Pop Culture in the Media, CTA 218 Syllabus Summer 2021
Professor Barry Liss, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Waukesha branch Department of Arts and Humanities College of General Studies Office: S008 Phone: 262-521-5518 Email: [email protected]
Although I do not have official office hours in the summer I can meet and communicate with you virtually at your convenience.
Required Materials
Readings will be emailed to you in studyguides throughout the course.
Overview
This class interrogates the media of our popular culture. The content focuses on the theory and practice of negotiating popular media. Topics include social media, televisual media, historical media forms and media as environments, media as drama, and media as ritual. Authors include Neil Postman, Marshall McLuhan, Lewis Mumford, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Kenneth Burke, Norman O. Brown, Elias Canetti, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Erving Goffman and sundry others who have contributed to our understanding of media. This class provides an introduction to the analysis and interpretation of Popular Culture as an academic discipline. The class will examine forms of media such as clothing, food, advertisement and entertainment including print and TV ads, films, television, music, music videos, giving attention to various novel forms of computer mediated technologies (search engines, dating apps, GPS, Bitcoin, Google, Facebook and other significant influences on our social life).
Popculture and the Media student proficiencies include:
Proficiency 1: An ability to apply an understanding of different media forms to an analysis or interpretation of course content. Moreover, students will learn to demonstrate a thorough understanding of how mediated forms impact a range of issues such as the body, politics, gender, energy, food production, genetics, virtual reality and the like. Students will learn to accurately present multiple perspectives in an interpretation or analysis of mediated issues regarding topics studied in a course
Proficiency 2: Develop competence while approaching mediated forms. Competence will be explored in terms of alterations of the ratios of the sensorium. This addresses media forms in terms of skills and cultivation. Students will learn to identify the importance of and demonstrate critical self-awareness of the influence of popular cultural forms in terms of their resonance on beliefs, values, and expectations. Learning Outcomes Include:
● Exhibit an understanding of various media forms by discussing popular culture, where the media are found in contemporary life; what historical lineage the media took, how it altered social life, and interconnections with media, economics and culture. ● Describe the types of media they use, purpose(s) in reading or watching popular content (detail what draws you to the content), some of the impacts it has on identity, social position, and consumption. ● Identify data that explains the author/creator’s purpose in construction the content of an media form and connect these motivations with the co-influence of politics, power, and industrial economic consumption. ● Label the influential ideas or systems of meaning within and surrounding a given media form, place the media form in context, and convey original ideas generated through evaluation in a well written essays ● Explain the systemic ways in which popular phenomena are part of a human and historically constructed sign system that carries, often contradictory, cultural values rooted in contested social structures.
Grading Breakdown % Exam 1, posted weeks 2-4 30% Exam 2, posted weeks 4-5 30% Exam 3, posted weeks 7-8 30% Synthesis Essay 10% Extra Credit Homework 5%
Course Policies
UWM Syllabus Policy can be found here: https://uwm.edu/secu/syllabus-links/
Time Investment. This is a 3 credit course. In addition to the 45 class contact hours. most of your time will be spent studying for exams (15-20 hours per exam), writing homework assignments (5 hours), and completing your final essay (10 hours). Further, you should read and study beyond the content for the exam. I estimate that you will invest roughly 140 hours to achieve the learning objectives of this class.
Participation: I strongly encourage all of you to actively participate in class discussions. Please do not come to class and passively sit mute. But rather, please share your ideas with the rest of us. Your contribution will be welcomed, even as it may be challenged. The course will not succeed without that participation.
Preparation: I expect you to give your best effort to all class readings and assignments. Please apprise yourself of the class schedule now to plan ahead for your exams and paper. To actively participate in this class, it is essential that you give ample time to the course readings.
Late work: All assignments will be due at the beginning of class on the assigned day. Late papers will be accepted, but will be assessed a penalty of 1 grade per day. If for some reason you are unable to take an examination, it is imperative that you let me know as soon as possible of your situation.
Attendance: I expect all students to be in class everyday and on time. For your class participation grade, it is important that you not miss a significant amount of classes. Your class participation grade will be affected by absences exceeding 2. The burden of accountability is yours to find out what happened on all missed days.
