University of Wisconsin–Madison

course_term: Spring 2020

COM ARTS 346

Traces the Internet’s history, reception, audience, industries, rhetorics, fictional and filmic narratives, and potential as a purveyor and transmitter of culture and values.

COM ARTS 347

Introduction to the changing images of race and ethnicity in U.S. entertainment media and popular culture. Surveys history, key concepts and contemporary debates regarding mediated representation of ethnic minorities. Critical and cultural studies approaches are emphasized.

COM ARTS 345

Examines how personal relationships unfold in online communication contexts (social network sites, online dating, video games). Topics include impression formation and management, deception and trust, self-perception and identity, social support and relationship maintenance.

COM ARTS 325

Investigate the ways in which individuals use, create, and respond to media content in the context of increasingly blurred boundaries between “mass” and “interpersonal” media. We will consider social scientific theories and research on a wide array of topics, including media uses and effects with regard to social connection, learning, judgments, perceptions, stereotypes, violence, consumption, …

COM ARTS 317

Investigate how the concept of health is rhetorically constructed and deployed in a number of different contexts. Explore how language and argument shape our understanding of health, how health is positioned in opposition to illness and disability, and how the meaning of health has become a site of argument and controversy.

COM ARTS 313 Topics in Film and Media Studies

Students explore a topic in film and media studies, history, and theory; the topic varies from semester to semester.

COM ARTS 310 Topics in Rhetoric and Communication Science

Students explore a topic in rhetoric or communication science; the topic varies from semester to semester.

COM ARTS 300

An exploration of the comedy genre, examining theories of humor in film; introducing conceptual tools for critical appreciation and analysis; and investigating different subgenres and tendencies prominent in various phases and traditions of popular film comedy.

COM ARTS 299

Graded on a lettered basis.

COM ARTS 298

Graded on a Cr/N basis.