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Issues
in Comparative Mass Media Ethics
CO
360: Seminar in Communication
IN350: Global Studies (pending approval)
This course meets the Communication
major “ethics” requirement
This course will compare the U.S.
with the U.K., and at times other European nations, on issues in media
ethics.
In the U.S. privately owned mass
media dominate, but in the U.K. the BBC plays an enormous role in
providing news and entertainment. The
result is that in the two nations, broadcast journalists report
differently about the government and its critics, national security, the
economy, and even lifestyles. Moreover,
the U.S. and the U.K. have different legal traditions of freedom of speech
and the press, and in crucial media ethics areas such as the laws on
libel.
In working through these
comparisons and other comparisons from print journalism, the class will
conduct a great deal of research by interviewing, artifact gathering, and
inductive analysis in order to understand how content regulation and
self-censorship, the role of commerce and public relations in shaping
media content, varying norms of civility and sensationalism, the
protection of vulnerable audiences and subjects, and international /
multi-cultural coverage and sensitivity shape the outcomes in different
national media systems.
We will consider the ethical
implications of these differences, and formal ethical theory will be
systematically introduced to enhance student critical faculties in
encountering mass mediated representations and their implications.
Instructor:
Tom Duncanson
U.K. Popular Culture in
the U.S. & U.S. Popular Culture in the U.K.
CO
360: Seminar in Communication
IN 250: U.S.
Studies (pending approval)
Obviously, in the big historical picture, much of
North American culture is directly derived from Great Britain.
However, with the new mass media of the last century, the U.S. and
the U.K. have cross-fertilized one-another in every area of cultural life
and spectacularly so in the arenas of popular culture.
This is a course in seeing the U.S. popular culture reflected in
the U.K., and finding U.K. origins for many things in every day life in
the U.S.
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There are some
particular things we need to know about what British teens saw in U.S.
music in the 1950s that made them jump rock-n-roll so spectacularly
forward in the “British Invasion,” as well as what punk was as it
rolled out of London in 1976 and across the U.S.
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We will also learn about British art and glam rock and its
transformation in the so-called “New Wave” music of the 1980s that
became the international coin of authentic rock-n-roll, and how this wave
crested on the originally American medium, MTV.
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We need to see for ourselves the power of Hollywood in the U.K.;
many there have complained there has been no real film industry in Britain
since the 1930s.
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We need to
see if we can find a U.K. film industry that has an impact in the U.S. and
see if we can locate popular resentment against the hegemony of Hollywood.
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The course will also consider the way U.S. television borrows from
the BBC.
We will need to
think about food and fashion, to see what popular cultural clichés we
have of one-another, and to compare the way each popular cultural system
accommodates conflict and multi-cultural strife.
Along the way we will ask if in the U.S. we remain Anglophiles and
still require British cultural ballast for American social gravity.
Instructor:
Tom Duncanson
Third
course in Communication
CO
360: Seminar in Communication
For the third course in
Communication I will offer a menu of courses, and the students who sign up
for the London semester will vote for the one they most want.
Possible courses on this menu:
CO 343, Communication and
Conflict; CO
310, Small Group Communication; CO 401,
Persuasion Theory and Practice ; CO 406,
Persuasion and Social Movements. We might be able to add other courses to this menu.
For graduating Communication
majors. For Communication
majors graduating in Fall 2005 or Spring 2006 who want to do the London
Semester, I will offer CO 470 and CO
480, Capstone and Portfolio
by independent study in London.
Instructor:
Tom Duncanson
Drama, Culture and Ethos
TH333: Seminar in Dramatic
Literature
EN350 Studies in Drama (English)
IN350:
Global Studies
This course meets the following requirements: Fine Arts Elective, Dramatic Literature, Theatre Elective, Global,
Cultures Track.
Objective: Drama
reflects and shapes the cultures that create it. Students will be
introduced to a new awareness of how culture and ethos (the character of a
particular group or people) are at work in a country’s dramatic
literature. Students will observe and interpret ethos through assigned
readings (theory) and diverse cultural experiences (practice); emphasis on
but not limited to Modern Drama. Through written and oral reflection,
students will critically compare/contrast the cultures’ ethos and drama.
Course Description:
Ethos, style, world-view, and culture will be explored and experienced
through a multiplicity of cultural venues with focus on modern drama in
[Dublin or Edinburgh], London and surrounding areas. In play production
ethos is defined as “style”. We will consider how ethos informs the
style, architecture, form and content of a production.
We will read significant [Irish, Scottish], British
and American playwrights. Attending performances will augment both text
and cultural analysis. Students will identify national as well as
universal themes in the plays and relate these to his/her own cultural
identity and views. Students will supplement assigned readings with
research visits to artistic, historical, literary and cultural centers.
