Course Syllabus
Course Syllabus: University of California, Davis
CMN 10V/Introduction to Communication, Winter, 2017
Meets: Online
Instructor: John Theobald/Office: Kerr 368
Office Hours/drop in: M 1:00-2:00 & 4:00 - 5:00 pm; also by appointment
Graduate Teaching Assistants:
- Skye Wingate (vswingate@ucdavis.edu) Office: Kerr 169, Thursdays 9-11 am; also by appointment
- YoYo Zhan (youzhan@ucdavis.edu) /Office: Kerr 179, Thursdays, 1-3 pm; also by appointment
Description: CMN 10V functions as an introduction to both the field of communication, in general, and the Department of Communication at UC Davis. The course covers basic principles of communication processes, models of communication, foundations of empirical research in communication, and contexts of communication research.
People: The instructor of record and course organizer for this quarter's section is Continuing Lecturer John Theobald (http://communication.ucdavis.edu/people/theobald). The CMN 10V course creator is Associate Professor Laramie Taylor (http://communication.ucdavis.edu/people/ldt). Each student's section will be assigned a Teaching Assistant, either Ph.D. Candidate Skye Wingate (http://communication.ucdavis.edu/people/swingate) or graduate student YoYo Zhan (http://communication.ucdavis.edu/people/yoyozhan). The course content is a collaborative effort involving most research faculty members in the Department of Communication--you will see them via recorded video this term and be taking classes from several of them throughout your CMN studies. If you would like to attach human faces to this online course, feel free to drop in at the office hours posted above or contact us for an appointment.
Objectives: Students who successfully complete CMN 10V will be able to:
- define and describe the complex nature of communication
- identify and describe the various contexts of communication study
- apply theoretical concepts of communication to real-life experience
- differentiate among diverse fields of communication inquiry
- define key terms used by communication researchers and practitioners
Course Design: Communication 10 is a fully online course, comprised of a variety of learning and assessment activities. Each element is important, and the varied activities have been selected and designed to maximize student learning. Each week, you will complete several types of learning activities:
- Online instructional videos: These videos, presented through YouTube playlists, provide a foundation of knowledge about each week’s topic. They should be completed before the quizzes are due each week. Examination questions will be drawn, in part, from these videos.
- Assigned readings: There will be one or two readings for each topic. Links to each assigned reading appear on the appropriate lesson’s Canvas page. Examination questions will be drawn, in part, from these readings.
- Online quizzes: For each topic, there is a quiz covering the lecture videos and, where readings are assigned, a quiz covering the reading. These short quizzes are designed to assess your understanding of the material presented in the online learning modules and assigned readings. Your timely completion of (and scores on) these assessments will be recorded. The lecture-based quizzes will count towards your grade. The reading-based quizzes will not be graded but provide essential preparation for examination questions. NO LATE QUIZZES WILL BE ACCEPTED. Links to each topic’s quizzes, both for lecture and for readings, can be found on the topics' Canvas page. Quizzes are timed--five minutes for seven questions. Quizzes are NOT intended to be open-book or open-note.
- Online discussion activities: Throughout the course at assigned intervals, you will participate in discussion activities and/or complete a discussion assignment online. In these activities, you will discuss key concepts from the course, apply them to new contexts, or talk about a specific piece of research on the week’s topic. These discussion activities provide you with a chance to develop and demonstrate your ability to apply course concepts. Participation is not optional—the timeliness, quality, accuracy, and insight will be assessed and will count towards your grade.The discussions will be developed as the course progresses—you will be informed about any assignment at least one week before it is due.
- Term project: The term project is titled Communication Resource Curation. The focus is on collecting and organizing information pertinent to some aspect of our field. It is described in detail later in this syllabus.
- Examination 1 and Examination 2: These two exams are the only parts of the course that will be administered in traditional fashion. They are non-comprehensive exams that cover only lecture and reading material from a particular part of the course. The time of these exams is indicated below. The location is awaiting confirmation by the Registrar's office at the time of the drafting of this syllabus. Times are selected so that Exam 1will conflict with very few campus academic activities and Exam 2 will conflict with none. These exams may not be re-scheduled, except for academically-sanctioned conflicts. A study guide for each exam will be provided 1-2 weeks before the exams are administered. [If you are a non-UC Davis student registered for this online class, then separate proctoring arrangements will be made with the instructor and a facilitator at the UC Office of the President.]
