Connect to at least three TV network web sites. Compare them. try ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, or others.
Assignment: Content analysis of one hour of television. Form posted on internet.
Discussion: Compute results of group analyses. Use results to support or refute Minow's, Postman's, and McLuhan's claims about television.
Week of April 2
Guest speaker: Mike Carson, Station Manager, Channel 7 Boston (video)
Message, Economics, Audience, social role of television. Text summary of Mr. Carson's remarks.
Postman:
Chapter 7, "Now...This"
Chapter 8, "Shuffle off to Bethlehem"
Chapter 9, "Reach Out and Elect Someone"Read the transcript of last year's guest speaker, TV executive Mike Carson, WHDH TV, Boston
From the Internet:
What TV Ratings Really Mean... from Nielsen Media.
Assignment: You are the minister of culture for a newly-independent and rapidly-developing country. How will you handle television? Public or private? Government control? Of what? Prepare a 2 page platform for the prime minister to deliver to the legislature and the World Bank.
Discussion: Structured Role Play exercise. Participants take various pre-defined roles of characters in the developing country scenario.
Direct Mail & Outdoor
Week of April 9
Lecture: In the House and on the Street: (video)
Lessons: In the House and On the Street
Targeting and Teasing.Biagi:
Chapter 10, "Advertising"McLuhan:
Chapter 23, "Ads: Keeping Upset with the Joneses"From the Internet:
The web site of the Direct Marketing Association.(browse)
The web site of DMG Direct, a direct marketing firm.(browse)
The latest issue of American Demographics magazine (browse).
The web site of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. (browse)
Despite the Internet, Direct-Mail Pitches Multiply, from the New York Times of October 25, 1999.
Assignment: Design a direct mail piece for a product or service that is not currently sold in this manner. Be creative in your choice. Before designing your own piece, examine the current state of the art in this form of mass communication by looking at actual direct mail pieces.
Discussion: Come prepared to explain your direct mail piece, and to analyze the work of your classmates, in terms of its elements, its message, the list it might be sent to, the nature of the offer, the nature of the copy (the words), the competition, and the overall design.
Internet
Week of April 16
Lecture: The Great Combine: (video)
How the internet and the personal computer will combine the roles of newspapers, radio, TV, books, and the movies.
Biagi:
Chapter 9, "Digital Media, and the Web"Wired Magazine:
Go Ahead. Kill your Television. NBC is Ready, article in Wired 6.12, December 1998. About NBC's plan to move its business to the digital world very quickly. (Thank you, Julie.)From the Internet:
Internet Commerce Study from the New York Times of November 30, 1998. What will be Internet's role in retail trade?
The Movies' Digital Future Is in Sight and It Works from The New York Times of November 26, 2000.
Struggles Over E-Books Abound from The New York Times of November 27, 2000.
Assignment: Use the internet to read the news, listen to the radio, watch a film or TV clip, purchase a part for your boat, and look up the population of Afghanistan. As you do, keep a record of the advertising messages you confront. Form posted on internet. Then choose one web site from this work, and do a complete analysis of it with the Web Site Report Card.
Discussion: Discuss group members' experiences using the internet for mass communication purposes. Compute results of advertising analyses. Compare content of internet ads with results from analyses of newspapers radio, and television. Compare grades from Web Site Report Cards.
Week of April 23
Guest speaker: Vincente Lopreto (video), of MarchFIRST corporation, an internet marketing company, on the economics and audience of the internet, and its role in the future. Read a summary of his remarks.
Read the transcript of our 1998 guest speaker, David Blohm.
Assignment: Prepare two short papers (1 page each), on either side of the proposition, "The internet and the personal computer will eventually take over the roles of newspapers, radio, TV, books, and the movies."
Week of April 30
Final Exam. Essay questions designed to ascertain your understanding of the messages, economics, technologies, and future of the mass communication industries. Four pages of writing. Due on May 9.
Discussion: Final Exam questions and issues. Course Evaluation.
Regarding plagiarism:
Plagiarism is the act of representing someone else's creative and/or academic work as your own, in full or in part. It can be an act of commission, in which one intentionally appropriates the words, pictures or ideas of another, or it can be an act of omission, in which one fails to acknowledge/document/give credit to the source, creator and/or the copyright owner of those works, pictures or ideas. Any fabrication of materials, quotes or sources, other than that created in a work of fiction, is also plagiarism. Plagiarism is the most serious academic offense that you can commit and can result in probation, suspension or expulsion.