Announcements + Orals

Hi!

Here is the schedule that we have for the coming weeks:
* August 14: Race/Gender/Sexuality plenary c/o Leloy Claudio. Venue: 12NN- Com Studio; 3PM - Ching Tan.
* August 16: Race/Gender/Sexuality Seminar. Graded class activity. Orals pairs analyze a media text provided by the seminar leader in the second half of the class. The graded activity replaces the take-home essay that I originally mentioned.
* August 21: American Mass Communication Research Part 1 c/o Jason Cabanes.
* August 23: American Mass Communication Research Part 2 c/o Jason Cabanes.
* August 27, 28, 29: Oral Exams.

Below are the long awaited oral exam questions. I hope that you begin studying as soon as you can. Remember that the oral exam comprises 20% of your grade. While the oral exam is conducted in pairs, individual grades are given. The sign-up sheet will be posted in the Dept of Communication on August 14. Tips on how to answer and prepare for orals will be given in our August 16 seminars.

ORAL EXAM PROCEDURE: You and your partner are free to select four out of the ten thesis statements to study. During the oral exam, the examiner will select two out of the four thesis statements for you and your partner to critically discuss.

THESIS STATEMENTS:
1. A critical examination of the media involves the study of the double meaning of representation.
2. The culture industry is dominant in its control of the symbolic power of the media.
3. The rise of the Internet has opened up the possibility for a new public sphere.
4. “The media are becoming environmental. Not in the sense of the media as generating a distinct sphere, a separation of the symbolic from the realities of everyday life. But more a sense of the media as tightly and dialectically intertwined to the everyday” (Silverstone).
5. The effects tradition has steadily moved from an assumption of direct effects to powerful effects. Critically discuss this development.
6. To what extent are the concepts of discourse AND/OR ideology useful in our study of media power?
7. Evaluate the claim that watching television is harmful for audiences’ public knowledge and engagement.
8. “Public spaces should be places for the expression of dissensus, for bringing to the floor what forces attempt to keep concealed” (Mouffe).
9. The media provide daily reminders of the unstable ground on which notions of race, gender, and sexuality are built.
10. “Active audience does not mean powerful audience” (Ang).