T4212 GENDER, RACE, CLASS AND MASS MEDIA: LONDON

January 1-26, 2014

London

Academic Overview
This course explores the crucial roles that journalistic, advertising and entertainment media play in creating, reinforcing and disseminating cultural values about gender, race and ethnicity, and class. We consider such questions as how media depictions may symbolically annihilate, stereotype and trivialize women and people of color, and how the decision-making status of women and people of color in media organizations may be connected to those depictions. We also explore these issues in relation to class, which is often connected to race and ethnicity. We question the ability of media organizations to recognize and reflect the changing nature of the populations they have a social responsibility to serve. We also consider how international conglomerates use media messages to perpetuate a kind of one-size-fits-all global culture of commodification and materialism that may influence local cultural standards about identity.

Specifically, in this offering of the course, we will use the city of London as a kind of living laboratory to examine how the tensions of heritage and diversity are exacerbated or addressed by mass media content and public expressions of culture in an increasingly multicultural city. We will systematically compare our own experiences with US media content and public culture to our newfound observations of media content and public culture in London.

Note for St. Thomas students: This course satisfies the diversity requirement of the core curriculum and is cross-listed with the Women’s Studies program. It also serves as a course in the theory/analysis category of the COJO major.

Comprehensive Fee
Costs: $5255-5555*
*Each home institution may have supplementary fees in addition to the price listed.
Comprehensive Fee Includes: Transportation and course arrangements as indicated, hotel accommodations in twin and triple rooms, continental breakfast daily, three lunches and two cultural performances. (subject to change)

Prerequisites
The course does not have any academic prerequisites.

Required Readings
Articles from the course reader, which is available at the UST Bookstore.
Students will also be required to read at least two daily newspapers and watch television news regularly.

Evaluation
34 points Attendance and participation
15 points News headline presentation
10 points Group guide responsibilities
10 points Discussion questions
30 points Reflective journals
100 points Final essay
50 points Group media scrapbook
100 points Final group project
20 points Classroom Engagement
20 points Group contribution score
389 points total

Faculty Directors
Bernard Armada, Ph.D., University of St. Thomas (651) 962-5825
Mark Neuzil, Ph.D., University of St. Thomas (651) 962-5267

Description of Faculty Directors

Dr. Armada is a Professor at the University of St.Thomas in St. Paul, MN, in the Department of Communication and Journalism and holds a Ph.D. in Speech Communication with an emphasis in the rhetoric of race and public memory. He has taught courses such as Modern American Rhetoric, The Rhetoric of Public Memory, and Landscapes of Public Memory in Athens, Greece, all of which focus on how culture is constructed through communication practices. Dr. Armada taught in Athens, Greece during January 2004 and 2005 (Landscapes of Public Memory). In January of 2006, he taught the UMAIE course Multi-Cultural Communication in Organizational Contexts in Hawaii. He team-taught Gender, Race and Class in Media with Dr. Wendy Wyatt in January of 2010.

Dr. Neuzil is a Professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, in the Department of Communication and Journalism and Director of the Office for Mission. He received his Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Minnesota, his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and his bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University in political science and journalism. He teaches courses in reporting, environmental communication, media ethics and communication history. His latest book is The Environment and the Press: From Adventure Writing to Advocacy (Northwestern University Press, 2008), which was the winner of the James A. Tankard Book Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Neuzil is a regular contributor to Minnpost, an on-line newspaper in Minneapolis. A former summer park ranger, Neuzil has worked as a reporter and editor with the Associated Press, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the Quad-City Times, the Ames Daily Tribune and the New Ulm (Minn.) Journal. Dr. Neuzil team-taught this course with Dr. Wendy Wyatt in January of 2009.

Final Application Deadline: October 1, 2013

For more information on course content, contact Prof. Bernard Armada
On application procedures or logistical information, contact your study abroad office.