The objective of this class is to enhance students' knowledge of media's industrial and cultural functions by introducing them to key perspectives and methods of study that stress a) how media systems have and continue to develop in the United States and across the globe as well as b) how we use and make meaning with media as part of our everyday lived experiences. To consider media's social, economic, political, and cultural impact, the course will investigate a number of ways of understanding its production, form, reception, and influence, being careful to recognize how these approaches relate to each other and to a wide array of diverse case studies in television, film, recorded music, print, video games, and online.

The objective of this class is to enhance students' knowledge of media's industrial and cultural functions by introducing them to key perspectives and methods of study that stress a) how media systems have and continue to develop in the United States and across the globe as well as b) how we use and make meaning with media as part of our everyday lived experiences. To consider media's social, economic, political, and cultural impact, the course will investigate a number of ways of understanding its production, form, reception, and influence, being careful to recognize how these approaches relate to each other and to a wide array of diverse case studies in television, film, recorded music, print, video games, and online.

The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 freshmen.

Sophomore seminars are small interactive courses offered by faculty members in departments all across the campus. Sophomore seminars offer opportunity for close, regular intellectual contact between faculty members and students in the crucial second year. The topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 sophomores.

This course aims to promote a critical understanding of visual culture from a critical theory perspective. It is designed to foster a critical understanding of media images, inviting students to question and critique the many and multiple messages at work within visual culture. It is organized around the different cultural and social theoretical approaches used to analyze visual images and explain the role of visual media in today's society.

This course examines the often contentious history of communication theory concerning media effects. At issue among scholars working within different research traditions are core disagreements about what should be studied (institutions, texts, audiences, technologies), how they should be studied, and even what constitutes an "effect." Course readings and lectures stress an understanding of different empirical and critical research traditions by focusing on the social, political, and historical contexts surrounding them, the research models and methods they employ, as well as the findings and conclusions they have reached. Course assignments and exams assess student understanding of course readings as well as the ability to apply mass media theory to new media texts.

In this course, students learn why sound journalism is so important to a healthy, working democracy. Journalism is rapidly changing. The class will give a context to those changes and provide an overview of comtemporary journalistic institutions. Students will examine how news is made, who decides what news is, who makes it, who profits by it, and what rules guide how reporters and editors work. Central issues affecting journalism, such as bias and professionalism, will be discussed. The class is not specifically intended for future journalists, but students will learn why pursuing a career in journalism can be so fulfilling and thrilling, as well as becoming better consumers of the news.

The course considers the history and contemporary meaning of the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and the press. Emphasizing the real world implications of major Supreme Court decisions, the course examines restrictions on speech and press imposed by national security, libel, injurious speech, and privacy, as well as issues of access to information and government regulation of new media.

The history of journalism is a broad subject--far broader than can comprehensively be covered in a single course. So necessarily, this course takes an idiosyncratic approach. This course examines how news has been defined, discovered, and communicated from its early modern origins to the present. It will also focus on particular areas of journalism. The class will take a critical look at how wars get reported on, including the current war in Iraq. The class will examine the role of journalists in the rise of the Cold War more than half a century ago. It will also examine the importance of media barons, by studying two highly readable biographies, one of William Randolph Hearst, the other of Katherine Graham. And finally, the class will look at the role journalists played in unseating President Nixon.

This course explores the history of information and associated technologies, uncovering why we think of ours as "the information age." We will select moments in the evolution of production, recording, and storage from the earliest writing systems to the world of Short Message Service (SMS) and blogs. In every instance, we'll be concerned with both what and when and how and why, and we will keep returning to the question of technological determinism: how do technological developments affect society and vice versa?

This course examines issues of privacy in contemporary society, with an emphasis on how privacy is affected by technological change. After an introduction to features of the American legal system and the theoretical underpinnings of privacy law, we will consider privacy in the context of law enforcement investigations, national security, government records and databases, newsgathering torts, commercial databases and First Amendment limitations on privacy regulation.

This course is intended to familiarize students with some of the primary research methods used to study mass media texts and audiences (and the relationship between the two). Because the field of media studies has historical roots in both the social sciences and humanities, the course will cover both quantitative and qualitative approaches to communications research. Course readings will describe research methods, offer examples of research projects and findings, and present critiques of research studies and methods. Course assignments will involve designing and conducting a series of sample projects on a single topic of the student's choosing in order to gain a fuller understanding of various research methods and their limitations and strengths. There are five separate research projects on the syllabus; students must complete the first project and may conduct any three of the remaining four projects. Students must present and discuss their research findings for one project to the class.

This course will examine the influence of consumer marketing trends and techniques on presidential campaigns, and on political culture more broadly. How much truth is there to the idea that selling politicians is like "selling soap"? What is the difference between the psychology of the citizen and the psychology of the consumer? How are the political process and democratic discourse being transformed, for better or worse, by the use of such techniques?

Topics in film employs theory to examine different film genres, historical periods, and topics.

Case studies of the foreign mass media. Focus may be on the press and publishing, broadcasting, documentaries, or new media. Possible topics: Pacific Rim press; mass media in China; Israeli and Palestinian media.

This class uses the approaches of media studies and cultural studies to critically consider how historical and emerging new media technologies—as well as the behaviors and forms of cultural production associated with them—influence and are themselves influenced by our everyday practices and lived experiences. It focuses particularly on concerns of identity, community, access, citizenship, industry, and regulation as these relate to social networking, collective endeavor, and public speech.

Introduction to the history of advertising and the roots of consumer culture in the United States. Presents constrasting approaches to the study of advertising and the analysis of advertising themes and images.

This course examinines contemporary approaches to the study of television, investigating televison's social, political, commercial, and cultural dimensions. Readings and assignments require students to apply critical perspectives to television programming and to the analysis of individual television texts.

Normally open only to Media Studies majors who have already completed 12 units of upper division work in the major. Advanced study in Media Studies with topics to be announced each semester.

Under the supervision of the instructor, students will work toward preparing scholarly theses in the field, basing their work on theoretical considerations and, where applicable, analyzing empirical data.

This course is the UCDC letter-graded core seminar for 4 units that complements the P/NP credited internship course UGIS C196B. Core seminars are designed to enhance the experience of and provide an intellectual framework for the student's internship. UCDC core seminars are taught in sections that cover various tracks such as the Congress, media, bureaucratic organizations and the Executive Branch, international relations, public policy and general un-themed original research.

This course provides a credited internship for all students enrolled in the UCDC and Cal in the Capital Programs. It must be taken in conjunction with the required academic core course C196A. C196B requires that students work 3-4 days per week as interns in settings selected to provide them with exposure to and experienc in government, public policy, international affairs, media, the arts or other areas or relevance to their major fields of study.

Students work in selected internship programs approved in advance by the faculty coordinator and for which written contracts have been established between the sponsoring organization and the student. Students will be expected to produce two progress reports for their faculty coordinator during the course of the internship, as well as a final paper for the course consisting of at least 35 pages. Other restrictions apply; see faculty adviser.

Seminars for the group study of selected topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses. Topics will vary from year to year.

Independent study and research by arrangement with faculty.