Southwestern University
 
 2006-2007 Catalog

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  Communication Studies Department

Communication Studies Department

Division of Social Sciences

Associate Professor Robert Bednar, PhD, Chair

Assistant Professor Hector Amaya, PhD

Assistant Professor Davi Johnson, PhD

Assistant Professor Julia Johnson, PhD

Assistant Professor David Olson, MA

The Communication Studies Department focuses on critical inquiry into the relational, performative, social, cultural and ideological functions of language and other symbolic forms such as mass media. The department offers a range of courses bound together by an interest in investigating the complex relationships among and between narrative, culture and identity. Students learn a variety of methodologies for the analysis of communication: ethnographic approaches, critical media and cultural studies, feminist approaches, performance theory and historical approaches. The Communication Studies Department thus provides students with a strong theoretical understanding of the ways in which social reality is constructed and challenged in and through communication patterns and practices.

The Communication Studies major requires a total of 30 hours, comprised of 21 required hours and nine elective hours. Students interested in the Communication Studies major must complete the prerequisite courses before moving on to upper-level courses in the major unless otherwise specified. The seven core courses required of all majors challenge students to excel in distinct, yet interrelated areas of departmental focus, challenge students to improve their abilities to represent their research and creative activity with upper-level instruction in writing, and challenge students to both synthesize and apply their knowledge through the Capstone Experience.

Major in Communication Studies: 30 semester hours, including Communication Studies 75-113, 133, 623, 683; 75-483 or 563; one from 75-543, 593, 613, 783; 75-943 or 953 (Capstone); nine additional hours of Communication Studies, three hours of which must be above the introductory level.

Minor in Communication Studies: 18 semester hours of Communication Studies, 12 hours of which must be above the introductory level.

See the Education Department for information regarding teacher certification in Communication Studies.

Communication Studies (COM)

