Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Topics on the cultural production of acoustic, visual, and/or multimodal communication. Explores cultural contexts of media production, media artifacts, media perceptions, and alternative media practices. Topics include: advertising, film, gaming, radio, television, and questions of representation in media professions. This course can be repeated once for credit (up to a maximum of two times).

COURSE DETAILS:

Topic for Spring 2025:  Communication, Visual Study & The Arts

Art Worlds as/and Communication:

The course introduces major debates and theoretical approaches in social studies of the arts, with a particular emphasis on work relevant to visual studies in the field of communication.  The course uses Howard Becker’s notion of art worlds (multiple modes of organization as opposed to the hierarchical idea of a single artistic field). The course will consider many other approaches to the study of visual communications, social structures and agency, media and technology and communication within and through the visual and performing arts, among them Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of the field of cultural production, approaches to the arts as affordances for cognition, affect and action (Tia DeNora), theories about the changing nature of work in contemporary society and how this is related to artistic labour and creative work (relying on work by Pierre-Michel Menger and contributions by other key scholars).  The course begins by considering debates about the foundations of social studies of the arts.  Are artists unique visionaries or are they part of society?  Does art "reflect" society? Is art "outside" of society?  How are communications about socio-cultural, political and economic dimensions shaped by the arts and how do they shape visual studies?

Processes and Institutions:

One common strategy for critically analysing the arts has been to examine processes and social organizations related to artistic "production" or "creation", mediation and reception (such as museums, and the film, music and publishing industries). We will examine debates about canons, recognition processes, and diverse models for the social organization of art worlds. How do specific art forms and creators achieve recognition? How have institutional and organizational formations become associated with specific art forms or aesthetic movements?  How are contemporary communications and information technologies changing art worlds?

Social Identities, Social Issues and the Arts:

Some of the readings will consider questions related to the interplay of the arts, social identities, power, status, inequalities and public activism. Do artistic tastes function as status markers for "consumers" (collectors, patrons, audiences, publics, fans, etc.)? How do classification systems arise that define or rank different art forms and the people who value different forms? How do people use the arts as affordances for thinking, feeling and acting? How has communication in art worlds and through art been used to reinforce or reconfigure values and practices in everyday life, socio-political movements, status hierarchies or public policy?

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: