American Media
Industries – FMMC/AMCV 0343
Spring 2005, Professor Jason Mittell
T/Th 11:00 – 12:15, Ross B11
Screening: Wednesday 7:30 – 10:30 pm, McBi
Hall 220
204
Adirondack House 443-3435 jmittell@middlebury.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 3:00 – 4:30
Thursday 9:30 – 10:30 & by appointment
I am generally available to meet for lunch on T/Th – see me to arrange!
Film, television and music are many things in today’s society – sources of entertainment and art, sites of cultural battles, providers of information, and multi-billion dollar industries. In this course we will focus on how these media work as industries, always keeping in mind how the industrial practices intersect with aesthetic, cultural, and social issues. Throughout this class, we will examine how these industries work to produce media products, distribute entertainment and news programming to millions of Americans, and function within larger systems of government and commerce, while highlighting media industries as a site of political struggle and debate. We will explore the historical roots of contemporary media industries, examining how and why these industries came to work the way they do today. Finally, we will consider these industrial practices critically, considering how media industries might not serve the public interest adequately and how we might envision them differently.
Required Texts
& Readings:
Books available at Middlebury College
Bookstore (shelved under AMCV 0343):
David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries (London: Sage Publications, 2002)
Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York: Picador, 2000)
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture (New York: Penguin, 2004) – note that paperback will be published in late February. Also available for free download on course site.
Robert McChesney, The Problem of the Media (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004)
Note: It is the student’s responsibility to get access to a copy for assigned readings. All titles are on reserve and easily available at online bookstores.
Other required readings will be available via the course website. Screenings are required for this course, regularly meeting at 7:30 on Wednesday evenings; if you cannot attend a screening, it is up to each student to make arrangements to screen the required materials at the Library that you will be absent and making up the screening.
Online Materials:
The webpage for this class (http://segue.middlebury.edu/sites/fmmc0343) will contain important materials throughout the semester, as well as providing a place for student discussion and sharing information. It is an important facet of the course, and thus is not optional. Some assignments will be facilitated via online postings, while the interactive discussions will be a required portion of the course, so all students are required to check the online discussion boards and materials regularly. Any students uncomfortable with the technological portions of the course are urged to request assistance from peers, the professor, or technological resources at Middlebury.
Course
Requirements:
All of the following
requirements must be completed in order to pass this course. If you do not complete the three essays and
the group workshops, you will automatically
fail the course:
Corporate Analysis Essay 15%
Critical Book Report 15%
Term Research Paper 25%
Online & In-Class Participation 20%
Group Simulation Workshop 25%
Assignment details will be
available on the course website and handed out in class.
Online Participation:
Students will be expected to actively participate on online discussions
to respond to course readings and materials, as well as serving as a forum to
discuss any issues related to the course. Students who do not post weekly
responses as described below will receive no higher than a C for online
participation. For each day’s reading, Professor Mittell will post a brief set
of discussion questions. You are
responsible for answering one of
these questions each week before the
class meeting – you can respond to either day’s questions during a given week,
but you must post your response before the class meets. In addition to responding to the given
question(s), you should read the postings of your peers and construct your own
response in dialogue with your classmates. You will not receive credit for
posting reading responses after the day on which the readings were assigned
unless you have been absent from class for an excused reason and have made
specific arrangements with Professor Mittell.
Students should use discussion boards to exchange ideas about anything tangentially related to class, posting articles and material of interest to classmates. Please use the site to share relevant material and links that will be useful to your projects, as this course encourages group exploration and discovery.
Group Simulation Workshop:
The most “experimental” portion of this course will dedicate a good deal of
in-class and outside course time simulating the culture and practices of a
media company at work. The class will
constitute a fictional media corporation, MMM (Middlebury – Mittell – Media) in search of their next
multimedia franchise. You will work in
small groups which function as satellite companies looking to “provide content”
to MMM in a variety of forms – logo design, marketing & merchandizing
plans, pitches for programming, audience analyses, advertising design,
etc. We will spend time in class and in
outside meetings exploring how to effectively create media content emulating
the “logic” of Hollywood. The course
will culminate with presentations of each group’s pitches and industrial
strategies, with awards given for potential “green lights.” More details about the individual projects
and expectations will be forthcoming as the semester progresses. We will also be collaborating with Prof.
Pardee’s ECON 412 classes on applying economic analysis to media industries.
To make this simulation effective, we will select groups on the first day of the class – these groups will work together on many projects and coordinate many of the course materials. Thus each student needs to commit to the exercise equally and be willing to cooperate effectively. It is expected that each group will negotiate any troubling dynamics, workload discrepancies, scheduling conflicts, etc. amongst themselves – Professor Mittell will step in to negotiate only if all internal measures have been exhausted. Each group will be expected to meet regularly throughout the course, as well as having periodic meetings with Professor Mittell.
