| Greetings and Welcome
to MEDIA CRITICISM COURSE com 448 at Cal Poly Pomona |
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Mariusz Ozminkowski,
Ph.D. www.ozminkowski.com mozminkowski@csupomona.edu SYLLABUS Textbooks Pamela D. Shoemaker & Stephen J. Reese. Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content. 2nd Edition. Longman 1996. PDF file here Nick Lacey. Image and Representation. Key Concepts in Media Studies. 2nd Edition. Palgrave 2009. John Storey. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. 5th Edition. Pearson 2009. |
The COURSE: This course is designed
to help you develop a critical awareness of mass media through reading,
viewing and discussion. The mass
media do not simply mirror the world around them.
Mass media content—both news and entertainment—is shaped,
pounded, constrained, encouraged by a multitude of forces.
Sometimes the reality presented by the media matches the world as
you know it, and sometimes it is very different.
And there is always the question what exactly is the “real”
world. The conflicting
pictures hint at the forces that tug, pull, squeeze, and ultimately form
mass media content. The main
question is always: why mass
media content is the way it is.
The course will introduce selected views (theories) on that
question. You will be asked
to apply the theories to particular programs (news, film, entertainment)
and also provide your own explanations not covered by any of the
theories.
Goals
and Objectives:
To become media literate by learning to critically evaluate media
content
To build understanding of the key theories of influence on media
content\
To develop your own analyses of the role of mass media in society
To connect theoretical concepts learned in the course to “real world”
situations by writing a case study term paper. |
A media criticism is a critical analysis of some aspect of a popular culture text, news broadcast, or other media text. In a media crtiticism,a media critic makes an argument about a media text or a series of media texts. Because it is an argument-- as opposed to a statement of fact-- a media criticism is always presented as an informed opinion that is backed up with strong evidence. In a media criticism, a significant portion of the evidence should be from the media text itself--or in the case of audience analysis, from the audience itself. That is, if you're going to make arguments about how a television show represents women, your evidence should include a detailed discussion of lots of different scenes that portray female characters in relevant ways |
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