Syllabus • Fall 2010

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JCOM 2010 • MEDIA SMARTS
Making Sense of the Information Age (the online edition)
Professor Ted Pease (ted.pease@usu.edu)
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University • Fall 2010

• Email: Ted.Pease@usu.edu
• Website: USU Blackboard; Blog—you’re here! (additional materials at AskDrTed)
• Required Text: John McManus, Detecting Bull: How to Identify Bias and Junk in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web (2009), Purchase (or “rent”) online. Go to the Detecting Bull website and click on “buy/rent” link at left. Follow the directions. Permanent copy of entire book: $23.95. Temporary copy (20 weeks): $14.95. Also available in a dead-tree version for $24.95—see website for details. (I recommend the online version, because it's cool and because it is full of hotlinks to great extra URLs. On the other hand, you can mark up the paper version. Your call.)
• Other Resources: Look at the INDEX at left on the blog for weekly assignments, readings, quizzes and whatnot. See also Today’s WORD on Journalism and AskDrTed; occasional hilarious “Teddy TV” lectures will be posted on Blackboard.
• Office: 310B Animal Science (435-797-3293)

Preamble: Wise Guys

1. Whose Reality?
“I don’t fret about TV because it’s decadent or shortens your attention span or leads to murder. It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, masks
and drowns out the subtle and vital information that
contact with the real world once provided.”
—Bill McKibben, author, The Age of Missing Information, 1993

2. Critical Thinking
“Question Authority!” –1970s slogan

3. The Power of Words
“Words are sacred. They deserve respect.
If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”
—Tom Stoppard, playwright, 1967

4. How Do We Know What We (Think We) Know?
“I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world,
and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover
either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”
—E.B. White, author, 1938

• • • • •

What we’ll do

Welcome to Media Smarts, where we equip you to make sense of the information age—journalism, movies, advertising, books, TV, the Internet, radio. Some issues we’ll discuss and explore:
1) We’re being lied to, boys and girls.
2) The way we are told to see the world is not necessarily the way it really is.
3) Trying to operate in a free and participatory democracy without accurate knowledge and information is like piloting a boat through the fog without radar or GPS.

The central question driving Media Smarts is this: How do we know what we (think we) know about _____________? fill in the blank: the economy? Iraq? Lady Gaga? Barack Obama? Hair care? Health issues? Global warming?

In this information age (which author Bill McKibben said should more correctly be termed an age of missing information), nearly every waking moment is somehow affected by the mass media, which teach us to see the world in particular ways. The media teach us to value certain lifestyles and norms and to reject others; to desire certain products—food, cars, gadgets, political figures; how to perceive different groups of people based on their gender, racial background, skin color, height, weight, eye color, or religion.

This constant diet of mass media images and values skews how we as individuals and we as a society see and understand the world.

The goal of this course is to help you see past the mass media’s version of the world, and to give you the analytical and critical thinking skills you’ll need to take the mass media version with a grain of skepticism, and to make sense of the world for yourself.

During the semester, we will develop critical thinking skills—informed skepticism—to explore whether, when, how, and to what extent the mass media—both news and entertainment—can influence events and people’s view and understanding of them, focusing on how mass media messages can cultivate perceptions, perspectives and attitudes, particularly in areas of gender, racial diversity, violence, children, and as regards how Americans “know” their own history. We’ll start with general principles of media literacy, and then focus specifically on how the mass media present “reality”—political, social and cultural.

Course Goals: To expand students’ recognition of the role of mass media versions of “truth,” and their critical thinking and analytical skills to make them more savvy consumers of mass media. In particular, the course will ask students to analyze and evaluate various mass media versions of historical events, cultural norms, and individuals in society.

The core question for this course is, How do we know what we know about the world and the people and events in it, and how sure we are of those “facts”? (Note: This question is nicely illustrated in the current debate about whether President Obama was born in this country, and whether he is a Christian or a Muslim: 27% of everyone (and 41% of Republicans) responding to a Pew Research Center poll said they think Obama is a Muslim. What is a “fact”? Whose “facts”?)

