Bob Bednar's Communication Courses for Fall 2003

COM 75-463: Organizational Communication

Prerequisites: 75-113, 75-133 or consent of instructor

Class Meetings: MW 2:00 ≠ 3:15, CB 24

Course Description:

This experiential, project-based course is radically collaborative in natureãfocusing throughout the semester on an ethnographic research project in which the entire class works together to build and participate in an organization whose purpose is to study and represent the "culture of communication" within Southwestern University as an organization.

Along the way, the course introduces students to the field of organizational communication, which investigates the interpersonal, group, and mass communication patterns and processes within a wide variety of organizations, both public and private. Organizing is viewed as a dynamic process of communication situated within the larger cultural context it "speaks" to and from, so special emphasis is placed on ethnographic methods for analyzing organizations current in cultural studies of organizational culture.

Grading Components:

Collaborative Group Research Project, 40%; Mid-Term Exam 20%; Class Participation, 30%; Classwork, 10%

Required Texts:

Eric Eisenberg and H.L. Goodall, Jr., Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint, 3rd Ed. (2001); and a Course Packet of selected readings

COM 75-613: Journalism

Prerequisites: 75-113, 75-133

Class Meetings: TH, 2:30 ≠ 5:00, FWO 324

Course Description:

This writing intensive course considers the character, purposes, and subject matter of short, analytical non-fiction narrative composition, with a special emphasis on the writing of newspaper feature stories and magazine articles that use the documentary technique of "thick description" to represent the richly textured, culturally grounded, "intimate lived experience" of "ordinary people" enmeshed in "everyday life." For the most part, this is a hands-on course emphasizing active student involvement in the processes of writing, critiquing, and revising student-produced non-fiction narratives, but there is also a critical component designed to teach you the critical skills necessary to effectively critique your own work and the work of your colleagues in the class by studying and discussing non-fiction narrative work produced by published authors and filmmakers.

Grading Components:

Article 1: Personal Experience Narrative, 15%; Article 2: Profile Narrative, 20%; Article 3: Comprehensive Non-Fiction Narrative, 40%; Classwork/Class Participation, 25%

Required Texts:

Walt Harrington (ed.), Intimate Journalism: The Art and Craft of Reporting Everyday Life (1997); Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (1996); and 3 documentary films: Stranger With a Camera, Five Girls, and Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

COM 75-783: Advanced Mass Communication

Prerequisites: 75-113, 75-133, 75-683

Class Meetings: TTh, 1:00 - 2:15, FWO 208

Course Description:

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. 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. Our primary focus is on analyzing visual texts as situated "sites of meaning" that are embedded in particular cultural contexts; our secondary focus is on applying what we learn in studying cultural studies and semiotic analytical methods to the production of the students' own media texts. Writing and production techniques are incorporated throughout the course with intensive workshops, regular analytical projects, and research, and culminate in the collaborative production of a virtual exhibit of student web page projects.

Grading Components:

Two Exams, 30%; Individual Research Project, 20%; Four Everyday Application Papers (EAPs), 15%; Participation in Collaborative Web Page Production, 10%; Classwork, 10%; Class Participation, 15%

Required Texts:

John Fiske, Introduction to Communication Studies (1991); Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (1996).

Information about these courses is available at: www.southwestern.edu/~bednarb