While the group exercise is somewhat nontraditional for many courses, it is still an important – and hence graded – portion of the course. To fairly assign a grade to this aspect of the class, the final grade will be a combination of Professor Mittell’s assessment, a self-evaluation from each student, and a group-evaluation from each student, in which you confidentially assess the performance of each of your peers.
Academic Dishonesty:
All work you submit must be your own and you may not inappropriately assist
other students in their work beyond the confines of a particular assignment, in
keeping with the Middlebury College Honor Code.
All papers and exams must include the signed (or its digital proxy)
statement of the Honor Code in order to be graded. There
is a no-tolerance policy for academic misconduct in this course! The minimum penalty for academic misconduct
will be a failing grade (F) for the course – further academic and disciplinary
penalties may be assessed. The
definitions of plagiarism and cheating used in this course are consistent with
the material in the College Handbook, Chapter V.
Course policies, grade expectations, and useful resources are available on the course website. They should be considered an extension of this syllabus.
Daily Schedule
February 9 – The Player (Robert Altman, 1992) – 4598D
February 10 – The Culture Industry
READINGS: Keith Negus, “The Production of Culture”
[web]
(reading
includes additional excerpts in chapter)
David Hesmondhalgh, Cultural Industries, Intro (1-24)
READINGS: Hesmondhalgh, Ch. 1 – 3 (27-104)
Herman & Chomsky, “A Propaganda Model” [web]
February 16 – Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky & the Media (Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick, 1992) – 6966D
READINGS: Hesmondhalgh, Ch. 4 (107-133)
Robert McChesney, Problem of the Media, Preface – Ch. 1 (1-56)
MMM: Present logo designs
February 21 – Recommended Event: Jeffrey Toobin, reporter for CNN & New Yorker, "Monica, OJ, Kobe & Martha: Covering the Law from Inside & Out." 4:30 pm, McBi 220
READINGS: Hesmondhalgh, Ch. 5 (134-172)
McChesney, Ch. 2 – 3, 5 (57-137; 175-209)
February 23 – Network
(Sidney Lumet, 1976) – 6610D
READINGS: Budd et. al., “Television Economics” & “Advertising” [web]
John Ellis, “Television Production” [web]
READINGS: Richard Maltby, “Industry 2 & 3” [web]
WRITING: Corporate Analysis paper due in class
March 2 – Money for Nothing (Media Education Foundation, 2001) – 7101V
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Sam Jones, 2003) – 7941D
READINGS: Negus, “Culture, Industry, Genre” & “Corporate Strategy” [web]
READINGS: Matthew McAllister, “From Flick to Flack” [web] Deborah Jaramillo, “The Family Racket” [web]
Janet Wasko, “Promoting & Protecting the Industry” [web]
Marshall Sella, “The 150-Second Sell” [web]
WRITING: Topic list for Final Research Paper due via email
READINGS: Elana Levine, “Paradigm for Media Production Research” [web]
READINGS: Eileen Meehan, “Holy Commodity Fetish, Batman!” [eRes]
P. David Marshall, “New Intertextual Commodity” [eRes]
American Movie (Chris Smith, 1999) – 5860D
READINGS: Chuck Kleinhans, “Independent Features” [web]
March 30 – Sonic Outlaws (Craig Baldwin, 1995) – 7389V
Culture Jammer’s Video (Media Foundation, 1997) – 7390V
No Logo (Media Education Foundation, 2003) – 7636D
READINGS: Naomi Klein, No Logo, entire book
McChesney, Ch. 4 (138-174)
Adbusters.org [web]
READINGS: Hesmondhalgh, Ch. 7 (198-230)
Henry Jenkins, “"Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?” [web]
Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail” [web]
WRITING: Critical book report due in class
MMM: Ad and Anti-Ad presentation in
class
READINGS: Chad Raphael, “Political Economic
Origins” [web]
Ted Magder, “End of TV 101” [web]
MMM: Meet with Prof. Mittell to pitch
projects by 4/15
READINGS: Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture, Preface – Ch. 10
April 20 – Willful Infringement (Greg Hitelman, 2003) – 7957D
READINGS: Lessig, Ch. 11 – Afterword
Creative Commons, “Get Creative” [Online]
READINGS: Hesmondhalgh, Ch. 6 (173-197)
Timothy Havens, “It’s Still a White World out There” [web]
Koichi Iwabuchi, “How ‘Japanese’ is Pokémon?” [web]
April 27 – Lost in La Mancha
(Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe, 2003) – 7834D
READINGS: McChesney, Ch. 6 – 7 (210-297)
Hesmondhalgh, Conclusion (256-266)
May 4 – TBA
Graduating seniors absolutely MUST hand in papers on time!