75-113 PUBLIC SPEAKING. Through a wide variety of speaking formats, students will become more comfortable with the inherently uncomfortable situation of speaking to persuade before a critical audience. This introductory course approaches the speech of advocacy as a means of social analysis.
75-133 INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES. This course introduces theoretical and critical perspectives relevant to the study of human communication. A special focus on narrative theory, social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, performance studies, cultural studies and qualitative/interpretive research methods enhances students’ understanding of the role that communication plays in the construction and maintenance of culture and identity. (ScS)
75-173INTRODUCTION TO PERFORMANCE STUDIES. See Theatre 73-173 and Feminist Studies 04-173. (FAP)
75-453RACE AND ETHNICITY/COMMUNICATION. This course introduces critical race theory as it applies to the study of communication. In particular, it explores the intersection of race/ethnicity, communication and media as it relates to issues of social justice and identity in America. These explorations shed light on the historical formation of racial and ethnic identities and their current social and personal relevance. The course integrates questions of identity with those of justice, economics and law, and will require a strong commitment to tolerance and self-reflection. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-463ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION. An investigation of the communication patterns of a wide variety of organizations, both public and private. Organizing is viewed as a dynamic process of communication. Particular emphasis is placed on organizational culture and the analysis of case studies. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (Alternate years) (ScS)
75-473NATIONS AND COMMUNICATION. This course offers a critical understanding of the roles communication and media have played in the constitution and dissolution of national identities. Special emphasis is placed on examining how the dynamic relationships among nations, resulting from increasing economic and technological ties, have engendered systems of national identities. With power at their core and mediated by information and culture, these systems of national identities are structured within local and global ways of knowing, feeling and acting that constitute the bases for connection (alliances) and separation (military and cultural wars). Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-483GENDER, RACE AND CLASS IN COMMUNICATION. This course explores how gender, race and class intersect with communication and media. These markers impact everyone because through them people express their identity, experience the world, tell their stories, and communicate love and disdain to themselves and others. Moreover, besides shaping private worlds, gender, race and class influence broad economic, cultural, and political structures, impacting every action in everyday life. Using feminism, cultural studies, and critical race theory, this class will begin untangling this complex web of influences. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. Also Feminist Studies 04-483. (ScS)
75-543DOCUMENTING THE OTHER. This course examines communication and media practices used in the United States to document the lives, experiences and world-visions of others. Holding these practices together are differing views of “other” people who are identified as others by their sexual, gender, racial, geographical and/or class characteristics. The documenting practices explored are varied: anthropological writing, ethnographic documentary, hate speech, documentary photography, some instances of popular culture (comic-strips, reality television), news media and educational curricula. Besides its critical and theoretical components, the course is also hands-on, demanding that students creatively participate in the ethical documenting of another to help them develop a critical and ethical eye as well as learn the principles of social responsibility and technical challenges that are involved in documenting others. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-553DOCUMENTING THE SELF AND COMMUNITY. This course examines some of the ways in which individuals and communities in the United States document their experiences, lives and world-visions. The documenting techniques studied include literary autobiography, comic strips, graffiti, film documentary and photography. As varied as these documenting practices are, they play a similar social function and are thus embedded in community-specific and historically-defined ideas about the self and about specific representational techniques. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-563 COMMUNICATION, GENDER AND IDENTITY. This course explores the role communication plays in the construction of identity and gender. Issues of identity and gender are analyzed and discussed as they are played out in interpersonal, public and mass media contexts. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. Also Feminist Studies 04-563. (ScS)
75-593RESEARCH METHODS IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES. This course introduces qualitative research methods currently used in the field of Communication Studies, with a special emphasis on textual analysis, visual analysis, ethnography, discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-613 JOURNALISM. This writing-intensive course considers the character, purposes and subject matter of documentary nonfiction narrative, with a special emphasis on the processes of writing, critiquing and revising student-produced feature articles for newspapers and magazines. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-623 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION. This course explores the nature of close relationships and the unique quality of communication we call interpersonal. Course materials and discussions are designed to stimulate thoughts about the role communication plays in establishing and maintaining identity, intimacy and close relationships. There is a special focus on lived, emotional experience which invites students to thoughtfully analyze and reflect upon their own significant relationships. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-643COMMUNICATION AND BODY POLITICS. “Body Politics” refers to the ways in which the human body has a political history. The human body has been conceptualized, represented and interpreted differently at various times and in various places over the course of human history. There are signs and signals indicating the way in which the body is produced, inscribed, replicated and often disciplined. Using feminist theories and communication theories, this course examines body politics in various contexts such as medicine and healing, the prison system, gender roles and body modification (i.e. piercing and tattooing). Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. Also Feminist Studies 04-653. (ScS)
75-653NEW LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA. This course provides a historical and critical perspective on the social conditions, philosophical-aesthetic positions, narrative strategies and particular national histories of New Latin American Cinema (NLAC), a form of filmmaking that originated in Latin America in the 1950s in reaction to Hollywood practices and emphasized the social and political dimensions of cinema. Often called Third Cinema, NLAC became quite relevant to the Latin American and Third World cultural environments from the 1960s on, where it became equated to “revolutionary cinema” that used a radical aesthetics to express the reality of oppression and the possibility of freedom in nationally specific ways. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-673FILM STUDIES. This course introduces students to critical, analytical and theoretical approaches to the study of film. To explore the complex role that cinema has played in American mass society since the early 20th century, special emphasis is placed on the study of institutional practices at all levels of the production, distribution, and exhibition of films as well as the “ways of seeing” and the “ways of doing” that guide both filmmakers and audiences who use film as a communication medium. (Summer) (ScS)
75-683MASS COMMUNICATION. This course provides an introduction to the critical cultural study of the political economy, history and functions of the major institutions involved in the production of mass media communication. Special emphasis is placed on the standard production practices of mass media industries that produce the media texts that surround us in our everyday lives within contemporary mass society: newspapers, radio, sound recordings, television, film, books, advertisements, public relations and the Internet. With a secondary emphasis on regulation, public policy, media ethics and media effects research, we also will explore how these institutionalized communication practices and organizations interrelate with other social institutions such as the government, the judiciary, education, business and public interest groups. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-713 ADVANCED PERFORMANCE STUDIES. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 173. See Theatre 73-713 and Feminist Studies 04-713. (FAP)
75-723 FEMINISM AND PERFORMANCE. Prerequisite: Feminist Studies 04-103. See Theatre 73-723 and Feminist Studies 04-723. (FAP)
75-733 FAMILY COMMUNICATION STUDIES. Grounded in family structural and systems theory, this course examines communicative dynamics and patterns particular to families, including the impact of relationships beyond the family system. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113, 133, 623. (ScS)
75-743COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE. This course explores the multi-layered historical and contemporary interplay of culture, communication and technology. The course constructs a systematic picture of how and why oral, manuscript, print, electric, electronic and digital media have been introduced, articulated, and maintained in specific cultural contexts, placing special emphasis on the ways that cultures shape their media and the ways that media shape their cultures. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113 and 133. (ScS)
75-783VISUAL COMMUNICATION. This course explores approaches to the production and analysis of visual media texts that have emerged in the fields of visual communication, media studies, visual culture and cultural studies. Critical attention is directed to the major products of mass media industries—especially advertisements, film, fiction/nonfiction television programs and Web sites—but also to popular forms of photography, desktop publishing, multimedia, technical illustrations and educational materials. Writing and production techniques are incorporated through individual and group projects and culminate in the collaborative production of student Web site projects. Prerequisites: Communication Studies 75-113, 133, 683. (ScS)

75-001, 002, 003, 004 SELECTED TOPICS. May be repeated with change in content.
75-301, 302, 303, 304 SELECTED TOPICS. May be repeated with change in content.
75-901, 902, 903, 904 TUTORIAL.
75-941, 942, 943, 944ACADEMIC INTERNSHIP. Must be taken on a Pass/D/F basis. May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Internship credit will count towards the major. If the student is taking an Academic Internship as their Capstone, it must be designated as the Capstone in advance.
75-951, 952, 953, 954INDEPENDENT STUDY. May be repeated with change in content, but no more than six hours of Independent Study credit will count towards the major. If the student is taking an Independent Study as their Capstone, it must be designated as the Capstone in advance.
75-983 HONORS. By invitation only. Satisfies the Capstone Experience for the major.