Sport has never been just a game or just entertainment. Scholars regard sport as one of the most prominent forms of culture and the global interplay between sport and society cements that. In this course, we explore the cultural, social, political, and increasingly technological dimensions of sport. As a collective, we gain a general understanding of the history of sports and social change through tracing social movements that have come out of athlete activism, dynamic media environments, and fan led causes.
This course is designed as an introduction to Cultural Studies, an interdisciplinary area of critical analysis, ideas, concepts and research that is essential to the field of Communication. We will pay particular attention to how notions of both culture and cultural study have changed over time, and how those legacies influence contemporary debates around cultural production, cultural identity, and global cultural change. We will examine further how the legacies of thinking and talking about culture influence contemporary debates. But most importantly, we will interrogate and identify how the theories and concepts learned throughout the course tie into our lives and the lives of others. Thus, our personal and collective experiences, and, even more, the historical and cultural forces that shape these experiences, will be a priority.
Social science is the scientific study of human social behavior. Much of what we know about human communication is based on social science research. The focus of this course is on understanding, evaluating and communicating research rather than on actually conducting research. Topics include source credibility, research ethics, researcher objectivity and biases, research questions, theory and hypotheses, qualitative research (e.g., interviews, participant observations), quantitative research (e.g., experiments, surveys and polls), basics of data analysis, interpretation of findings, study limitations, and the importance of replication. We discuss how to synthesize, evaluate and integrate research studies on a topic and how to present research so it is understandable, interesting and compelling to different audiences.
What are communication technologies, why and how do they matter? This is a survey course designed to give undergraduates an overview of core concepts, historical trajectories, and contemporary controversies in the design, deployment, use, and critical study of communication technologies. Students will learn about different definitions of “communication” and “technology”; examine the values and assumptions of those who make and use communication technologies; and gain insight into how communication technologies are created, deployed, used, regulated, and remade through an ever changing set of economic, social and cultural dynamics. Through critiques of scholarly literature and contemporary cases students will examine communication technologies in relation to notions of: community, participation, climate crisis, race, gender, identity, journalism, copyright, free speech, reputation, misinformation, big data, algorithms, privacy, surveillance, labor, commodity, gaming, and cities.
This is an introductory course to programming utilizing the Java language. The course concentrates on programming concepts of problem solving using Java, algorithm design, structured programming, fundamental algorithms and techniques, computer systems concepts, and social and ethical responsibility