CA131:
Meeting Times, Location, & Course Delivery Details
Contact Information
Required Text:
Mindich, D. T. Z. (2019). The mediated world: A new approach to mass communication and culture. (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.
Turkle, S. (2014) Reclaiming conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. Penguin.
SR (Supplementary Readings): All other readings are available on Blackboard and are marked “SR” in the course schedule.
Course Description:
An examination of all phases of mass communication including print and electronic media, public relations, and advertising are examined in terms of their historical developmentas a means of conveying information in a global society, and their effect on mass culture. A special emphasis is placed on mindful use of media. Case studies requiring media artifact analysis to promote media literacy are examined.
Course Goals: Upon completion of this course, students shall…
- Demonstrate media literacy and critical thinking as applied to analyzing media artifacts.
- Articulate how various media are used to convey ideas/concepts/theories and to persuade individuals.
- Demonstrate tolerance of ambiguity and diversity as it pertains to the global human experience with media and to increase their ability to deal with multiple points of view.
- Describe how media are used to inform, inspire, and educate members of a global society – and perhaps facilitate social change in the process.
Tentative Schedule
Subject to change during the semester. Adequate notice of changes will be given.
CA 131 Schedule (Subject to Change):
| Week: | Objectives: | Readings: | Issues Work: | Assignments: | |||
| UNIT #1: INTRODUCTION TO THE MEDIA and THE CASE FOR CONVERSATION | |||||||
1: 8/19-8/21
| Overview of Course Expectations
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2: 8/26-8/28:
| Mass Communication Theories & Effects Growing Up in a Mediated World
Speaking and Writing
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3: 9/2-9/4
| Representation and the Lives that Matter in the Media Worldviews and Perspective-Taking
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| UNIT #2: LEGACY MEDIA | |||||||
4: 9/9-9/11
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5: 9/16-9/18
| The News Business and Magazines
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6: 9/23- 9/25
| Music and Radio Going Global with the Telegraph
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7: 9/30-10/2
| Movies
Television/Video
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8: 10/7-10/9
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| UNIT #3: MEDIA AND “LIFE” IN THE DIGITAL AGE | |||||||
9: 10/14-10/16
| The Pervasive Image Online and Mobile Media
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10: 10/21-10/23 |
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11: 10/28-10/30 |
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| UNIT #4: REGULATION AND CONTROL OF THE MEDIA | |||||||
12: 11/4-11/6 | Media Law
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13: 11/11-11/13 | Media Ethics
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14: 11/18-11/20 | Media Economics
Living Life with Global Media
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15: 11/25 |
NO CLASS R: THANKSGIVING (11/27)
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16: 12/2 | Final Exam in Class R | ||||||
| REMINDER: MEDIA EXCLUSION PAPERS ARE DUE SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7TH BY 11:59 P.M. VIA BLACKBOARD! | |||||||
Final | Tuesday, December 9th from 1 p.m.-3 p.m.: Media Exclusion Presentations and Discussion No Early or Make-Up times will be given. (no credit for the project for failure to attend) | ||||||
Assessment and Evaluation:
The following assignments are required for all students to complete in order to successfully advance into the second half of the capstone. You can find basic descriptions for these assignments below as well as detailed ones on Blackboard. All assignments must be turned in on Blackboard, where you can find grading rubrics for each.
Please note:
Absolutely no late assignments or extra credit requests will be accepted in order to maintain the pace, equity, and integrity of the course.
Attendance/Participation (directly and indirectly affects your entire course grade): Students are expected to fully immerse themselves in the course by attending class and lab sessions each day and by adequately preparing for these meetings. Students are expected to complete the required readings prior to each class, think about what you read, take notes on your readings, research any questions that come up, talk about the readings with others, etc. Important material in the books may not always be covered in class, but you will still be responsible for understanding it. Class meetings provide an opportunity for students to bring up the parts of the readings that you wish to comment on, disagree with, or ask about, so it is essential that all are prepared when such topics arise.
Reading Comprehension Questions (15%): Students will answer WEEKLY short reading comprehension questions on Blackboard prior to our Tuesday class meetings (as indicated in the course schedule). The questions will be pulled from a random list and related directly to the readings. Questions for each week open at 1:00 p.m. on Thursdays prior to the unit being studied and should be completed by 11:00 a.m. on Tuesdays before class. No late question response submissions will be accepted.