Examination 1: Wednesday, February 15 @ 8:00-10:00 pm in Rock Hall
Examination 2: Friday, March 24 @ 8:00-10:00 am in Sci Lec 123
Grade weightings for course assignments are as follows:
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Video lecture quizzes |
25% |
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Exam 1 |
25% |
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Exam 2 |
25% |
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Term project |
12.5% |
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Discussion activities |
12.5% |
Course Requirements: By the assigned dates, you should:
- View each week’s instructional videos.
- Complete each week’s readings.
- Complete each week’s quizzes.
- Complete all discussion assignments.
- Complete the assigned term project (see below).
- Take the two course examinations.
- All course activities, both online and offline, are to be conducted in accordance with the University of California, Davis Code of Academic Conduct ( http://sja.ucdavis.edu/cac.html ) and Principles of Community (http://catalog.ucdavis.edu/community.html ).
Schedule
All of the resources for online portions of class are organized under the “Pages” section of the course Canvas. Navigate to the “Pages” page, click on the appropriate lesson, and complete the learning activities for that lesson
CMN 10V Part I
Week 1 (Jan. 9-15): Course Introduction; Defining Communication
Week 2 (Jan. 16-22): Interpersonal Communication; Language
Week 3 (Jan. 23-29): Nonverbal Communication; Intercultural Communication
Week 4 (Jan. 30-Feb. 5): Communication & Cognition; Computer-Mediated Communication
Week 5 (Feb 6-12): Networks; Mass Communication
Wednesday, February 15 @ 8:00-10:00 pm in TBA: Examination 1
CMN 10V Part II
Week 6 (Feb. 13-19): Gender & Communication; Entertainment
Week 7 (Feb. 20-26): Persuasion; Health Communication
Week 8 (Feb. 27-Mar. 5): News; Political Communication
Week 9 (Mar. 6-12): Digital Communication & Development; Digital Communication & Social Change
Week 10 (Mar. 13-15/short week with only one topic area): Video Games
Friday, March 24 @ 8:00-10:00 am in Sci Lec 123: Examination 2
Getting Started
Getting started is easy. Click on the link below. This will take you to a YouTube video in which the course tools and course management system are explained to you. After viewing the video, just proceed to Lesson 1 on Canvas, “Intro to CMN 10”, and follow the directions provided.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guOHD93undk (Links to an external site.)
Term Project: Communication Resource Curation
Due March 12 by 5:00pm PST
Modern communication technology means that there are more information resources available to individuals than ever before. In fact, so much information is available that it can be difficult to deal with; a search for information on any subject produces endless results, but an unorganized mass of information is nearly as worthless as no information at all. Companies increasingly filter this information for customers--Netflix tells you what movies it thinks you will enjoy, Amazon only shows you a handful of its products, and Google guesses what you are really looking for based on your location, your past searches, and so on.
This sort of sorting and selection by algorithm is a form of content curation. Curation refers to collecting, organizing, and displaying related content. Although this automated curation is invaluable, there is a role for thoughtful expert curation as well. For an overview of the importance and nature of content curation, here is a link to a blog post by Beth Kanter, an expert in the use of social marketing strategies for non-profit organizations: http://www.bethkanter.org/content-curation-101/ (Links to an external site.) .
There are a great many online resources available to both help develop communication skills and to disseminate information about communication research. Your assignment is to curate a collection of at least 8 of these resources relevant to a more specific topic (e.g., Framing of the candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, if interested in News) within one of the following topical areas drawn from this term’s lecture topics, both collecting and organizing links to these resources and outlining each resource’s particular contributions .
You may choose to work on a sub-set of one of the designated topic areas below:
- Intercultural Communication
- Persuasion
- News
These resources need to focus on communication and communication research . This means that each source MUST reference or talk about communication or related field (e.g., psychology, sociology) study (survey, experiment, etc.)
The focus of these resources needs to focus on communication and communication research . So a project on the influence of entertainment, for example, might contain a link to a YouTube video, produced by the BBC, of How TV Ruined Your Life, a series that combined expert opinion and communication research results in an entertaining way to talk about the harms associated with viewing television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqeBcvHhA9M (Links to an external site.)
A project on health communication might contain a link to the NIH’s publication titled Patient-centered communication in cancer care ( http://appliedresearch.cancer.gov/areas/pcc/communication/pcc_monograph.pdf (Links to an external site.) ).
You must use diverse types of resources (e.g., videos, Wiki entries, blog posts, online databases), and they must have diverse sources (i.e., not all produced by the same entity or published or listed on the same site). *You can only have ONE journal article (e.g., Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Journal of Social and Personality Psychology) as a resource.
