BALS students only. To media corporations, audiences are reviled yet coveted; to progressive groups, audiences are passive and vulnerable; and to the government, audiences are simply incomprehensible. Histories of electronic media are littered with vague notions of who audiences are, what they want, and what they should or shouldn’t see or hear. Consequently, varied conceptualizations of the public saddle radio, television, and film with specific responsibilities. This course will examine the rhetoric of corporations, progressive groups, and the government to determine how these bodies have conceptualized "the public" throughout the histories of radio, television, and film.
This course carries credit for the following concentrations: American Studies, Communications, Social and Public Policy, Theory and Practice of American Democracy, and Individualized Study. Students in other concentrations can use it for elective credit.