We will examine the unique and essential social interaction between the individual and the mass media:
a) How do mass media—from newspapers to TV and radio to Hollywood and the Internet—frame the world and the people in it?
b) How does this affect the press, people, culture, societies and participatory democracy?
c) What stories about cultural norms (race, gender, society, politics, etc.) are told?
d) And how do we learn to “see” and understand the world through such lessons?

Children, of course, are the most susceptible victims of media images and messages. Humor columnist Erma Bombeck once said, “In general, my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.”

Most Americans under the age of 50 were raised on such a diet; the world has been created for us, and isn’t real unless we’ve seen it on the tube, or on YouTube. In predicting more than 45 years ago how the information age would change the world, Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) used the analogy of a fish. He said he didn’t know who discovered water, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t a fish.

Hunh????

Well, like fish in a pond, McLuhan suggested, most of us in the information age are unsuspecting and uncritical about the mass media environment in which we live. We eat TV, we breathe media messages, we overhear news and rumors, and unknowingly absorb advertising and cultural attitudes through our gills and into our psyches and worldviews.

This represents an enormous responsibility both for the producers of mass media messages, and for those who consume them. How healthy is this diet?

As beat-era poet Allen Ginsberg said, “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” The fundamental assumption of Media Smarts is that most of us are so accustomed to the mass mediated world of the 21st century that we don’t even notice the environment in which we live, the mass media diet that we consume and digest, and which becomes part of what and who we are, and how we think about and perceive the world.

“Television tends to be the main centerpiece in our culture,” says Professor Gary Edgerton. “TV in a sense creates instant history . . . that shapes how we think about an event.” Even beyond the sit-com or QVC or reality-show fads—which help us learn from TV what we value and how we should live—most Americans learn what they think they “know” about historical events and people from how they are depicted and framed in TV or movies. For example, students can “understand” the events of Pearl Harbor only with Ben Affleck in the middle of them. Many Americans “know” what they think they know about the death of President John F. Kennedy from Oliver Stone’s movie. The story of D-Day is told by Tom Hanks going ashore at Normandy to find a soldier named Private Ryan.

This is how many people today “know” the world. I believe that today’s students—you guys—are so steeped in mass media from infancy that you may need remedial critical thinking skills to help you recognize how entertainment media affect perceptions of both current and historical “reality.” That’s not intended as a criticism—it’s not your fault that, as philosopher-king Bart Simpson told Homer and Marge, “It’s just hard not to listen to TV—it’s spent so much more time raising us than you have.”

Media content-producers—which means not only newspapers and Hollywood producers, but anyone with an Internet connection or a Twitter account—decide what to include and exclude in their messages, what to highlight or downplay in order to frame “facts” the way they want. This may be intentional to mislead and misrepresent, but it easily might also be unintentional: we all see and know the world in our own ways.

“Truth” is in the eye and mind of the beholder—often diluted, distorted and even fabricated by the media to sell you something, to privilege ideologies or social class, to distort gender and race, and otherwise to reshape social reality.

In the process, in a mass media marketplace that has become more like “reality” for most Americans than reality itself, the stories we tell and the stories we learn through films, TV and more broadly in popular culture pre-empt truth, and reshape reality for most American media consumers.

In Media Smarts, students also examine the economic, political, and cultural environment that influences the ways in which society is depicted and limited by the mass media. By the end of the semester, students will have practiced critical and analytical skills in several areas that will help them become more critical consumers of all media products.

Text, assignments & grading

Because this is an online course, and exists within a context of journalism and the role and performance of the press and the mass media, our readings will be online articles or other materials placed on the class website.

Aside from assigned online readings, which you will find listed from week to week on the blog, you will need the online “book,” Detecting Bull, which you can purchase or “rent” for the semester (see details at the top of the syllabus).

Other assignments will be posted through this blog week-by-week.