Student-Led Presentations/Discussions (SLDs) (25%): Each student will join a pair/small group that will examine one major issue of public concern and criticism as it relates to the content of the textbook and ongoing discussion of the pervasiveness of media in our lives. They will actively test their media literacy by engaging in an analysis of a topic presented in the textbook, presenting their analysis to the rest of the class, and engaging in a class discussion of this analysis. The presentations/discussions will occur throughout the semester when relevant as outlined by the course schedule. However, background research and preparation for the presentations/discussions should begin much earlier than the assigned date. As part of the project, students must also include a summary of how the issue connects to a current event and/or media artifact. This should be included as part of a visual aide (e.g., Power Point) with a list of properly-formatted list of sources (e.g., television show citation) prior to the presentation/discussion (i.e., to Blackboard by 11 a.m. on the scheduled presentation/discussion day). While it is preferred that this is done in APA, MLA is also acceptable.
The visual aide with properly-formatted bibliography is required and should be submitted via Blackboard (it is fine to include the bibliography/references at the end of the presentation).
Students should plan to meet with me to discuss their specific projects at least one week prior to their assigned date and may be asked to submit a peer review. The topics are as follows:
- Is Google making us stupid?/Why be media literate?
- Why are media important?
- Why do people worry about stereotypes?/What are the best improvements we can make to journalism to make a better mirror?
- Are we losing a generation of readers?/Why are we attracted to characters and stories?
- “I will Survive…?”: What is the future of print media?/How do people get the news?
- Who decides what makes media “good”?
- How do media companies make money?
- Are social media “free”?
- Do violent video games cause violence?/Are video games addicting?
- Do media help us be better students and workers or worse?
- That Social Media Life: Are we more connected – or more alone?
- How do people decide who and what to trust?
Media Exclusion Project and Paper (10%): For this assignment, you should plan to refrain from the use of all media (e.g., mobile phone, music, television) for a 24-hour period. You will prepare a 3-5 page paper/journal that includes reflections from during/after your media exclusion – you must connect at least 5 major concepts/theories discussed in the course. In addition, you will need to prepare an informal 3-5 minute oral presentation that summarizes your experience. Based on your reflections, you should be able to tease out 3 major trends/themes/surprising results to focus on for this presentation. Your paper is due by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, December 11th via Blackboard — it should be detailed. If you provide simply an hour-by-hour synopsis, you will not receive a passing grade. TO GET FULL CREDIT, YOU MUST CONNECT JOURNAL OBSERVATIONS TO CLASS MATERIALS/LESSONS.
Exams (2 x 25%): There will be a midterm and a final exam that is designed to assess the knowledge you have acquired throughout the course. These are cumulative and will include standard exam questions (e.g., multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and long essay). Exam dates are listed in the course schedule.
A NOTE ON CLASSROOM ENGAGEMENT: This is not a lecture-based class. It is based on the sharing of insights and the integration of important concepts. We will take responsibility for teaching and learning from each other. If you attend every class but rarely contribute to class discussions, you cannot expect an “A” in the course. The more you contribute, the higher your grade will become. Students are expected to complete the required readings prior to each class, think about what you read, take notes on your readings, research any questions that come up, talk about the readings with others, etc. Important material in the book may not always be covered in class, but you will still be responsible for understanding it. Class meetings provide an opportunity for students to bring up the parts of the readings that you wish to comment on, disagree with, or ask about, so it is essential that all are prepared when such topics arise.
The grading scale will be as follows:
Course Policies:
Grades:
Grades are an important part of assessing your performance in class. Thus, I take the management and calculation of grades extremely seriously. It is against College policy (because of FERPA) to discuss the details of grades electronically. It is your responsibility to understand how the grades are calculated as well as maintain your progress throughout the course. You should also reflect upon class attendance, performance (e.g., being alert), and participation (e.g., making relevant comments) when considering your grade as these all affect it (see course requirements). E-mails regarding your grade will not be returned nor will phone calls be accepted. If, at the end of the term, you can demonstrate that you believe I have made a mistake and that you have calculated your grade correctly (and can provide all documentation including all graded assignments), you may discuss your grade with me in person or via Zoom. With Blackboard, it is very easy to monitor your grade without having to do any complicated calculations. PLEASE NOTE: The schema in Blackboard may not display the correct letter grade per my grading scale, so please look at the percentage and find the corresponding letter grade in the table below.
Grading Scale:
| A = above 93.99% | A- = 93.99 – 91% |
B+ = 90.99 – 88% | B = 87.99 – 84% | B- = 83.99 – 81% |
C+ = 80.99 – 78% | C = 77.99 – 74% | C- = 73.99 – 71% |
D+ = 70.99 – 68% | D = 67.99 – 60.00% |
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| F = below 60.00% |
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Instructor Course Policies
Academic Integrity:
As the College Catalog indicates, academic dishonesty in any form, including plagiarism of written documents, whether covered by copyright protection or not, or falsely claiming another person’s work as one’s own, will not be tolerated.
Effective learning, teaching and research all depend upon the ability of members of the academic community to trust one another and to trust the integrity of work that is submitted for academic credit or conducted in the wider arena of scholarly research.
