COMM 101: Introduction to Communication
Instructor Information
Rex Rose
Course Description
No matter what your course of study or future career, you will have to communicate, and the better you can do it, the more successful you will be. But the workplace is only a small part of your life, and communication plays a role in all other relationships, whether that be with family, friends, or romantic partners. This course will help you understand the theories, processes, and history of human communication. You will explore issues such as interpersonal communication, small group communication, organizational communication, nonverbal communication, media and communication as well as gender and communication. Not only will this course help you gain a working knowledge of a broad array of communication theories, it will allow you to learn more deeply about a communicated related issue. You will be given multiple research opportunities to explore this issue including: the organization communication paper, the digital story project, and the creation of an issue website.
Goals/Objectives
- Learn about the foundational theories that structure your communication processes
- Reflect on your own communication experiences
- Further develop and build on your own communication skills
- Practice your writing and research skills
- Practice your public speaking and professional presentation skills
- Learn how language affects the way you experience the world
- Become comfortable communicating in different modes
Textbook
Rosengren, K. E. (1999). Communication: an introduction. Sage.
Assignments/Projects
- Weekly Daybook Reflections
Throughout this class, every student will keep a daybook, which is a sort of writing journal or thought catalogue that will allow you take notes while in-class and while reading outside of class. This is your space to actively and critically engage with the course material. While I will not look at most of your daybook writing, 4 times throughout the semester I will collect your daybooks for a participation grade. This participation grade will only take into account your required weekly 2-3 page reflective entry. In these entries, I want you to reflect on your thoughts about the readings and class discussions, and also discuss how they do or do not connect with your life.
- Reading Responses
In this class we will be reading a lot of different materials, to prepare yourself to discuss the readings in class, you will either write a minimum of 300 words or record yourself speaking for 2-3 mins about what stuck out to you in the readings. These short, informal reading responses should be posted to the course blog before every meeting.
- Organization Communication Paper
After graduation, most of you will find yourselves working in a specific position that is a part of a larger organization. This 4-6 paper will give you the chance to explore the organizational and professional communication practices that exist within an organization in your intended professional field. To complete this paper, you will need to select a community organization and observe the communication practices that go on there. For example, if you wanted to become a nurse you would want to contact a doctor’s office or hospital and ask if they would allow you to shadow a particular person for a day. Your job during this observation would be to observe and take notes in your daybook about the particular type of communication you see going on there. I will provide more detailed information about this project later in the semester.
- Digital Story
In our new media section of the course, we will be watching and analyzing digital stories focused on particular issues. After analyzing these stories, you will have the chance to use your knowledge of digital stories to make your own story in iMovie. This story will hopefully relate to either the issue you explored in your group project or to something you can relate to personally. This story should be 5-8 minutes in length. I will provide more detailed information about this project later in the semester.
- Issue website
Throughout this course, you have been given multiple opportunities to explore a particular communication topic, but the audience for these discussion have mainly been your classmates. Therefore, for this project you will build your own WordPress website that will present this issue and the work you have done researching this (digital story, book review project, etc) to an audience who may have never heard of this issue. I will provide more detailed information about this project later in the semester.
- Reflective Essay
During your final exam period, you will turn in a reflective essay that articulates how different pieces of work you have produced throughout the entire course, whether that be reading responses or daybook entries or major projects, proves that you have met the course goals and outcomes. I will provide more detailed information about this essay later in the semester.
Attendance & Participation
During the course of the semester, you will be allowed 3 unexcused absences. For every absence after this one, you will use lose 5 points off your final grade. Not only do I expect you to be present, but I also expect you to actively participate, answer questions, and engage in class discussions.
Grading Scale
Daybook reflections: 10%
Reading responses: 10%
Organization Communication Paper: 20%
Digital Story: 20%
Issue website: 15%
Reflective essay: 15%
Attendance & Participation: 10%
Schedule
Week 1: Reading–Chapter 1 (Rosengren)
Week 2: Reading–Chapter 2 (Rosengren)/Due: RR1
Week 3: Reading–Chapter 3 (Rosengren)/Due: RR2
Week 4: Reading–Chapter 4 (Rosengren)/Due:RR3
Week 5: Reading–Chapter 5 (Rosengren)/Due:RR4 & Organizational Comm Paper
Week 6: Reading–Chapter 6 (Rosengren)/Due: RR5
Week 7: Reading–Chapter 7 (Rosengren)/Due:RR6
Week 8: Reading–Chapter 8 (Rosengren)/Due:RR7
Week 9: Reading/Due
Vicente Rafael 2003, “The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines” Public Culture 15:3.
Sean McBride & Colleen Roach 1989 “The New International Information Order” International Encyclopedia of Communications Erik Barnouw (ed) Oxford University Press
Week 10: Reading/Due: RR9 & & Digital Story
Ella Shohat & Robert Stam, 1994. “Stereotype, Realism, and the Struggle over Representation”Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media London: Routledge.
Alexandra Juhasz, 1992, “‘They said we were trying to show reality – all I want to show is my video’: The politics of the realist feminist documentary.” Screen 35 (2).
Week 11: Reading/Due: RR10
Julie D’Acci “Television, Representation and Gender” in Robert C. Allen & Annette Hill (eds.)The Television Studies Reader
Week 12: Reading/Due: RR11 & Issue Website
bell hooks 1992 “The “Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” Black Looks: Race and Representation South End Press.
Week 13: Reading/Due: RR12
Dwight McBride 2005 “Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch” Why I Hate Abercrombie and FitchNew York: New York University Press.
Week 14: Reading/Due: RR13
Vickie Rutledge Shields 2005 “The Less Space We Take the More Powerful We’ll Be.” A Companion to Media Studies, Angharad Valdivia (ed) John Wiley & Sons.
Week 15: No Reading, Reflective Essay Due
