Seminar 0109 2:30-3:45P TR

Important responsibilities for citizens in a democracy are finding
and evaluating information. In the wake of the 2000 elections and
September 11th, anyone who thinks these skills are unimportant
should be smacked upside the head with a banjo.More Americans claim
to get the bulk of their news from television. A critical thinker
might wonder, “is that a good thing or a bad thing?” In the most
general sense, that is what we are after. In this class, we will ask
three key questions, dividing our time into, you guessed it, three
different parts:
 
 What impact do media conglomerates have on
what is reported? (Do media companies kill stories, shape stories,
offer suggestions for stories, give reporters full autonomy; do
advertisers do the same—is there a corporate/commercial bias to the
media?). 
 How valid are typical broadcast media reports? (Is
there a liberal bias to the stories, what sources are used, what
sources are ignored, how are sources framed in the context of a
story, what assumptions are made, what facts are missing, etc).

 What does all this mean about how we watch television news,
about how well the media does its job, about how politicians
communicate issues, and of course, about democracy in America?