Assignments and Grading: (Subject to change)
This is a critical thinking course. It’s also a talking (or emailing) and writing course. Students will present their thoughts on mass media events and the readings on each week’s posts on the Smarts blog. Details on this requirement to follow separately.
1. Quizzes on readings/news 25 pts
2. Projects: Critical essays/reaction papers or blog projects 10 pts & 20 pts
3. SmartTalk participation 15 pts
4. Exams: Midterm 15 pts; Final 15 pts
Total = 100 pts

• Quizzes: Every week (more or less) on readings and the news.

• Projects: Two short (750 wds) essays—or, alternatively, create a blog—on assigned topics, using extensive citation of relevant articles and sources. Details to come.

• SmartTalk: Every week you will encounter readings or come across stuff on your own that pushes your buttons about the intersection of mass media and your life. When this happens, I want you to post your rants on that week’s assignment site on the blog (for example, click here the Week1 posting—if there were something that you wanted to rant about, you would click on “comments” at the bottom of the post, and write your rant in the little box. You can “comment as” there either using your gmail or aggiemail address, or you may click anonymous).
Comment/kibbitz/rant regularly on the blog. Sometimes Professor Pease will start a thread. Sometimes the WORD will push your buttons (like this one, which makes me CRAZY....) Everyone must initiate a substantive thread on the readings or a current media issue, as well as comment/respond substantively to someone else’s post.You can comment on the readings, on Today’s WORD on Journalism (which you will receive by email daily) or on anything else that strikes you in news about the media or in the media themselves. I expect you to comment substantively (more than, “Yeah! I agree!”) at least 12 times during the semester, both initiating your own subjects and responding to others’ rants. Check Week1 scroll down for an example from last semester.

• Exams: Comprehensive midterm (~Week8) and final exams. Short answer and essays.

• Other grading issues: The instructor takes no prisoners when it comes to writing, grammar, spelling, mechanics, etc. Fair warning. Obviously, DEADLINES ARE ABSOLUTE. That’s why they’re called deadlines. In the real world, missing deadlines means you don't get in the paper; in this class, missing deadline means zero for the assignment.

Housekeeping Details: Some cautions, instructions and threats. Ask anyone; Pease is an irascible old poop and can be testy at times.

Academic Honesty: The University expects students and faculty alike to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty (for a complete definition, see University Catalogue or the Code of Policies and Procedures for Students at Utah State University, Article V, Section 3). The policy states:

“[C]heating, falsification or plagiarism can result in warning, grade reduction, probation, suspension, expulsion, payment of damages, withholding of transcripts, withholding of degrees, removal a class, performance of community service, referral to appropriate counseling" or other penalties as the university judiciary may deem appropriate.
Because public trust and personal credibility are essential to journalists and other professional communicators, I adhere to the JCOM department’s zero-tolerance policy regarding academic dishonesty: Cheaters fail the class and are expelled from the JCOM major. As per the USU Student Code, any documented form of academic dishonesty—including plagiarism—will result in an automatic F in the course and a report to the dean of the college and the USU vice president for student services. If you have questions about what’s acceptable work under strict codes of academic honesty, see the USU Code of Policies and Procedures for Students, or consult your professor. Any suspicious work may be submitted to a web database. For guidance on plagiarism and how to avoid it, see this website.

Decorum: It’s a funny thing about email and other online communication—people often type things that they would NEVER say in a face-to-face setting, sometimes without thinking. So please read your emails out loud to yourselves (this also will help with typos and stoopid language) and count to 10 before sending or posting. We’re all in this together. That means that we will need each other in order to succeed. And that means that everyone is expected to treat everyone else with fairness, courtesy and honesty. Central to this subject matter is the willingness to examine our own beliefs and how we arrived at them, and to acknowledge that others may see the world differently. So I hope we all will be able to express and consider opinions collegially, in the spirit of open inquiry. Let us agree to disagree, if necessary, and to accommodate contrarian viewpoints and differing perspectives. Disruptive or abusive behavior will not be tolerated.

Disclaimer: The instructor has no desire to offend anyone’s personal or cultural beliefs, and he apologizes in advance if he does so inadvertently. But students should be aware that journalism (and advanced education) often deals with issues and content that some may find disagreeable—from profanity and offensive attitudes and perspectives that may make you uncomfortable. But that’s the business or examining society and becoming media-savvy and making sense of the world. It’s a critically important job for every citizen of a free society. Please do tell me if you have problems with any of the material, and we will try to accommodate if possible.