Each cultural experience will have a reflective objective relative to the
reading material and the topic. Written reflections will be in the form of
journal entries, some student driven, some assigned. The final entry will
be a reflection regarding the student’s views of a specific culture’s
ethos, (as reflected in the assigned play texts and in the productions
attended) with attention to whether his/her views have changed and if so,
how?
Research component:
Students will make oral presentations on the cultural ethos of a specific
country as assigned based on specific performance experiences.
Historical/Cultural background of the play’s setting and of the play’s
author will be considered.
Possible playwrights include: Rebecca Gilman (US),
Joe Penhall (UK), Shakespeare (UK), Stoppard (UK), Friel (I), McPherson
(I), McGuinness (I), Marina Carr (I). Specific content will depend on London season of
events.
Texts will be announced when we know which plays will
be available for us to see (mid-July).
There will be a strong connection between what
students learn in this class and what they learn about performance in
“Shakespeare: Power, Revenge and Love” as well as what they learn about
performing in “London On Acting”.
 Readings
Instructor:
Lori Bales
Shakespeare: Power, Revenge & Love
TH383: Seminar in
Theatre
EN325 Shakespeare Early Works
IN350:
Global Studies
This
course meets the following requirements: Fine Arts, Dramatic
Literature, Theatre Elective, Global, Cultures Track
Objective: To
explore Shakespeare’s universal themes through text and performance. We
will see performances of Shakespeare in London, Stratford, Dublin,
Edinburgh (as available). Through critical analysis of text and
performance students will identify universal themes in the plays and
relate these to his/her own personal identity and views. Students will
identify cultural influences in the interpretation of the various
productions. (For example, if we’re fortunate enough to see several
productions of the same piece, we can compare/contrast the productions’
thematic emphases and consider how culture may have influenced the
production) and will compare/contrast their analysis of the written text
and the mise en scene of the realized productions.
Course Description:
Texts to be determined by current London, [Dublin,
Edinburgh] and Stratford productions and will involve day trip(s) to
Stratford. Our major focus will be on the plays as productions, and
actual performances will constitute the major texts of the course.
Critical analysis of text and production will allow students to: Identify
Universal Themes, Analyze text vs. performance, Reflect on personal
identity and views, Articulate personal experiences of universality
through conversations and written reflections about the productions,
Compare and contrast the cultural influences as revealed in production.
Each cultural experience will have a reflective
objective relative to the production and assigned topics. Written
reflections will be: journal entries, (some student driven, some
assigned), and participation in group discussions. The final project will
be a sonnet, monologue or a short scene written and presented in iambic
pentameter that reflects the student’s views of universal themes in
Shakespeare, (specifically as reflected in the assigned play texts and in
the productions attended). Additionally the piece will articulate the
student’s views regarding Shakespeare: have they changed and if so, how;
has personal identity and views changed, and if so, how; and has cultural
views changed, and if so, how?
There will be a
strong connection between what students learn in this class and what they
learn about performance in “Drama, Culture and Ethos” as well as what they
learn about performing in “London On Acting”.
Readings
Instructor: Lori Bales
London On Acting
TH384: Seminar in
Theatre
Pre-Requisite: TH345
Advanced Scene Study
You may also elect to meet one of the following requirements with this
course: Theatre Elective, Acting Elective
Objectives: To
explore acting (living truthfully under imaginary circumstances), through
observation, comparison/contrast of US and British style, master classes
(depending on availability) and scene work.
Course Description: Students will observe
performances in a multiplicity of venues. Through written assignments and
classroom conversations, students will observe and reflect on working
actors’ technique, style and performance. We will compare and contrast
acting in the US and in Britain, as well as acting within different styles
and venues. Observation will be juxtaposed with scene work in the styles
of the available events (examples include Shakespeare, classical, realism,
farce, and musicals, if we can get a room with a piano.) We will talk
about the nature of performance with regard to the different venues
(architecturally) and then explore the variety of techniques needed to
perform within the different environments. Observations on technique,
style and performance will be applied to scene work in the later part of
the semester.
Texts will be announced when we know which plays will
be available for us to see (mid-July).
There will be a strong connection between what
students learn in this class and what they learn about performance in
“Drama, Culture and Ethos” as well as what they learn about performing in
“Shakespeare: Power, Revenge and Love”.
Instructor:
Lori Bales
Caution: The actual offering of any prospective courses described on these
pages is dependent on enrollment and other factors. Therefore, the
courses may or may not ultimately be provided, at the discretion of the
University.
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