Wednesdays, 3PM-5.50PM
Room 9 Benton Hall
Instructor: Nick Gillespie (gillespie@reason.com; 202.249.1751)
Office hours: By arrangement
Course Description: This course explores the theory and practice of new media, especially as it relates to cultural and political journalistic outlets. We will not only discuss interactive media but create it through ongoing Web-based projects such as weblogs and regular Web-based interviews with leading practitioners in new media.
This course has three related goals:
- To give students a basic command of the language, concepts, and tools of what's generally called "cultural studies"; you should leave this course with a stronger sense of what it means to make and consume art, video, music, games, and other forms of creative expression.
- To give students a stronger sense of how journalism, news, and other forms of media are created; you should leave this course with a greater sense of both the big ideas and small contingencies that end up shaping what stories get told, when they get told, and how they get told.
- To introduce students to actual professionals in the world of journalism and new media; you should leave this course with a stronger grasp of possibilities for careers, avocations, and more once your undergraduate years are completed.
In alternating weeks, the course will take place in classroom spaces on the Miami University campus and in Reason magazine's DC-based offices, where I will lead Web-based classroom discussions with journalists, authors, and policy analysts via webconferencing. The Web conferences will be based around the work of our visiting authors. Prior to talking with the author directly, the class will read and discuss representative samples and tease out major themes and issues. Then we will interview the author and have an hour to and hour-and-a-half discussion with him or her. The Web conferences will be video- and audiotaped and will be made available to the public via sites at Miami and via various sites related to Reason magazine. Signing up for this class constitutes your full release to appear in any materials generated by or during the academic year.
The classroom sessions will be based on discussion of influential texts (such as Walter Benjamin's essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers) that have helped shape the development of cultural studies and media studies. In each discussion, we'll be looking at various things: What exactly are these people saying? Were they accurate? Are they still accurate? How do they continue to inform our ideas and activities today?
Required Texts:
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin
Online at various locations, including here.
Online at various locations, including here.
The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
Life After Television (Revised Edition), by George Gilder
Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, by Henry Jenkins
Course Requirements:
Attendance at all sessions is required and absences unexcused by serious medical conditions will result in reduced final grades. More than two unexcused absences will result in a failing grade.
Each student will be required to lead a classroom discussion at some point during the semester. The student will be responsible for giving a presentation that will encapsulate that session's main themes and ideas.
Each student will be required to maintain a regularly updated weblog that contains reactions to the weekly readings and sessions with authors and serves as a repository for the student's ongoing thoughts to and reactions to various forms of media. The blog will account for 30 percent of the final grade.
Each student will be required to submit a midterm project that will engage and explore some aspect of political or cultural media. The idea and shape of the project will be worked out in conjunction with the instructor and could take the form or a traditional research paper, a short film, or audio clip. The student will be responsible for making a five to seven minute class presentation based on the project. The mid-term project will account for 20 percent of the final grade.
Each student will be required to submit a final project that will, like the midterm project, be worked out in conjunction with the instructor and engage and explore some aspect of political or cultural media. Each student will give a 10-12 minute presentation based on that project, which will account for 30 percent of the final grade.
Active classroom participation is required and will account for 20 percent of the final grade.
Schedule of classes
August 27: Introduction
September 3: DC webconference with Slate's media critic, Jack Shafer.
September 10: Walter Benjamin
September 17: DC webconference with political operative Roger Stone
September 24: Adorno/Horheimer and the "culture industry"
October 1: DC webconference with Reason editor in chief and McCain: The Myth of a Maverick author Matt Welch
October 8: Medium is the Massage
October 15: DC Webconference with The Onion's Joe Garden
October 22: Midterm presentations
October 29: DC Webconference; speaker and readings TBD
November 5: Life After Television
November 12: DC Webconference; speaker and readings TBD
November 19: Textual Poachers
November 26: Thanksgiving break; no class
December 3: Final presentations
December 12: Final presentations