Such an atmosphere of mutual trust fosters the free exchange of ideas and enables all members of the community to achieve their highest potential.
In all academic work, the ideas and contributions of others must be appropriately acknowledged and work that is presented as original must be, in fact, original. Faculty, students and staff all share the responsibility of ensuring the honesty and fairness of the intellectual environment. Students found in violation of this policy will receive a grade of “F” for the course upon the professor’s findings and will be reported to the Academic Dean per the College Catalog’s guidelines. See the current Student Handbook for the college’s Academic Integrity policies as they pertain to examinations, plagiarism, classroom behavior, and the process for handling academic misconduct charges. Academic misconduct can take on many forms. See below for a list and descriptions:
Lying: Lying is communicating untruths or misrepresentations in order to gain an unfair academic or employment advantage.
It includes, but is not limited to:
- falsifying information on an assignment;
- misrepresenting one’s own research;
- providing false or misleading information in order to be excused from classes or assignments; or
- intentionally underperforming on an assignment or exam
Cheating: Cheating is the act of wrongfully using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, study aids, or the ideas or work of another in order to gain an unfair advantage. It includes, but is not limited to:
- plagiarism on any assignment;
- giving unauthorized aid to another student or receiving unauthorized aid from another person on tests, quizzes, assignments or examinations;
- compensating another entity for doing work on your behalf;
- using or consulting unauthorized materials or using unauthorized equipment or devices on tests, quizzes, assignments or examinations;
- altering or falsifying any information on tests, quizzes, assignments or examinations;
- using any material portion of a paper or project to fulfill the requirements of more than one course unless the student has received prior faculty permission to do so;
- working on any examination, test, quiz or assignment outside of the time constraints imposed;
- the unauthorized use of [prescription] medication to enhance academic performance;
- submitting an altered examination or assignment to an instructor for re-grading; or
- failing to adhere to an instructor’s specific directions with respect to the terms of academic integrity or academic honesty
“Plagiarism” occurs when a student, with intent to deceive or with reckless disregard for proper scholarly procedures, presents any information, ideas or phrasing of another as if they were his/her own and/or does not give appropriate credit to the original source. Proper scholarly procedures require that all quoted material be identified by quotation marks or indentation on the page, and the source of information and ideas, if from another, must be identified and be attributed to that source. Students are responsible for learning proper scholarly procedures in American Psychological Association format.
The term “assignment” includes any work, required or volunteered, submitted for review, academic credit, and/or disciplinary sanction.
All academic work undertaken by a student must be completed independently unless the faculty member expressly authorizes collaboration with another.
Stealing: Stealing is the act of intentionally taking or appropriating the property of another, including academic work, without consent or permission and with the intent to keep or use the property without the express permission of the professor.
Institutional and Program-Level Policies
All exams will follow the Final Exam Schedule. Students scheduled to take three or more final examinations on one day may request to arrange their examination schedule, so no more than two exams occur on one day.
Requests for early or late exams are considered only under extreme circumstances. Prior to the exam period, the student must file a written request on the Early/Late Exam Form available in the Student One Stop Center, Academic Records, and on the WC portal. The form must be signed by the Instructor and the Academic Dean, approving the alternate exam time. This process must be completed prior to the scheduled exam period.
Undergraduate: SP25 Final Exam Schedule Graduate:
Out-of-class Work Expectation A minimum of 2 hours of out-of-class student work is expected for each hour of in-class time for traditional face-to-face courses. For online and hybrid courses, the combination of face-to-face time and out-of-class work should be equal to 3 hours per credit hour per week. |
Instructional Course Delivery |
Academic Integrity Policy The use of generative AI is prohibited except where expressly allowed in assignment instructions. |
Class Attendance Policy |
Accessibility and Disability Services
Accessibility and Disability Services
Wilmington College provides accommodations and services for student with a variety of disabilities, including chronic illnesses, psychological, physical, medical, learning, and sensory disability amongst others. If you anticipate or experience barriers based on disability and feel you may need a reasonable accommodation to fulfill the essential functions of this course, you are encouraged to contact:
Spencer Izor, Associate Vice President of Compliance - Title IX/ADA Coordinator at spencer.izor@wilmington.edu or 937-481-2365 or Nathan Flack, Academic Resource Manager at 937-481-2208 to learn more about the process and procedures for requesting accommodations, or by visiting College Hall Room 306a or the Robinson Communication Center, Room 103.
Religious Accommodations
Wilmington College strives for an inclusive climate and welcomes students from all backgrounds, faiths, and experiences. If religious observance impedes your ability to participate fully in classroom activities or a principal holiday from your religious tradition occurs during the semester and conflicts with class meetings or activities, please make the professor aware of this immediately to determine if a reasonable accommodation is possible.