36:090:004 Fall, 2004
Media, Culture and Relationships

Instructor: Dr. Kristine Fitch
phone 353-2265
e-mail: kristine-fitch@uiowa.edu

Office: 145 BCSB
Hours Tues. 2:30-4
Thurs. 11-12 and by appointment

This course examines relationships in the workplace, at home and in between in cultural terms. We undertake the study of culture as a system of meaning in both its interpersonal, face to face enactments in relationships and in its mediated forms, as a pervasive influence on those relationships. We will pay particular attention to intercultural relationships and representations of relationships in a variety of media genres. The goals of this course are

To understand how relationships are constrained and enabled by culture.
To examine relationships as systems of meaning that draw from publicly available resources.
To examine communication in intercultural relationships as a window on both intercultural communication, and on relationships.
To be able to analyze media products and genres both descriptively and critically.
To become familiar with at least two different views of how, and to what degree, media influence relationships.

Required Readings

Fitch, K. L. (1998) Speaking relationally: Culture, communication, and interpersonal connection. New York: Guilford.

Grearson, J. C. & Smith, L. B. (Eds.) (1995) Swaying: Essays on intercultural love. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

These texts are available at the University Bookstore in the IMU. Additional required readings will be linked to the Web CT site, part of the University Course Web Services of the University of Iowa, for this course. To log in you will:

Open your browser--Netscape works best with WebCT--and go to http://courses.uiowa.edu.
In the Students box (top right) click Log in to WebCT
In WebCT ID: enter your Hawk ID.
In Password: Enter your HawkID password.
The browser will display the link to this course’s website, click on it.
036:090:004 Media, culture, and relationships (Kristine Fitch)

For questions of how to use Web CT and for lost passwords, you should go to an ITC on campus, and speak to one of the help personnel there or call the ITS help desk at 384-help. You may also email them at webct@uiowa.edu; be sure to include your course number, the instructor’s name, and your Hawk Id. You will need to be registered as a student in this class to gain access to the website. By enrolling in the course, this will take place automatically shortly after the course begins.

Assignments

Your grade in this course will be based on the following components:

Quizzes (approximately 5, over readings, every 2-3 weeks):	25%
Final exam:	20%
Descriptive analysis of cultural pattern:	25%
Critical analysis of media product/genre:	20%
Propositions (summary statements about course concepts):	10%
Participation/daily assignments:	10%

Grading will be a 100 point scale on each assignment, with the following values: 90-100 A, 80-90 B, 70-80 C, 60-70 D, 59-below F.

You will receive specific grading criteria for each assignment/project. My general grading philosophy is as follows:

A work EXCEEDS the minimum requirements in MANY significant ways and are reserved for excellence and superior performances.
B work EXCEEDS the minimum requirements in some way, and is above and beyond the stated basic requirements of the assignment.
C work meets the minimum requirements for acceptable completion of the assignment. A C is NOT punishment; rather, it is an indication that you have performed at an acceptable level.
D work falls short of minimum requirements in some ways.
F work fails to reach requirements in many ways.

Quizzes

Note well: There is a great deal of reading assigned for this class, and the only way to write adequate papers and propositions and pass the final exam is to read carefully and engage fully with the readings as we go along. To help ensure your comprehension of the readings, we will have in-class quizzes approximately every 2-3 weeks. The primary concern for the quizzes will be the readings themselves, although since we will talk about the readings in class you will be responsible for material covered in class lectures and discussion as well. THERE WILL BE NO MAKEUP QUIZZES.

Final Exam

The final exam will comprehensive, and will be held during the exam period scheduled for this course (Thursday, December 16, 2:15 p.m.)

Descriptive analysis of a cultural pattern of communication in relationships.

The goal of this paper is to show, in roughly 6-8 typed, double spaced pages, that you can accurately apply course concepts we have covered so far to a cultural analysis of a pattern of communication. You will collect and analyze communication data within a particular type of relationship, make a claim about its cultural distinctiveness, and support that claim with a well-formed argument based on both the data you collected, and contrast points with other cultures drawn from published studies of that communication phenomenon.

Critical analysis of media product/genre:

After extensive reading about, and class discussion of, media genres and the ways media affect relational ideals, you will choose a genre of media products (a particular kind of TV soap opera, a genre of music such as hiphop, country western or pop, a talk show such as Oprah). In a 6-8 page paper you will describe at least three texts from the genre and make an argument about the relational ideals reflected, created or resisted in them. You will draw upon outside sources as well as course readings to make your argument.

Propositions

Because we are bringing together two areas of communication research and theory that are most often quite separate from each other, there is much to discover in this course! I hope to promote the idea that what we’re doing together is actual discovery, above and beyond the coverage of a well-known set of ideas that would ordinarily be the basis for a course. To encourage this spirit of discovery, you will be encouraged to keep track of insights and connections that come to mind as we go through the semester, and to record them in the form of propositions (e.g.: Relational partners draw upon media products that remind them of a particular season or time period during which the relationship was at its most positive and delightful, in order to preserve that sense of delight later on). At the end of the semester, we’ll talk about the propositions you’ve come up with and about what constitutes an original, thought-provoking insight about communication. You’ll turn in a typed, double-spaced set of 3-5 propositions, each with a paragraph that explains it, and gives evidence or a clear example of it. Because this is a novel kind of assignment and I don’t know how meaningful it will turn out to be, it will be graded on a pass/fail basis – more details in class.

