Communication, Information and Media Processes

194:601

Fall 2003

Tuesdays, 3:20 –6:00

The course packet will be available real soon now at Pequod Copy on Somerset Street. It is Large. This is because (1) we have replaced the Geertz book by just 2 chapters, which are at the front of the packet and (2) there are some long papers in the LIS section, which are to be viewed as a kind of “archaeology of the field”. We will not be reading each of them in detail.

Instructors

Paul Kantor (LIS)

Office hours: Tuesday 6-7; Thursday 4-6pm

Office: SCILS 312

email: phdd@scils.rutgers.edu

tel: 732 932 7500 x 8216

Robert Kubey (JMS)

Office hours:5-6 pm on Thursdays in 301 DeWitt, and by appointment. Students can email me for an appointment.

Office:

email: kubey@scils.rutgers.edu

tel: 732 932 7500 x 8164

James Katz (COMM)

Office hours: Tuesdays, 2:30-3:15 and 6:20-7:00. TBD

Office: Annex 201 – cross both street from SCILS, enter the house. Upstairs. At the back. Prof, Katz notes " I am also happy to meet with students at other mutually convenient times; please email me for an appointment."

email: jimkatz@scils.rutgers.edu

tel: 732 932 7500 x8118

Course Objectives

This course aims to accomplish four goals:

• underscore the relevance of and linkages among communication, information and media scholarship to critical issues within contemporary social practice and social thought;
• identify linkages of concerns within communication, information and media scholarship to enduring issues in the social and human sciences;
• introduce formative conceptualizations and understandings of communication, information and media; and
• provide an overview of the foci of scholarly interest and expertise in the study of communication, information and media issues among SCILS faculty.

We thereby aim to offer students an introduction into communication, information and media processes that will encourage reflection and identification of problems and areas of concentration students seek to address in their doctoral preparation. We additionally aim to address throughout concerns with the relationships among theory, research and method in the study of communication, information and media processes and issues and how these relate to the three areas of the Ph.D. Program: Communication Processes; Library and Information Science; Media Studies.

Organization of the Course

The course is organized into four multi-week sections. The first four weeks are devoted to an introduction to the course and a three-week OVERVIEW that attempts to frame communication, information and media concerns within the context of a set of broader issues in the social and human sciences. The readings for the OVERVIEW are books by an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a physicist.

The next three sections of three weeks each are each devoted to one of the three Areas of the Ph.D. Program. The goal in these sessions is to introduce formative conceptualizations and issues in each of these areas. Katz will lead the section on COMMUNICATION PROCESSES; Kantor will lead the section on LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE; and Kubey will lead the section on MEDIA STUDIES. Readings for these sections will include both books required for the course, and photocopies of additional readings, primarily from scholarly journals. Syllabi listing required and recommended readings for each of the three sections will be distributed separately.

Each class meeting will be divided into two parts: an introduction to the topic by the faculty member leading the section; and, general class discussion of the readings for that week, based upon questions or topics set by the instructor.

The final two sessions of the course will be devoted to presentations of the final papers.

Assignments

Each student will be asked to complete five papers in this course, one for each of the four sections, and a final paper and presentation for the course as a whole. In addition, students will be asked to prepare a general statement of a research interest after the introductory session. Note that this “research interest” does not represent a contractual agreement in any way. It is understood that one’s ideas and interests will evolve over the years of study, and even over the weeks and months of the first semester.

Each of the four section-based papers will discuss the readings in that section, and their relevance to and impact upon the student’s general research interest. These papers will be about five pages long, and each will count for 15% of the final grade. Each of these papers is due one week after the sections meetings end.

The final paper will be an integrative, critical summary of the course readings and discussions and their impact upon the student’s research interest, and an operationalization of that interest as a proposal for a research project. This paper will be about ten pages long, and will be the basis for a ten-minute presentation to the class. The paper and presentation together will count for 40% of the final grade.

All papers are to be submitted according to the format specified in the Style Manual of the American Psychological Association, and are expected to be in grammatically, syntactically and lexically correct English. The four "sectional" papers are to be submitted no later than the week after that section ends; the final paper is to be submitted no later than 5pm, 15 December.

Academic integrity. Please always bear in mind that while another author may have expressed your ideas better than you can (at least today) the work that you submit must be your own expression of those ideas. Any material taken from a source (such as the Internet) must be properly footnoted, and must be set off either by “quotation marks” or by special indentation, so that any reader will know that it is a quotation, and not your own original expression. This is extremely important (pardon us for shouting).

Students (and faculty) are expected to be active contributors to the discussions at each meeting, and participation in discussion will be a mediating factor in the final grade. Here at SCILS we encourage wide-ranging and insightful debate, and we always bear in mind that critiquing the ideas of a colleague is often the most positive and helpful contribution that one can make. But we are always mindful of the fact that criticism, however much it helps, is always somewhat unpleasant to hear, and should be done in a polite fashion.

Reading Assignments

Students are expected to have read the assigned readings prior to each class. Required books for the OVERVIEW section are identified in the Course Schedule below. Additional readings for each of the other sections will be identified in the syllabi for each section.

Course Schedule and Readings

Date	Section, readings, assignments
9/2	Introduction to course.
9/9	Overview I. Interpretive social science: Speaking of meaning. Reading: Geertz, C. The interpretation of cultures. Chapters 1, 15. these readings are in the course packet Assignment: Submit statement of research interest.
9/16 .	Overview II. Information, Humans, and Nature Reading: Dyson, F. The Sun, the Genome and the Internet. These are lectures presented at the New York Public library and are very wide-ranging.
9/23	Overview III. TBD
9/30	Media Studies I. Assignment 1 (Overview) due.
10/7	Media Studies II.
10/14	Media Studies III
10/21	Communication Processes I. Assignment 2 (Media Std) due.
10/28	Communication Processes II.
11/4	Communication Processes III.
11/11	LIS I. Assignment 3 (Communication Processes) due.
11/18	LIS II.
11/25 Thnksgvng week. Eid al fitr.
12/2	LIS III.
12/9	Presentations of final papers. Assignment 4 (Library Info Sci) due.
12/16	Presentations. Assignment 5 Final paper due. [By 5:00pm, please].