Graduate Courses and Seminars

2019/2020 Academic Year

FALL 2019

COGR 200A: Communication as Social Force

Instructor: Kelly Gates

This course focuses on the political economy of communication and the social organization of key media institutions. There will be both descriptive and analytical concerns. The descriptive concern will emphasize the complex structure of communication industries and organizations, both historically and cross-nationally. The analytic focus will examine causal relationships between the economic and political structure of societies, the character of their media institutions, public opinion, and public attitudes and behaviors expressed in patterns of voting, consuming, and public participation. The nature of evidence and theoretical basis for such relationships will be critically explored.  

COGR 201J: Comparative Analysis

Instructor: Dan Hallin

The logic of comparative analysis and its role in communication research. Scientific inference in qualitative research. Selection of cases. Problems of translation across cultures.

COGR 275: Feminisms in Critical Dialogue

Instructor: Boatema Boateng

This course undertakes a theoretical and political history of feminist scholarship. It considers the ways in which such scholarship has expanded in part due to contests over the bases of feminist knowledge production. It takes into account points of contention and dialogue including challenges from Black and Third World feminists, as well as demands for attention to issues like sexuality, performativity, and intersectionality. The course provides students with a foundation for identifying a body of feminist literature tailored to their individual research interests and goals.

COGR 294: The History of Communication Research

Instructor: Shawna Kidman

Intellectual history of the field of communication studies from Robert Park to the present. Explication and assessment of major research approaches and classic studies representing both empirical and critical traditions.

WINTER 2020

COGR 200B: Communication and Culture

Instructor: Caroline Jack

This course focuses on questions of interpretation and meaning. This course will examine how people use texts to interpret the world and coordinate their activities in social groups. Students will study both theories of interpretation in the conventional sense and theories about the act of interpreting.   

COGR 200C: Communication and The Individual

Instructor: Christo Sims

This course will draw on theorists who examine human nature as constituted by social, material, and historical circumstances. This course considers the media in relation to the ontogenetic and historical development of the human being and an examination of the individual as socially constituted in a language-using medium. The role of new communication technologies as part of research methodologies is explored in lecture-seminar.

COGR 201 : Research Methods - Crafting Research

Instructor: Gary Fields

This course focuses on the crafting of dissertation research in the social sciences and humanities. As a doctoral seminar, the course represents a kind of personal reflection on the methodological challenges embedded in a major research project stemming from the recent experience of the instructor in completing a lengthy comparative historical geography of land conflict across three case studies. Based on this experience, the course aims to chart a different direction for teaching and learning about methods across different disciplines.

Most courses devoted to methods focus on a canon of knowledge deriving from texts best described as ‘primers’ for doing research. While such literature has its uses, reading it can be a turgid exercise. By contrast, this seminar will feature some of the most engaging, influential and even controversial literature in humanities and social sciences as the anchor for learning about methods. Although we will critique these readings for substance, our attention will be on the methodological architecture of these texts exemplified by the following types of questions: How did authors frame a research question and set-up their arguments? How did they situate their research within a body of literature? What kinds of archives did authors enlist for evidence in support of the claims in the arguments? What were the different types of data and evidence collected by authors? What was the organizational structure of the work in terms of chapters or subheadings? What was the “voice” of the narrative in the text? What were the challenges – logistical and conceptual -- confronting authors in gathering evidence to support the argument? What theories did authors use in developing their narratives? What is a case study and when is it appropriate to compare different cases? How did the authors justify the importance of their research? These kinds of questions will frame the agenda of the course, highlighted each week by a specific methodological theme.

COGR 275: Ecological Thinking/ Thinking Ecologies

Instructor: Dominguez Rubio

This course, co-designed by Fernando Domínguez Rubio (UCSD) and Marisol de la Cadena (UCD), is intended to be a foray into ecological thinking. The course asks one question: What can ecological thinking do? We will address this question by engaging with the work of a diverse array of classic and contemporary authors, including Charles Darwin, Masao Abe, Karl Marx, Isabelle Stengers, Vinciane Despret, or Achille Mbembe.

COGR 280: Advanced Workshop in Communication Media

Instructor: Zeinabu Davis

This course is a project course in which students prepare a production or experiment using one of the forms of media. The course is designed to allow students to experiment in a communication form other than the usual oral presentation in class or a term paper. Students can do a video production, a coordinated photographic essay or exhibit, a computer instructional game, a published newspaper or magazine article directed at a special audience, a theatrical presentation, or some form other than those listed.

SPRING 2020

COGR 201B: Ethnographic Methods for Communication Research

Instructor: Elana Zilberg

A supervised and coordinated group project will allow students to develop competence in a variety of ethnographic approaches to communication. Subjects covered include choosing a fieldwork site, setting or process for participation; entry and development of relationships; techniques of observation, interviewing, note taking, and transcription. Course may also include photography and video as research tools. All participant observation and interviewing strategies fall under the review of the Committee on Human Subjects.

COGR 255: Studies in Political Theory

Instructors: Valerie Hartouni and Robert Horwitz

Considers classical and contemporary texts in primarily western political thought with an eye toward understanding how such theory is and/or might be brought to bear in grounding different approaches and agendas in the study of communication.

COGR 284: Time

Instructor: Stefan Tanaka

This seminar will introduce key issues and readings in our understanding of time. Time is historical, not natural. We will examine ways that modern time structures and orders human interaction.

COGR 296: Communication Research as an Interdisciplinary Activity

Instructor: Thomas Schmidt

A course that introduces students to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of communication research as represented by the work of faculty in the Department of Communication. Through faculty research, students are presented with concrete examples of communication research theory and practice that can provide them with insights for conducting their own research projects.