COMM 411HCultural Aspects of the Mass Media

3 credits · Communications · Penn State

The mass media as creators and critics of mass culture in American life; relationships between the media and mass culture. COMM 411H Cultural Aspects of the Mass Media (3) COMM 411H takes a cultural studies approach to media and more generally culture and politics. The class is predicated upon three assumptions about media. First, media must be examined in context. Second, media play a significant role in the construction of our lived reality. Third, these constructions and all attempts to study them are political and implicated in relations of power. As such, this course treats media as part of cultural and political processes that are not separable, but instead co-constitutive. In other words, these three assumptions have some immeasurable effect on each other and impact our understanding of their relationships.