Your collection must be submitted online through the assignments feature on Canvas. The preferred format for your project is a ‘bagtheweb’ bag or project, using bagtheweb.com (Links to an external site.), an online content curation tool. After signing up for a free account, you can create a ‘bag’ on your topic, name the bag whatever your specific topic is, adding links and commentary. The link can then be submitted through Canvas (through the submit URL option for this assignment) to be graded by your TA.
An example can be found at http://www.bagtheweb.com/b/D6Ebq1 (Links to an external site.) .
However, please do not mistake this example as a template for quality of sources or write-ups that are expected for this assignment. This example is simply showing you what your project will look like once you’ve compiled everything into bagtheweb.
Each source link must be accompanied by a statement of no more than 150 words. This 150 word write-up should contain two general things: short summary of the source and the connection of a unique (meaning don’t repeat theories or models) communication theory or model to each source. The summary should be no more than 1-2 sentences. The connection of theory/model should mention the name of the theory or model, a brief explanation of it, and how it connects to that particular source. You may use any applicable theory or model from the course; therefore it doesn't necessarily have to fall within the material for your specific topic. Keep in mind that although your resources must refer to or talk about communication research, it may not explicitly mention a theory or model. That’s completely fine, because it is up to you to choose a theory or model that you have or will learn about in this course that best matches the source content. If your source does mention a theory or model, it would be a good idea to connect a different theory or model to that resource.
Your grade will be determined by a number of factors:
- are your resources relevant to your chosen topic?
- Do your resources deal with communication research? Or are they simply entertaining examples of communication phenomena?
- are your resources helpful, insightful, and reliable? or are they merely clever or entertaining?
- are your resources drawn from a range of sources?
- do the statements you’ve written to accompany each resource correctly and insightfully identify the relevance of the resource to the topic area?
Of course, technical, formal, or grammatical errors in the project will also impact your grade. Before you submit your project, consider the following:
- is your project free from spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors?
- are all of your links to the actual content, not to a login screen, a paywall, or an error message?
- is your project accessible? are the links clearly associated with their commentary?
- Finally, make sure that your bagtheweb account is set to PUBLIC. This option appears when you create your account (but can also be changed after account creation). If your account is not set to PUBLIC, we will not be able to view your term project and therefore it is as if it was not turned in. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure your account is PUBLIC.
Late policy: Do not submit your term project late. Any project submitted after the deadline but before 48 hours has passed will be penalized by 50% of the score they would otherwise have received. Any project submitted more than 48 hours after the deadline will receive a zero.
THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THE LATE POLICY.
Required Lecture Quizzes (due by 5:00 pm on assigned date):
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Wed Mar 15, 2017 |
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Optional Reading Quizzes (open until 5:00 pm on assigned date):
Jan 22: Interpersonal Communication: Reading Quiz
Jan 29: Nonverbal Communication: Reading Quiz
Intercultural Communication: Reading Quiz
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Feb 05: Communication and Cognition: Reading Quiz
Feb 12: Networks: Reading Quiz
Mass Communication: Reading Quiz
Feb 19: Entertainment: Reading Quiz
Feb 26: Health Communication: Reading Quiz
Mar 5: News: Reading Quiz
Political Communication: Reading Quiz
Mar 12: Digital Communication and Social Change: Reading Quiz
Digital Communication and Development: Reading Quiz
Discussion Assignments (due at 5 pm on assigned date)
Details to be posted beginning January 15.
Jan 22:
Feb 05:
Feb12:
Feb 26:
Mar 12:
Study Guide for CMN 10V Examination 1 Articles
Note: This study guide covers the readings in Lessons 3-10. Those readings will comprise about 75% of the exam questions on the examination. (The other 25% will be questions derived from lectures that you've already studied and quizzes that you've already taken.) If you can answer the questions below, you will be prepared to take CMN 10V Examination 1.
The questions below are based strictly on the claims of the readings and their authors. They may or may not represent the beliefs of the course creator, the instructor of record, or the individual faculty members responsible for each lesson. In addition, some of these articles were published a number of years ago--any claim that references "today" or "now" or some other time referent should be regarded as representing the author(s)'s view at the time of the writing.
Lastly, the bullets below appear in the same sequences as the points they reference in an article--e.g., the first bullet point under a lesson will appear in the article before any of the others.
Lesson 3) Interpersonal Communication/"Conceptualizing Relational Communication" article
- Defining relationships/What are:
-role relationships?
-interpersonal relationships?
-close relationships?
- Defining types of communication/What is:
-interpersonal communication?
-relational communication?
