Department of Communication

Courses in English, Spring Term 2005

Advanced Studies

Intellectual Foundations in Media, Technology, and Society (2 Finnish credits for postgraduate students, 4 Finnish credits for undergraduate students , 4- 8 ECTS)
Course Code: 77094

Dates : 1.2.2005 - 14.03.2005 (lectures finish on 01.03)
Days/Times: Tuesdays 12 - 16
Location: 01.02.2005, Mariankatu 11, lecture room 3, 08.02.2005 onwards Unioninkatu37, seminar room 4.
Lecturer : Professor James Schwoch, visiting Fulbright Senior Specialist.

Course Description:

This course can be thought of as an exercise in the intellectual history of media and technology: we will explore a representative sample of various scholarly works which have proven to be influential to media technology/culture researchers. Other issues include the contentious debate over who does, and does not; constitute an intellectual in the realm of mass culture; visions and projects to intellectualize mass audiences (or to "massify" intellectualism); and comparative analysis at a global level. Although we will maintain an awareness of the temporal progression (in other words, historical development) of the scholarly literature in this area, the basic organizational schematic is around themes and ideas which have motivated intellectuals to think about and act upon mass culture. In addition to a representative sampling of major intellectual theorists of media technology/culture research, we will be examining the theoretical edifices that they produced, and the subsequent productive output of those edifices. Thus, we will also consider funding of research, role of governments, enrolment of audiences, production of texts/artefacts, and counter-movements.

Readings : For this course I am bringing the readings with me (you can ask for draft of course outline from Yonca.Ermutlu@helsinki.fi by sending an e-mail.) You will receive the course outline and that will give you the complete list of readings; however, we will divide up the readings for each week. Depending on the size of the class, we might not read everything. I intend to distribute the readings so that each of you will read roughly 50-60 pages of material each week. This means everyone will probably be reading different essays each week.

Attendance: We only meet five times, and you have to do your very best to make every meeting.

Assessment: I have decided the best way I can be helpful to you, and also the best way I can learn what kinds of things you are interested in, constrained by only 5 weeks together, is for you to revise, rewrite, and/or expand a paper you have previously written—even if it is short—and bring in one or two ideas or themes from our class into a revised version of your paper. So you will need to find a previous paper that was about something you want to continue to investigate, give me that paper very soon after I arrive, I will read it and comment back to you with some ideas on how you might expand or revise it using ideas and readings from this seminar, and then hand in the revised paper (due date to be announced first week). One of the things I am supposed to do as a Fulbright Senior Specialist is advise and consult as many people as I can about their ongoing research, and basically that is what we will be doing here, so I think this is in keeping with my role as a visiting Fulbright professor. Final paper length is hard to estimate as it will depend on individual projects, but I am thinking 10 (or more if you like) pages (routine font size, double-spaced.)

Mode of assessment:

Assessment scale: 1, 1+, 2-, 2, 2+, 3- and 3.

Additional information:
Yonca Ermutlu , e-mail Yonca.Ermutlu@helsinki.fi