Michael Schudson
mschudson@ucsd.edu
fall, 2000

This seminar is designed to introduce beginning graduate students to the intellectual history of communication research. This is a complex task in a department that seeks not to recapitulate mainstream American communication research but to extend it and criticize it. This department draws intellectual sustenance from some of the figures and traditions within conventional communication research but from others outside it, too. The seminar will try to provide a history of the "field" of communication as it is conventionally understood while weaving into it the alternative tradition that this department is trying to invent.

The class meets on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. for three hours but also occasional Mondays at l:25 p.m. for two hours. There will be no Thursday session on October 5 or November 23.

Required Texts:

Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, l983)
Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (Basic, l978)
Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen (Harvard, l999)
James Curran and Michael Gurevitch, Mass Media and Society 3rd edition (Arnold, 2000)
John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air (Chicago, l999)
Edward Purcell, The Crisis of Democratic Theory (Kentucky, l973)
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Macmillan, l922).

Recommended Texts:

Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, Rethinking Popular Culture (California, l99l)

 

Week I. Preface to the Course (September 21, 28)

A. The Enlightenment and Its Legacy (Sept. 21)

Isaiah Berlin, "The Counter-Enlightenment" in Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current (Viking, l980) l-24.

Declaration of Independence

Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen, pp. 11-47.

Jurgen Habermas, "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article" in Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, eds. Rethinking Popular Culture pp. 398-404.

B. Modernity and Its Discontents (Sept. 28)

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (Part I)

Marshall Berman, "Unchained Melody," The Nation, May ll, l998, ll-l6.

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (l904-5) (New York: Scribner's, l958) l3-l9, l80-l83

Georg Simmel, "Metropolis and Mental Life," in Kurt Wolff, ed., The Sociology of Georg Simmel (Free Press, l950) 409-424.

Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (Basic, l978) pp. 12-60.

C. Social Science As Natural Science (Sept. 28)

Emile Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method (Free Press) pp. xliii-liii, l-l3, 27-46.

Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation" in Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Oxford, l946) pp. l29-l56.

Edward Purcell, The Crisis of Democratic Theory (University Press of Kentucky, l973) l-46.

Jane Flax, "The End of Innocence," in Judith Butler and Joan Scott, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political (Routledge, l992) pp. 445-463.

Supplemental Reading:

Anthony Giddens, "Positivism and Its Critics" in Tom Bottomore and Robert Nisbet, A History of Sociological Analysis (New York: Basic Books, l978) pp. 237-286.

Max Weber, "'Objectivity' in Social Science and Social Policy" in Maurice Natanson, ed. Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Random House, l963) pp. 355-4l8.

 

Week II. The "Mass" and the Public: Communication as a Political Ideal (October 2)

Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (Basic, l978) l22-144.

Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen, pp. l88-232.

Hadley Cantril, "The Invasion from Mars" in Wilbur Schramm and Donald Roberts, Process and Effects of Mass Communication (Urbana; University of Illinois, l97l)

Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion pp. 3-20, 48-75, l6l-l74, l95-l97, 20l-207, 2l4-25l.

John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (l927) pp. ll0-l27, l4l-l42, l57-l6l, l85-l89, 203-2l9.

John Durham Peters, Speaking Into the Air, pp. l-62.

 

Week III. Individual, Society, and Culture (October 12)

Edward Sapir, "Language," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (l934)

Edward Purcell, Crisis of Democratic Theory (l973) pp. 47-73.

George Stocking, Jr., "Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective," in George Stocking, Jr., Race, Culture, and Evolution (Free Press, l968) pp. l95-233.

A. R. Luria, Cognitive Development (Harvard, l976) pp. 3-l9, l35-l43.

A. R. Luria, "Towards the Problem of the Historical Nature of Pschological Processes" International Journal of Psychology 6 (l97l) 259-72.

Marshall Sahlins, "La Pensee Bourgeoise: Western Society as Culture," in Mukerji and Schudson

Supplemental Reading:

Daniel Czitrom, Media and the American Mind (North Carolina, l982)

Donald Fleming, "Attitude: History of a Concept," Perspectives in American History 6 (l972)

Susanna Barrows, Distorting Mirrors: Visions of the Crowd in Late Nineteenth Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, l98l)

Rosalind Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, l98l).