- Be acquainted with the six principles related to interpersonal communication that pertain to:
-verbal and nonverbal messages (details of nonverbal are covered in Lesson 5)
-communication as inevitable
-the goal oriented nature of interpersonal communication
-variation in interpersonal communication effectiveness (most effective involving shared meaning)
-content and relational information
-symmetrical and asymmetrical communication
Note: Examination 1 will not ask about the principles specifically associated with relational communication.
Lesson 4) Language/Selnow 1985 article
- Know the abstract of the paper.
- What is the purpose of the paper (on the first page of the article)?
- Note in the literature review from the 2nd to 4th pages of the paper that there have been various studies associated with the use of language by the different sexes. There won't be specific questions about them.
- Review specific questions of the study, the method, and the results. Again, questions will not be specific.
- What is the "bottom line" of the study in the discussion section?
- Finally, note that the article was written more than three decades ago and would be presumed to represent populations from a different era, and that differences may not be the same today.
Lesson 5) Nonverbal Communication/Nonverbal Communication chapter--labeled as "Chapter 6" at the top
- How is nonverbal communication defined?
- What are the 5 functions of nonverbal communication?
- What are the 7 types of nonverbal cues?
- Review the 5 types of bodily cues so that you know what they are . . . but you will not be asked specifically about them on Examination 1.
- Skim the sections on culture and gender . . . specific questions on culture will be asked below in Lesson 6 and on gender will be asked in the second part of the course in Lesson 11.
Lesson 6) Intercultural Communication/Hofstede "Dimensionalizing Cutures" article
This reading is authored by Geert Hofstede, the Dutch scholar whose ideas you were introduced to in the lecture on intercultural communication.
- What is the author's definition of culture?
For the following 5 dimensions of national cultures, you should be able to recognize examples of basic differences within each dimension as described in Tables #1-5 in the article. You don't need to memorize or know everything in these tables but should be acquainted enough with them to recognize differences--much as you were asked to do following the lecture quiz on intercultural communication. These dimensions are:
- Power distance
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Collectivist and Individualist societies
- Feminine and Masculine societies
- Short- and Long-Term oriented societies
- Skim the section on Dimensions of Organizational Cultures. This section will not be used for questions on Examination 1, but it provides a helpful introduction to organizational topics to be considered later in the course.
Lessons 7 and 8) Communication & Cognition and Computer-Mediated Communication
There is no assigned reading for these parts of the course. For testing purposes, we will rely on the video lectures. On Examination 1, questions relating to cognition and computer mediation will be derived exclusively from the lectures. Because there is no reading assignment, you can expect exam questions on these topics that are derived from lectures to be more specific than for other topics. You might watch these two lectures again--at least on 1.5X or 2.0X speed--just to make sure you know the material.
Lesson 9) Networks/Christakis & Fowler chapter
- Read through the set-up to the article on pp. 3-8. They're a useful preview.
- How does the text define groups and social networks?
- How does the telephone tree work?
- Understand the 4 types of networks depicted on p. 12?
- What is a network community?
- A social network consists of which two kinds of elements?
- Note the different terms for a network's shape.
- What are the two fundamental aspects of social networks?
- What is a transitive relationship?
- Note the story of the Milgram experiment (that also was described in the video lecture) . . . and, turning to the authors' research, what is the Three Degrees of Influence Rule?
Lesson 10) Mass Communication/Mass Comm-Turner article
- Who is Ted Turner? What did he create?
- What did CNN accomplish, and what does Turner claim about its ability to happen today?
- When Turner was getting into the media business, Federal regulators believed in the value of what?
- What does Turner claim about media companies at the time of his writing, and what does he claim about Washington's role in making them that way?
- Who/what does Turner claim will be shaping a dangerously high percentage of media that we see?
- In a climate of consolidation, what is the one sure way for media companies to win . . . or at least for them to survive?
- What does Turner claim about the ownership of broadcast networks and the ownership of the top cable TV stations?
- What is the claim about the connection between consolidation and localism?
- A few media conglomerates exercise what over TV news, according to the article?
- What does Turner see as the alternative to dealing with the big media conglomerates?
Study Guide for CMN 10V Examination 2 Articles
Note: This study guide covers the readings in Lessons 11-18. Note: There is no reading for Lesson 19. The topics prompted by this study guide will comprise about two-thirds of Exam 2
Lesson 11) Gender & Communication/Hyde article
- Read the abstract carefully a couple of times--it contains the essence of the article.
- What is the gender similarities hypothesis?
- What is statistical meta-analysis? How is it applied for the purposes of this article?
- What is the concluding point about inspection of effect sizes when examining the evidence of the article?
- Skim the tables to get a sense of what is being observed in the article.
- Re: "The Exceptions" to the overall findings in the article . . .
--what is the first area of large gender difference?
--what is the second area of large gender difference?
--what does the study show about gender differences in aggression?
- What are the various arguments about the costs of inflated claims of gender differences?
Lesson 12) Entertainment/Hoffner article
- The first paragraph is the abstract of the study--read it closely.
- After the first paragraph, the paper is a literature review of prior studies. As you read it, pay attention to the observations about TV and socialization, identification, character attributes, sex, and parasocial interaction.
- What was the basic approach of the study?
- What are the traits examined in the study?
- Note the examination of predictors.
- Examine the hypotheses and research questions.
- Read the discussion, note the findings on sex differences.
Lesson 13) Persuasion/Robert Cialdini article
- What does Cialdini claim about understanding and explaining of decision making factors?
- What is Reciprocation? What does it suggest, for instance, for marketers?
- What is Social Proof? When is it important? What would be an example of its usefulness for marketers?
- What is Commitment and Consistency as a persuasive principle? Be able to recognize examples.
- What is Liking? How does it relate to making a connection with audience?
- What is the persuasive principle of Authority? Note the Milgram study as well as the applications for marketers discussed by the authors.
- What is Scarcity? What are marketing applications?
Lesson 14) Health Communication/Wright, Sparks, and O'Hair chapter
- How large is the healthcare sector of the U.S. economy? How does its size compare to other sectors? Right below the chapter's addressing these questions, note the observations about both the U.S. and the world and their health issues. The point of these observations might be called "rationale"--they explain why health communication research is important.
- What does the test contend about a large portion of health campaigns ability to effect change in the U.S.?
- How does the WHO define health, and what is the point about dynamic processes?
- What does the chapter claim about health communication research and contexts of communication?
- The chapter discusses challenges to the healthcare system related to health communication. Review the basic points about each of the following:
--aging
--diversity
--tension between approaches to healthcare
--funding
--insurance and managed care
--impact of new technologies
Note: skip the overview section--it's meant for readers of the entire book
- In the summary, make note of health communication as a defined area of research, the U.S. history of addressing health issues, and the need for health communication research.
Lesson 15) News/Agenda-Setting chapter
The questions in this reading are mostly from just two sections--Psychological Foundations and Conclusion. Nevertheless, a quick read or at least skim of the entire chapter will give a clearer idea of what the author's main points are.
- What is agenda-setting?
- What is priming?
- What is framing? The material following the definition deals with attribution theory, and it will make framing easier to understand.
- What is the public agenda? [This is found on p. 181 in the Types of Agenda-Setting section.]
- What is the main finding/claim, summarized in the first sentence of the Conclusion?
- What does the author believe about the role of mass media in the choice of elected officials and the choice of public policies?
- Agenda-setting effects are strongest for whom?
- Who is unsusceptible to agenda-setting effects?
- What does the author claim about active and passive audience?
Lesson 16) Political Communication/Prior article
- Review the 10 items discussed in the article. You don’t need to memorize them but should be able to recognize them.
- Note the point in #3 about the legality of political phone calls.
- In #5, note the point about polling data being used strategically by campaigns.
- In #8, note the point about party-to-party and intraparty switching of support by campaign managers.
Lesson 17) Digital Communication & Development/Zuckerberg "Connectivity" article
Realize that this article was written in 2013, so not all information is current.
- How much of the world is connected to the net, and how fast is it growing?
- What is the point about the distinction between smart phone ownership and data access?
- What is the article's zero sum point?
- What are the four arguments cited on the point about connectivity?
- Why does the author think the efficiency of delivering data is about to increase greatly?
- What are the factors in the author's definition of basic internet services?
- What are the 3 important elements of what the author calls "the rough plan" for internet access?
Lesson 18) Digital Communication & Social Change/Smil article
- How do first-order innovations differ from second-order innovations?
- Smil offers two examples of first-order innovations or what he calls “technical saltations” (saltation is from the Latin word for “leap” and refers to a sudden change from one generation to the next, that is large, or very large, in comparison with the usual). What are the two saltations he describes?
- How does he describe the fundamental importance of electricity?
- Electrical innovations were created when? By whom?
- What was Edison’s greatest contribution?
- How did German inventor Rathenau describe Edison’s accomplishment?
- What kind of innovations are Apple’s products?
- What does Smil note about German cars relative to Toyotas and Hondas? . . . and how does this point relate to Apple?
- Note the four developments that Smil compares to the iPad.
- According to the author, what would the world be like without the iPhone or iPad?
Course Summary:
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