Participation/daily assignments

Because theories are most useful when they’re applied to the world around you, an important element of this course is your thinking about and putting to use the material we read and discuss. The written responses are due in class on the day we discuss the reading they pertain to; I will not accept any late ones. These responses should be typed, a page or two long, and PLEASE be sure to put your name on them.

In addition, I expect regular attendance and active participation in class.

Other expectations

I will use the WebCT Mail function to communicate with you, so it is important that you either (a) check that mail almost every day or (b) set the mail function to forward e-mail from WebCT to an e-mail address that you check regularly. To do the latter, log on to this course in WebCT and click on Mail in the left hand menu column. Click on the right hand bar that says Message Settings. Check the box that says Forward My Mail and enter the e-mail address that you check most often. Click Update and log off.

Although the expectations outlined in this document will not change, you will need to check the schedule on line for updates at least once a week!

I expect all of your work in this course to be your own, and I expect you to uphold the highest standards of academic honesty. This includes awareness of what constitutes plagiarism with respect to the specific assignments in this course, and avoidance of it. Following the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences guidelines (http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/academic_handbook/) plagiarism and cheating include, but may not be limited to:

presentation of the ideas of others without credit to the source;
use of direct quotations without quotation marks and without credit to the source;
paraphrasing without credit to the source;
participation in a group project which presents plagiarized materials;
failure to provide adequate citations for material obtained through electronic research;
downloading and submitting work from electronic databases without citation;
submitting material created/written by someone else as one's own, including purchased term/research papers;
copying from someone else's exam or homework;
allowing someone to copy or submit one's work as his/her own;
accepting credit for a group project without doing one's share;
submitting the same paper in more than one course without the knowledge and approval of the instructors involved;
using notes or other materials during a test or exam without authorization;
not following the guidelines specified by the instructor for a "take home" test or exam.

Students unclear about the proper use and citation of sources, or the details and guidelines for any assignment, should discuss their questions with me.

Disabilities

I would like to hear from anyone who has a disability that may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements can be made. If any member of the class feels that he or she has a disability and requires special accommodations, of any nature whatsoever, I will work with you and the Office of Student Disability Services (3101 Burge Hall) to ensure that you have a fair opportunity to perform in this class. Please advise me of such disability and the desired accommodations as early as possible in the semester.

Extra Credit

Students will be eligible for extra credit points this semester. Many times, Communication Studies researchers seek participants for their studies from students enrolled in undergraduate Communication Studies courses. If researchers would like to seek your participation in exchange for extra credit, I will ensure that you have a choice in whether to participate in these studies or earn extra credit through a comparable option that does not involve participation in a research study. If extra credit options become available, they will be announced to the class in a manner that enables students to choose among all available options. Participation in a given study cannot be counted for extra credit in more than one course.

Tentative Schedule

Date	Topic	Reading
Aug.24 - Aug. 26	Overview: Media, culture, and relationships	Fitch, ch. 1: Relational ideals in cultural context
Aug. 31- Sept. 2	Norms, premises, and relational codes Enacting, reproducing, and resisting ideology	Fitch, ch. 2: Personal address Fitch, ch. 7: Interpersonal ideology Quiz: Relationships, culture and power
Sept. 7-9	Some specifics of language use Categorizing realities: Types of relationships	Fitch Ch. 3, Directives Goodwin Ch. 3 (degrees of control over relationships)
Sept. 14,16	Culture as a constraint on relationship formation	Derne ch. 3, arranged marriage McRae, Chs. 2 and 8 Quiz: Constraint and freedom in mate selection
21, 23	Specifics of language use, part 2	Fitch Ch. 4, narratives Blum-Kulka ch. 4 (Tales and tellers in family dinner table talk)
28, 30	From private to public: Work relationships	Fitch Ch. 5, relationships in and through conversation Goodwin Ch. 7, work relationships
Oct. 5,7	Intercultural communication and relationships	Fitch, Epilogue Swaying, two essays Discuss Paper #1, description of a cultural pattern of communication in relationships
12, 14	Intercultural relationships	Group discussion of Swaying essays and analysis, in groups, of the role of cultural differences in relationships Quiz: Intercultural relationships
19, 21	Genres of media	Workshop on paper: Bring data to class! Post thesis statement to discussion board by Sunday (10/26), noon. Selections from Creeber, The television genre book
26, 28	Soap operas and other fictional TV Talk shows and other “realities”	Segrin & Nabi, Does TV create unrealistic expectations about marriage? Carbaugh on talk shows; Wilson on Oprah; Fitch on Big Brother Individual meetings as needed for paper
Nov. 2, 4	Music and other forms of advice about life	Duran & Prusank on men’s vs. women’s magazines *music genres article?* Tentative: Paper #1 due.
9, 11 (NCA)	Media codes	Fiske on media codes; Hall on encoding/decoding; Battles & Hilton-Morrow on Will & Grace
16, 18		Textual analysis of media: Workshop Finding resources for paper
*THANKSGIVING*
Nov. 30, Dec. 2	Bringing F2F and media together: What do we know about culture and relationships?	Propositions (Draft for discussion Thursday; due on Tuesday 12/7)
Dec. 7, 9		Paper due Review for final

36:090:004 Fall, 2004 Media, Culture and Relationships