Leon Bramson, The Political Context of Sociology (Princeton, l96l) ll-72.

Robert Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca: Cornell U. Press, l99l).

Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston: Little, Brown, l980).

Richard Rorty, "Dewey Between Hegel and Darwin," in Dorothy Ross, ed., Modernist Impulses..., pp. 54-68.

 

Week IV. A Macrohistorical Tradition -- Strong Effects? (Oct. 19)

Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, l983) pp. 42-l07.

Michael Cole and Sylvia Scribner, The Psychology of Literacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, l98l) 234-260.

Michael Cole, Cultural Psychology (Harvard, l996) pp. 227-24l.

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (McGraw-Hill, l964) pp. 7-2l.

James Carey, "Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan" in Raymond Rosenthal, ed. McLuhan: Pro and Con (Penguin Books, l969) 270-308.

James Carey, "Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph," in James Carey, Communication As Culture (Unwin Hyman, l989) 20l-230.

Daniel Bell, "The Social Framework of the Information Society" in Michael Dertouzos and Joel Moses, eds. The Computer Age: A Twenty-Year View (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, l979) pp. 163-211.

Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, l977), pp. 36-5l.

 

Week V. Making a Science of Communication Research: Microsociological Traditions -- Weak Effects? (Oct. 23, 26)

Edward Purcell, Crisis of Democratic Theory, pp. ll7-l58.

Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, "Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmact in World War II," Public Opinion Quarterly l2 (l948) 280-3l5.

Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, "Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Social Action," in Lyman Bryson, ed. The Communication of Ideas (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, l948, l964) pp. 95-ll8.

Herta Herzog, "Motivations and Gratifications of Daily Serial Listeners" in Wilbur Schramm, ed., The Process and Effects of Mass Communication (Univ. of Illinois Press, l954) pp. 50-55.

Bernard Berelson, "What Missing the Newspaper Means," in Schramm, ed., 36-47.

Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence (New York: Free Press, l955) 15-42, ll6-l33, l37-l43, l75-l86, 309-320.

Supplemental Reading:

Steven Chaffee and John L. Hochheimer, "The Beginning of Political Communication Research in the United States: Origins of the 'Limited Effects' Model," in Everett Rogers and Francis Balle, eds., The Media Revolution in America and Western Europe (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, l982) pp. 263-283.

Willard Rowland, The Politics of TV Violence Research (Newbury Park: Sage, l983).

Christopher Simpson, Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare l945-l960 (New York: Oxford University Press, l994).

Paul F. Lazarsfeld, "An Episode in the History of Social Research: A Memoir," in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds. The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America l930-l960 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, l969) pp. 270-337.

Wilbur Schramm, "How Communication Works" in Wilbur Schramm, ed. The Process and Effects of Mass Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, l954) 3-26.

Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss, "The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness," in Schramm, ed. 275-288.

Paul Lazarsfeld, "Communication Research and the Social Psychologist" in Wayne Dennis, ed. Current Trends in Social Psychology (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, l948) 2l8-273.

 

Week VI. Strong Global Effects (Nov. 2)

Daniel Lerner The Passing of Traditional Society, l9-75.

Herbert I. Schiller, Mass Communication and American Empire (Boston: Beacon Press, l97l) pp. 79-l07.

Silvio Waisbord, "Leviathan Dreams: State and Broadcasting in Latin America," Communication Review l (l995) 20l-226.

Supplemental Readings:

Michael Tracey, "The Poisoned Chalice? International Television and the Idea of Dominance" Daedalus ll4 (l985) l7-56

Kalyani Chadha and Anandam Kavoori, "Media Imperialism Revisited: Some Findings from the Asian Case" Media Culture and Society 22 (July 2000) 4l5-432.

 

Week VII. Unmaking a Science: Critics of Traditional Research (Nov. 9)

Todd Gitlin, "Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm" Theory and Society 6 (l978) 205-253.

Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School (MIT, l994) pp. 236-246.

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" in Dialectic of Enlightenement, l944.

Edward Purcell, Crisis of Democratic Theory, pp. 235-272.

John Durham Peters, Speaking Into the Air, pp l77-225.

Supplemental Readings:

Theodor Adorno, "Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America," in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds., Intellectual Migration, 338-370.

Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality (Berkeley: University of California Press, l984).

Raymond Geuss, The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, l98l).

Dorothy Ross, "An Historian's View of American Social Science," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 29 (l993) pp. 99-ll2.

 

Week VIII. The Concept of Culture and Its Revisions: Symbolic Anthropology, British Cultural Studies, Audiences, Hegemony and Resistance (Nov 13, 16)

A. British Cultural Studies

Graeme Turner, "Ideology" in Graeme Turner, British Cultural Studies (Unwin Human, l990) l97-225.

Raymond Williams, "Base and Superstructure in Cultural Theory" in Mukerji and Schudson.

Stuart Hall, "Encoding/Decoding," in Culture, Media, Language (London: Hutchison/Routledge,l980).

B. Audience and Resistance

John Fiske, "Television: Polysemy and Popularity," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3 (l986) 39l-408.

C. Symbolic Anthropology

Clifford Geertz, "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," in Mukerji and Schudson.

Supplemental Reading:

Dan Schiller, Theorizing Communication (New York: Oxford, l996).

Andrew Goodwin, "Introduction," in Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, l992) pp. xiii-xxxix.

 

Week X. Post-Modern Times

A. Postmodern Experience (readings to be determined later)

David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, l989). (selections)

Joshua Gamson, "Must Identity Movements Self-Destruct? A Queer Dilemma," Social Problems 42 (l995) 390-407.

Sharon Marcus, "Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words" in Judith Butler and Joan Scott, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political (Routledge, l996) pp. 385-403.

News as a Post-Modern Form (readings to be announced)

B. Postmodern Knowledge: Power/Knowledge

Michel Foucault, "Two Lectures" (second lecture) in Nicholas Dirks, et. al., Culture/Power/History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, l994) pp. 210-22l.

Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," Feminist Studies l4 (l988) 575-599."

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures (Indiana University Press, l989) l4-26.

Supplemental Reading:

Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, and Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana U. Press, l986).

Mark Poster, Modes of Information

Written Assignments:

A grade for this course will be based on seminar participation and three written assignments, as follows:

l and 2. Analysis and commentary on two of the common readings, addressing the following questions, as appropriate, in 3-5 pages each:

a) What is the intention/audience/context of the writing?
b) What is the mood or tone of the writing and the self-presentation of the author?
c) What is the primary argument?
d) What is the best evidence for it?
e) What is the best argument against it?
f) What does this piece of writing contribute to the study of communication?
g) Where does this work fit in a history of communication research as an academic discipline?

Items a and b should be answered in about a paragraph. Items c and d should take 2 or 3 pages. Items e,f and g should take a concluding couple of paragraphs. Do NOT seek to be comprehensive. Do not feel any obligation to consult works beyond the text in front of you. The task is to try to get to the heart of the matter directly and briefly.

NOTE: These two papers are to be prepared in advance of the class at which we will discuss the book or article that is their topic. Students should photocopy their papers for each member of the seminar and make them available Tuesday before 12.

3. Final assignment: in 8-l5 pages, discuss a change in scholarly thinking about communication. Explain it. Say what was gained and lost in the change:

l. from strong to weak effects
2. from weak effects to strong effects
3. from positivism to relationalisms
4. from Enlightenment to postmodernism
5. from "economic man" or "utilitarianism" to sociocultural theories of the person
6. from production of texts to reception of texts
7. another change that you have identified (but check it out with me)

Recognize, of course, that changes in thought are rarely complete or comprehensive and that you may have to deal with divisions in thought at one moment in time as well as changes in predominant views over time.

Alternatively: you may compare and contrast two thinkers from among those we have read (using at most one of the two thinkers you have previously written about).