Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduction to communication research methodologies utilizing an intersectional framework of analysis, with a focus on the knowledges developed with, by, and for movements for social justice.

COURSE DETAILS:

How critical or resistant can critical social theories be within the context of academia if we continue to think of theorizing as a purely academic endeavour? (Patricia Hill Collins)

Communication Research for Social Change surveys contemporary theoretical and methodological approaches to communication research that are oriented toward progressive social transformation. The seminar is organized around an intersectional framework of analysis, and highlights the knowledges developed with, by, and for movements for social justice. This seminar investigates contemporary theories and methodologies as they relate to the contested politics of communication research on topics including gender and sexuality; race and racism; environmental crisis; migration, borders and diaspora; data justice; colonialism and empire; labour and class; culture and cultural production; and media literacy, advocacy and governance. 

The seminar is organized around knowledge production practices in the field of communication studies which address these and other axes of exploitation and oppression. Intersectional critical theory sees these systems as related and mutually reinforcing, and critical research methodologies aim to produce knowledge that is connected to action—what is often referred to as praxis— which confronts these social problems. 

Questions addressed include: 

• How does research—and the knowledge that supports it—contribute to or act against intersecting axes of oppression such as patriarchy, racism, and colonialism?
• What are the epistemological, ethical, and political foundations and implications of research projects in the field of communication studies?
• What kinds of relationships should bind us to the communities we engage with in our research?
• What are praxis-driven communication research methods?
• How can scholarship support the production of counter-discourses and praxis?

Over the course of the semester students will be exposed to and engage the diverse, cutting edge, and creative approaches to communication methodology and research adopted by faculty in the School of Communication, including projects of Indigenizing theory and method, community-engaged research, co-research and worker inquiry, critical textual analysis, critical data studies, and others. This seminar will provide students with an opportunity to draw from these theories and methodologies as they design their capstone projects for the MA project option. Students will have an opportunity to take an ethics application workshop in January should their research project require it. Students taking Communication Research for Social Change will draw on a range of methodological approaches and debates to draft a capstone research project proposal which will serve as the foundation for their Directed Study course undertaken during the Summer Semester. 

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: