Part Two: Ways of studying (mostly Human) Communication
In the second part of the course, we are going to work through a series of approaches to the study of communication as they have developed in and around the field of
Communication Studies. Each of these approaches frame communication in a different way and ask different kinds of questions about how humans relate to one another.
Tuesday, October 14 – The Linguistic Turn in Philosophy
- Ludwig Wittgenstein – “Philosophical Investigations” (Excerpt)
- J.L. Austen – “How to Do Things with Words” (Excerpt)
Tuesday, October 21 – Semiotic and the Theory of Signs
- Charles Saunders Peirce – “Logic as Semiotic”
- Ferdinand de Saussure – Selections from “The Course in General Linguistics”
- John Durham Peters – “Communication With Aliens”
Tuesday, October 28 – Political Economy of Communication
- Dallas Smythe – Communication: Blindspot of Western Marxism
- Thomas Streeter and Michael Curtin – “Media”
Tuesday, November 4 – Technology, Media, Bodies
- Marshall McLuhan – Excerpts from Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
- Hari Kunzru – “You Are Cyborg”
- Screening: Existenz
Tuesday, November 11 – Communication Studies and Information Theory
- Bruce Clarke – Information from Critical Terms for Media Studies (2010)
- James Gleick –InformationTheory from The Information (2011)
- William Weaver and Claude Shannon– “Recent Contributions to The Mathematical Theory of Communication” (Read last, and try your best.)
- Screening: A Communication Primer
Tuesday, November 18 – Audience Research: Then and Now
- Katz and Leibes – “Once upon a Time, In Dallas”
- David Morley – “Where the Global Meets with Local: Notes from the Sitting Room”
Tuesday, November 25 – Commodities, Things and Culture
- T.W. Adorno – “On Popular Music”
- Jennifer Gabrys – “Media in the Dump”
- Arjun Appadurai – “The Thing Itself”