Instruction will primarily be lecture and discussion format. Instruction will also include viewing and analyzing excerpts from TV shows, films, news media and digital media. Some instructors may also include viewing and analyzing recorded meetings, presentations, conversations or interviews.
Instructors will give students a representative sample of current theories within the discipline of Communication while focusing on media communication. Instructors will draw on at least four of the seven major traditions within communication theory. The seven traditions and some of their associated topics are listed in the table below:
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Tradition |
Examples of Associated Topics |
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Rhetoric |
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Socio-Psychological |
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Cybernetics |
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Semiotics |
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Socio-Cultural |
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Phenomenology and Hermeneutics |
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Critical Theory |
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Any single course offering must apply the theories covered to the following three objects of analysis:
- media and culture
- policy and political economy
- society and technology.
At the end of the course, the successful student will be able to satisfy the following learning objectives:
- Identify the major schools of thought in Communication.
- Summarize major theories about how we produce messages and assign meaning in oral, written and media communication.
- Analyze major issues in contemporary media communication.
- Evaluate how mass media and new (digital) media influence political, economic and social discussion.
- Judge how mass media and new (digital) media influence cultural production and social development and interaction.
- Explain and illustrate how technology influences communication.
- Read and write competently within a variety of academic genres.
Assess communication theories for testability, usefulness, completeness, simplicity and presence of value-assumptions.
Evaluation will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with Douglas College policy. At least 50% of students’ evaluation will come from written work on which students receive feedback and instruction on their writing.
Students will be evaluated on the following work:
- one short explication paper on a major Communication theory (5-15%)
- one short case study of a specific media message (5-15%)
- one mid-term exam (15-25%)
- one essay comparing at least two Communication theories (20-30%)
- one research paper analyzing a contemporary medium, trend, event, technology or development in Communication (15-25%)
- professionalism (attendance, participation, group work, preparedness, homework) (5-10%).
Instructors may also include a final exam, provided the final exam is not worth more than 30% of the final grade. If a final exam is included, instructors will alter the weighting of other assignments to achieve a total course mark of 100%.
Exact means of assessment and their percentages for course grade will be specified in the instructor’s course outline.
The course material will introduce students to some primary sources by key theorists. Course materials will include instructor-designed course packages composed of scholarly essays and/or first-year textbooks that introduce first-year students to a broad coverage of Communication theory.
The following list is a sample of appropriate textbooks:
- Griffin, Em. Communication: A First Look at Communication Theory
- West, Richard and Turner, Lynn H. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application
- Littlejohn, Stephen. Theories of Human Communication
- Baran, Stanley J. and Davis, Dennis K. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment and Future.
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