Comm 312U Media Literacy

Focuses on building critical skills for evaluating mass media, going beyond the ways that messages represent the world to the ways that messages and the institutions that produce them actually constitute the social world. Primary issues include cultural domination and empowerment; public opinion and the legitimizing role of the media; mass culture and ideology; cultural opposition; the political-economy of news media; and the general role of media in political socialization. Extensive in-class and small-group media analysis.