Academic honesty: Academic dishonesty in any form will not be tolerated. Please see https://uwm.edu/academicaffairs/facultystaff/policies/academic-misconduct/ for UWM policies on academic misconduct.
Incompletes: Incompletes will only be given in cases of illness, serious personal problems, family deaths, or other extraordinary circumstances. No student will receive an incomplete without presenting a petition with proof to me.
Discriminatory conduct. Discriminatory conduct will not be tolerated by the University. It poisons the work and learning environment of the University and threatens the careers, educational experience, and well-being of students, faculty, and staff.
Disability: Students with disabilities will be granted academic privileges necessitated by their specific disability. However, you are responsible for notifying me regarding any type of disabilities that might interfere with your performance in the class. You are also accountable for setting up any accommodations (please remind me if I need to send a test over for you).
Complaint procedures. Students may direct complaints to the head of the academic unit or department in which the complaint occurs. If the complaint allegedly violates a specific university policy, it may be directed to the head of the department or academic unit in which the complaint occurred or to the appropriate university office responsible for enforcing the policy. https://www4.uwm.edu/secu/docs/other/S_47_Discrimina_duct_Policy.pdf
Respect: Members of this community are expected to treat other persons with dignity, respect, and mutual consideration. As a class we practice tolerance.
Tentative Semester Schedule
Week 1: Introduction to Pop Culture. Postman: Social Science as Moral Theology. McLuhan: Media Hot and Cold.
Week 1: Jose Ortega y Gasset and technology.
Week 2: Hannah Arendt: Hedonism and modern media; The Mass-consumable MEME.
Week 2: Ernest Becker: Doing and Undergoing; Mumford: Art and Technics.
Week 3: Postman: The Parable of the Ring Around the Collar; Barry Sander’s A is for Ox: Violence, Electronic Media, and the Silencing of the Written Word; Carey: A Ritual Approach to Communication; Chomsky: Worthy & Unworthy Victims.
Week 3: Postman: The News & Educationist as Painkiller; Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Richard Sennett’s The Fall of Public Man; Gasset: Cultural Barbarism and the Mass Man.
Exam 1 (available weeks 2-4)
Week 4: McLuhan’s Mechanical Bride; The Executive as Dropout; Culture is our Business.
Week 4: Goffman: Behavior in Public Places & The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
Week 5: Postman: Etiquette; Megatons for Anthromegs. Berman: The Monastic Option; Chomsky: Conclusions.
Week 5: Postman: The Conservative Outlook; Berman: The Dialectic of Enlightenment; Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee.
Exam 2 (available weeks 4-6)
Week 6: Postman: Alfred Korzybski; Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel.
Week 6: Postman: The Disappearance of Childhood & Future Shlock. Berman: The Monastic Option in the 21st Century; Mumford: Parisitopolis.
Week 7: Postman: Safe-Fail; The Graduation Speech. Berman: Alternative Visions; Fromm: The Heart of Man; Toward a Humanized Technology; Sadism.
Week 7: Extended Discussion of the Contribution of Jose Ortega y Gasset, Eric Hoffer & Lewis Mumford to Popular Culture.
Week 8: Phenomenology and Pop Culture (Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger).
Week 8: The Role of Money in Popular Culture (Simmel, McLuhan, Becker).
Exam 3: (available weeks 7-8)
Final Paper last day of class.
Assessment Statement
CGS has put in place an assessment program to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the curriculum, programs, and services of the college. As a course in the UW Milwaukee Associate Degree of Arts and Sciences, the Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) for this course are aligned with the UW System shared learning goal of Critical and Creative Thinking (CC) which focusses on extending students’ abilities to analyze issues and produce responses that are both logical and innovative. Therefore, as part of the UW Milwaukee College of General Studies assessment processes, student progress in fulfilling the CC SLOs will be evaluated by using the CC assessment rubrics for critical thinking or creative thinking. Assessment will be part of a regular assignment or activity in the class but is not a grade and does not become part of your transcript.