MEDIA 745

Special Topic: Communication and Culture


Please note: this is archived course information from 2021 for MEDIA 745.

Description

This course explores the mutually constitutive relationship between communication and culture through an analysis of cultural forms and meanings of human communication in face-to-face and digital settings. How can our communicative practices be seen as cultural practices? How is “culture” itself a product of communication? What happens when divergent culturally specific communicative practices come into contact? We investigate these questions by examining classic and contemporary theories of culture and communication and by surveying cultural approaches to the study of communication in interpersonal, organizational, political, and intercultural settings.

Communication, in this course, is understood as observable, context-bound use of linguistic and other semiotic resources in situated contexts. The way we communicate shapes and is shaped by locally recognizable, historically contingent social relations and cultural systems of meanings including norms, values, and premises. Drawing upon scholarships from Ethnography of Communication, Virtual/Digital Ethnography, Internet Studies, Critical/Cultural Studies, and Intercultural Communication, we will learn what it means to take a cultural approach to examine our everyday communicative practices and understand the importance of recognizing the mutually constitutive relationship between culture and communication, not only in researching human communication but more importantly in generating and applying communication knowledge in cultural-specific contexts.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate knowledge of classic and contemporary readings on the relationship between communication and culture
  • Demonstrate knowledge of theories of culture and communication in the discipline of Communication
  • Develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between communication and culture
  • Synthesize and critique theory-based research about communication and culture
  • Adopt a cultural approach toward communication phenomena
  • Conduct a qualitative research project examining the relationship between communication and culture

Assessment:

Coursework


Availability 2021

Not taught in 2021

Lecturer(s)

TBA

Points

MEDIA 745: 30 points