SCHOOL OF
COMMUNICATION
CMNS
110-3 INTRODUCTION
TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Burnaby Day; Spring 2007
Roman
Onufrijchuk: roman@sfu.ca
This course provides students with a general introduction
to the rigorous and systematic study of communication
phenomena, history, practices, media, scholarship,
explanatory and directional theories, and criticism.
Beginning from the origins and foundations of communication
studies, the course traces the development of communication
ecologies, surveys oral and writing as media and cultural
frameworks for articulation of relationships, examines the
formation and mediated nature of the self, the formal and
relation-conditioning properties of media, as well as the
social forces, fields, media and institutions that shape,
and are shaped by, communication processes.
The course equips students with intellectual tools to
critically assess the images, messages, practices and
technologies making up our information-dense and
time-urgent world.
Required
Texts:
1. Plato. Phaedrus
& The Seventh and Eighth
Letters.
Translated by Walter Hamilton. London: Penguin, 1973.
2. Watson, James, and Anne Hill. Dictionary
of Media and Communication Studies. 6 ed. London: Arnold; Oxford
University Press, 2003.
3. Weekly readings assigned from the Internet.
Course
Requirements:
1. Survey Assignment 10%
2.
Midterm (in class) 25%
3.
Resaerch Assignment 25%
4. Final assignment 25%
5. Tutorial 15%
Course materials posted at: http://www.sfu.ca/~roman/
The
School expects that the grades in this course will bear
some reasonable relation to established university-wide
practices with respect to both levels and distributions of
grades. The School follows Policy T10.02 with respect to
“Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic
Discipline” (see SFU Calendar, General Regulations).