Below are some of the courses I teach.
Click on title or image to visit the site
J397: Media EthicsThis course is designed to familiarize students with the tools needed to make moral decisions regarding the use of mass media. Many of the most common forms of media are studied, including news journalism, advertising, and public relations. This course is heavy on theory, but that theory is applied to real-life situations. A big plus is the series of comic books Tom created to aid understanding of some pretty complex principles. See the Design & Illustration page for a look.
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J387: Media HistoryThis course looks at some of the most significant events in communication history—including the development of media technology, the media industry itself, and its role and influence in society. It considers how media have shaped human experience, including how they have affected society, culture, politics, and much more. The goal of this course is for students to begin to be more personally connected with media history and how their lives relates to it. If you've never typed on a manual typewriter or played with a telegraph key, this is the course for you.
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J412/512: Editorial cartooning
This course explores editorial cartoons and the cartoonists who produce them. It investigates how editorial cartoonists give meaning to facts and help construct our political and social reality. Students study the satirical form and its role in political dissent, how editorial cartoons are made, and how to interpret them. The course also considers the history of editorial cartooning, and whether there is a future for this journalistic art form.
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J496/596: Satire, Ethics, and free speech
This course explores the subject of satire: what it is, how it has been used in the past, and whether that use has evolved over the years. The course engages satire in its many forms, from written, to illustrated, to dramatized; from the works of Jonathon Swift and Mark Twain, to Mad Magazine and Saturday Night Live. It investigate in detail the tangled vine that produces humor, satire, caricature, and irony; while, at the same time, may produce mockery, ridicule, derision, and hate speech. We will examine whether it's possible to apply moral and ethical guidelines to such a diverse practice, and how the Western philosophy of Free Speech factors into the equation.
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