Finally, any rumors that you may have heard that Professor Pease is a heartless, obdurate, irritable, demanding, tough, pugnacious, unpleasant SOB probably falls short (and wide) of the truth. The fact is that I will press you hard this semester to develop an advanced level of critical thinking and analysis required for success in the information age. But if you're having a problem—with this class or anything else—please feel free to call or email me, or for those of you on-campus, come find me in my office, for a talk, a coke, career advice, a crying towel or whatever.

§ § §

SCHEDULE

(subject to change—pay attention!)

The advantage to online courses is that you can do the work as your schedule permits, and in your pajamas if you want. In fact, Professor Pease may be in his jammies even now (picture that! Well, actually, don’t....). But you do have to complete the assignments when they are due. Students who wait until the end of the semester to submit everything in a pile will flunk.

The weekly assignments will appear as a single hotlink (ex: Week 1...) on Blackboard, linking to details on our blog. You don’t have to go through Blackboard—bookmark the Media Smarts blog on your computer, and just do your work there. There is an INDEX link in the upper lefthand corner of the blog page, and the week-by-week links also appear in that column. There’s a lot of other fabulous stuff there, too, for the curious or bored, and more will be added as the semester goes on.

§ § §

JCOM 2010 (online edition)—Media Smarts Schedule F10 (subject to change)

NOTE: Here’s a start on our readings schedule, which I will add to on the weekly listings, so click on those links regularly for updates. This is your responsibility.

WEEK 1 Aug. 30
• Get acquainted with our Blackboard site and the Media Smarts blog.
• Read “First Thing—Read This!” and syllabus closely.
• Order John McManus’ Detecting Bull online. Here’s how-to...
• Quiz on syllabus will be emailed.
• Students post introductions of themselves on “About Us” post on blog.

WEEK 2 Sept. 6
Starters: Yes, Virginia, I DO Expect You to THINK!—Stephen Colbert clip.
How Do We Know What We Think We Know?
READINGS:
• McManus, Intro Chapter (pp. 1-4)
• What Is Media Smarts? “Media Smarts—Making Sense of the Information Age,” by Ted Pease & Brenda Cooper
• “Media Myths” quiz.
• SmartTalk at Week2 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 3 Sept. 13
• Video: Billy Joel condenses history
• Lecture Notes: Media Literacy: How do we know what we think we know? to accompany an online video on “TeddyTV” (details to come)
• READINGS: Media Literacy
• “What is media literacy?”
• “Some principles of media literacy” and online handout from DrTed
• McManus, Ch. 1 (pp. 1-15)
• SmartTalk at Week3 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 4 Sept. 20
READINGS on Mass Communication Theories—How does this stuff work?:
• Mass Communication Theories
• McManus, Ch. 2 (pp. 1-10): Truth v. Truthiness
• Pease column: McLuhan’s Fish
• Start thinking about Truthiness Project, due Friday, Oct. 15.
• SmartTalk at Week4 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 5 Sept. 27
READINGS: Journalism Ethics—NOT an Oxymoron! A Free & Responsible Press
• Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics; other professional ethics codes.
• Social Responsibility: “The Philosophical Underpinnings of Free Expression in Society,” by Edward C. Pease; the Hutchins and Kerner commissions
• SmartTalk at Week5 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 6 Oct. 4
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week6 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 7 Oct. 11
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week7 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 8 Oct. 18
See Blog
• Midterm Exam
• SmartTalk at Week8 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 9 Oct. 25
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week9 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 10 Nov. 1
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week10 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 11 Nov. 8
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week11 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 12 Nov. 15
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week12 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 13 Nov. 22
See Blog
Thanksgiving Week

WEEK 14 Nov. 29
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week14 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 15 Dec. 6
See Blog
Last day of classes: Dec. 10
• SmartTalk at Week15 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

FINAL EXAM WEEK Dec. 13